systeme.io Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Hey folks, my guest today is Aurelien Amacker. He's building a tool called systeme.io. It's a ClickFunnels alternative. Aurelien, you ready to take us to the top? [00:08] >> Sure, let's go. [00:09] All right. Well, I'm glad you're on. I'm looking forward to this. ClickFunnels is obviously in a very hot space, so help me understand what you're doing. How are you different? [00:17] >> We are an all in one marketing platform for entrepreneurs, creators. We don't have only the sales funnels, we have the email marketing tool, we have the membership side, we have the affiliate program management, and actually we use our own tool to power our insider business and today we do over $400,000 in revenue per month. [00:39] That's incredible. When did you launch the business? [00:43] >> I've been selling online courses about web marketing in the French market since 2010, but we launched the software systeme.io in early twenty eighteen, so it's been a little bit over three years. [00:55] Okay, so 2018 was launched. If you're doing $400,000 today in revenue, what were you doing exactly a year ago? [01:02] >> So it was, I'd say about half of that, like with because of COVID, we got a huge growth in 2020. It was very impressive, know. I mean we were doing fine before but it was definitely a very good year for us. We grew 100%, so we grew from €1,500,000 in revenue to €3,000,000 in revenue. [01:24] You were at €1,500,000 at the end of twenty twenty and now you're at 3,000,000 [01:28] >> No, no, no. We were at €1,500,000 at the end of twenty nineteen and we did €3,000,000 in revenue in 2020. And this year, I think that we're going to do, I hope close to 5,000,000. I'm talking euros, right? Yes. So that would be close to $6,000,000 in revenue this year 2021. [01:47] Yep, that's great. And you did $400,000 last month? [01:52] >> Yeah, a little bit over that, like $414k in June 2021. Yeah. [01:57] That's great. So so give me the backstory here. Mean, how did you get your first 100 customers back in 2014? [02:03] >> You mean 2018? [02:05] Sorry, 2018. [02:06] >> Yep. Yeah, no worries. No. So I I've been selling online courses since 02/2010, I had a list of I think at the time it was about, like, 25,000 people on it, and I did the launch by email. So I'm an email marketing guy, right? I send a lot of emails. [02:21] Me too. We're the same there. [02:24] >> Awesome. After the launch, had our first, I think it was four hundred first customers, it was close to €10,000 per month in revenue which was great. I wasn't covering the cost, but you know what, it was nice. And we kept growing since then. It's basically [02:41] Where did you get that list? That initial list you sent a mail merge email to, where'd you get it? [02:46] >> Oh, because I've been selling online courses since 2010. So you know, was, so I had a blog, I had YouTube videos, so I'm not very good at YouTube videos. I stopped, quite some time ago. I wasn't the best at blogging. I wasn't even the best at selling online courses and I guess that's why. I mean I was about to do between 20,000 to €30,000 per month so I was making nice income, but I wasn't the best [03:11] >> marketer in the French market. But I was like, oh, maybe I should build a software app because I wasn't happy with the existing tools. I felt that there was a need for an alternative, you know. [03:24] And how big was your email list right when you launched? [03:28] >> So it was about 25,000 people. [03:30] Okay. Got it. And again, those all came from your courses, your consulting, all that? [03:35] >> Yeah. [03:36] Really smart. Okay. So you get going now. How did you get the initial MVP built? Are you a developer? [03:41] >> No. No. I'm not a developer. So I really struggled. Like, In 2016 I lost a year and about €30,000. I contracted a company in Morocco owned by a French guy, a customer of my courses and he was like, oh we can get this thing built, it's going to cost you $7k. I was like $7, just take it you know. But I mean it was a mess, they had no idea, it was horrible so I fired them [04:08] >> after quite a while actually. We even flew to Morocco with my wife to meet them in person and they were like, yeah, don't worry, it's going be fine. They were so good at telling me it was going to be fine but so bad at delivering. And yeah, I fired them, then I struggled. I tried many different developers and one day I found a guy on Upwork and I could see that I could rely on this guy. [04:30] >> I was like, do you know someone like you? And he was like, yeah, I work with this guy, he's good as well. So