How Thesaas CEO Peter Schlecht grew to $1.7M revenue and 20 customers in 2023.

this is the