we got him on board. We got a third one on board and we built the product in 2017. I moved my business over to our own software, so first the email list, sending the emails, then all the payment pages, all the pages, and then finally the courses. [04:53] How many engineers are full time today? [04:56] >> So actually we've just hired our sixth engineers, so you know it's not a lot. We've been going with only three developers for a while, but last year we felt that it was time to add more people to the team, so we doubled the team in a year. [05:12] And how many total are on the team now today? [05:15] >> So we have 60 people. Six zero? Yes, six zero. And you're going tell me, it's too much. You're not making enough revenue, right? [05:24] Not necessarily, but what do they do? How many salespeople? [05:28] >> So salespeople actually we don't have many because we're selling to individuals so it's a very low touch business. We do actually we do have two salespeople, but selling our coaching programs in the French market. [05:43] I see. How many so you said low ARPU, what do customers pay per month on average? [05:47] >> So in the French market it's €32 and in the it's it's weird because in the English market, I just found out that it was a lot more. It was, like, 50% more, like, €50 per month. I was like, wow. This is this is crazy. [06:02] And how many customers today? [06:03] >> So we have 8,000 a little bit over 8,000 paying customers. [06:08] You know your numbers. You must you must listen to the show. [06:12] >> I've been listening to the show for a while, since 2015, so I'm glad to be [06:17] >> on the show, you know. [06:18] You're Wow, you're an OG. You haven't listened to every episode. That's like thousands of episodes. [06:23] >> No, no, I've not listened to every episode, but I've listened to a ton of episodes. And you know, it's funny because I met, you know, Thrive Themes, they do like WordPress plugins. So I met their CEO, Hannah, she lives in Lisbon just like me in Portugal and she was like, hey, I'm trying to connect with like some startup builders, like SaaS founders, do you know any? And I thought for a while, was like, no, actually I [06:45] >> don't know any. It's only because I've been listening to podcasts for years, so yours Mixergy. I know you've been twice on Mixergy and I listened to the two interviews so you know I know my stuff. [06:56] How did I do? How would you rate my performance on Mixergy? [07:00] >> No, you do great. The first time I felt that Andrew, which is a great guy by the way, so nice, I felt that he was like a bit aggressive with you because maybe there was like some kind of competition, but then in the second interview that was for your book, it was like oh, a lot more friendlier, I felt. [07:18] Nobody believed that first interview, nobody believed that we had 10,000,000 podcast downloads in under a year and a half. And that's what he was pushing me on. And eventually I said, you know what, I'm just gonna share my screen and show the downloads. And he was shocked when I showed him. And then then it all was good. [07:33] >> No, I believe you because the show was great. I really enjoyed it. I thought that he was like more greeting you about the numbers, the real numbers of your first business that you sold. I was like, hey yo, right? Or yay yo. [07:46] Hey yo, h e y o. [07:47] >> You see, know my stuff. [07:48] You do know your stuff. And it's funny because, you know, we did a book with Random House and on page six, and that was after the interview with Mixergy, said, know what, I'm sick of people asking me questions about numbers. I'm just gonna put my tax return in the book. And so my tax return is actually on page six for my first SaaS company And in the it's the most highlighted, it's the most highlighted page in [08:08] Kindle for the book. So there you go. [08:09] >> Kindle. Yeah. [08:10] Cool. Alright. So you're killing it. 8,000 customers. Are you profitable? [08:15] >> Yeah. Actually, yeah. We are like very profitable. I mean, my [08:22] >> financial goal is to make a €100,000 per month and I'm getting close to that so yeah, I'm very happy. [08:32] So of $400,000 a month in revenue, how much do you take to the bottom line as profit? [08:37] >> Yeah, so today it's about it's between 80 and 100. [08:42] What do you do with that money? Do you just let it sit in a bank account or how do you invest it? [08:46] >> Yeah, it's a good question. So actually we bought our dream house six months ago with my wife, so it was 1,500,000, I mean 1.4 and we had a down payment, but we still had close to 1,000,000, so because I think that there is so much cash in the world, you know, like everything is overpriced, you look at you know the stock market and everything, so I just I would prefer like pay up the house in two [09:13] >> or three years and invest a little bit between stock market and I don't know. [09:18] That's smart and do you own a 100% of the business? [09:21] >> Yeah. [09:22] So no investors, no stock option pool for employees, you're a 100 owner? [09:26] >> Yeah, absolutely. [09:27] I love that. Now would you sell the business today if someone offered you 20,000,000 all cash upfront today, do you sell? [09:34] >> No, no way. I mean, it's crazy. People ask me all the time like, hey, what's your exit plan? I'm like, I don't have any exit plan. I love what I do. I want to take this business to, I don't know, $20, $30, $40, $50 millions in revenue. Know? [09:49] Look, I love the ambition. Think that's great. So just to be clear, I imagine that you have VCs reaching out, what's the highest valuation you've turned down? [09:57] >> No, so actually, like I avoid posting on Indie Hacker because I know the next week I'm going to get two or three emails, Hey Aurelien, you know, I'm a big fan of yours, I've been following you and stuff. So at the beginning I was, of course I'm flattered, you know, it's great, but I tell them right from the beginning, guys, I'm not looking to raise any money because I know that if we start talking then you [10:17] >> know, I mean there is no point, so I just turn them down. That's it. [10:22] Okay, fair enough. Good stuff. All right, talk to me about churn. Is the product sticky? [10:27] >> So we have a high churn. It was like nine to 10%. Now we've got lower. It's getting closer to 8% because we launched a freemium plan that was three months ago. So with freemium because people have more time to actually experience the product, the churn goes down. But I think it's totally normal. Like I heard Noah Kagan saying, oh, if your churn is too high, fix your product. I'm like, no, that's our market. We're selling to [10:55] >> Bob and John and Is that [10:57] 8% churn monthly or annually? [10:59] >> It is, it is. And it's high, but I think that [11:01] Is it monthly or annual? [11:03] >> It's monthly. [11:04] Oh wow, okay got it. So you're churning almost 100% of your base almost every year. [11:09] >> Yeah, so actually you say this all the time and actually it's not how it works because so churn is high, but I mean churn, if it really happens, we're not going to lose eight times 12% of the people in a year. We're not going to be left because it's going be like first month eight percent and second month like seven percent and third month like 6%. So the churn is not and it's the churn across our [11:33] >> entire customer base, but churn is a lot higher with new customers. But we have people who have been with us for a year or two and these guys are not churning out. [11:42] Yeah, it's a really good point. You have a wide top of funnel, you get a lot of trials. So of course, lot of trials are gonna churn in the first month or two, but once they stick past four or five months, the churn should drop. So when you start looking at customers that have been with you for more than six months, what's churn monthly then? [11:57] >> No, I don't have this kind of data, I just know it because I see our customers, you know, they've been with us for a while and I know our customers because I've been sending online courses to these guys for ten years, know, and like they want to start online business, tomorrow they're gonna try to invest in real estate, know, or learn the guitar, know, and maybe they'll come back later, you know, that's that's fine. [12:16] What are you paying to get new customers? [12:19] >> Oh, so we so 70% of our sales come from our affiliate program. We pay our affiliates over $100,000 per month, so we pay 40% lifetime commissions to our affiliates. [12:33] How many affiliates made at least $10 last month? [12:37] >> Oh, that's a good question actually. It must be about, I'd say 600. [12:44] How did you recruit 600 affiliates? Is it just because you pay out so much? [12:48] >> No, it's over time. Like you know, it's word-of-mouth. Obviously the customers that I guess some of them you know refer around them to earn some affiliate commissions, so it's really over time. So in the French market we have a lot of affiliates promoting us and in the English market, now we're trying to build this up and we have some affiliates who have made so far like $3,000 $5,000 so it's [13:13] Got it. [13:15] >> And [13:17] that's your biggest expense really. I mean, a $100,000 a month is your biggest expense. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Very cool. So affiliates there, you've moved your CAC basically from being, you know, fixed on your balance sheet to basically variable only if affiliate closes a sale for you, which is great. Things are going well. What's next for you? Don't want to sell, you don't want to raise, what's the next product you're going to launch? [13:39] >> No, grow this thing, you know, like start getting some traction in the English market. Actually, it's happening right now, it's very exciting. We get like, get so many testimonials and people promoting us and noticing, we're doing some outreach. So just keeping this thing, know, and getting to 10 millions in revenue, then 20 millions, 30 millions and hopefully get back on your show, you know. [14:01] You should start using Founderpath so that I can put other companies that are email marketing or funnel builders or affiliate firms or video hosting in front of you and you can start buying them with your profits and growing faster. How about that? [14:13] >> Could be. I mean, that would be better than, you know, buying some stocks, I guess, right? [14:17] There you go. I would love that. Well, Aurelien, this is great. Congrats on your growth. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite book. [14:24] >> So favorite book. The truth is I cannot name it, because I think there is one book that's responsible for our success. I'm going to name the second one after that would be, I mean the great book that I've just read, it's Working Backwards by two senior, former senior executives at Amazon, you know. [14:43] >> Was very interesting. [14:44] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [14:48] >> Yeah, Jeff B, my man. Jeff Bezos. [14:51] >> Jeff Bezos. [14:52] Number three. What's your favorite online tool for building a business besides your own? [14:56] >> Oh, it's out of Slack. I mean, it's amazing. We're entirely remote, so I can go, you know, I can go to the beach, I can go to the gym, whatever, and, you know, faking I'm still working, so it's great. [15:06] Do you use remote.com to manage your remote employees? [15:09] >> No, I've never heard of it. What's that? [15:11] How do you manage like payroll in 20 different countries? [15:14] >> So it's a mess. Like my wife handles the payments. They have to send invoices. So we use Time Doctor to track timing, but [15:24] >> yeah, it's a lot of work. [15:25] Aurelien, you definitely should use remote.com. They have a special deal. They want to sponsor the show and I said, give me a great deal for my people. You are one of my people. You've on it for five years. So you guys check it out. If you have a lot of remote employees and you want decrease all the stress associated with paying them, you know, tax burdens, IP issues, that, try out nathanlakka.com/remote. All right, Aurelien, how about [15:45] that for organic ad placement? That was pretty smooth, right? [15:49] >> That was perfect. You're a killer. [15:51] How many hours of sleep do get every night? [15:54] >> Like, eight hours. [15:55] Eight. Okay. [15:57] And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? [16:00] >> Married, one four year old daughter. [16:02] Wow. And how old are you? [16:04] >> I'm 41. [16:05] >> 41. [16:06] Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? [16:09] >> That's I'm not gonna believe it, you know, like buckle up. [16:14] Guys, there you have it. Get going. Systeme.io, they went from 1,500,000 revenue in 2019 to over 4,800,000 run rate. Today they're doing this all bootstrapped. 8,000 customers are competing with ClickFunnels. Most of the revenue and the growth have come from affiliates. Over 600 affiliates made money last month through the program. They pay out a $100k a month right now to their affiliates. They are profitable. Take about a $100k a month to the bottom line as he [16:36] reinvests in buying his dream home. Maybe the stocks one day, but having a lot of success. Aurelien owns a 100%. My man, thanks for taking us to the top. [16:44] >> Thank you very much, Nathan. It was a pleasure. [16:48] One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM [17:13] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button, and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big [17:35] fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you wanna take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign up [17:57] for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We [18:16] got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the [18:23] comments. [18:23] >> See you.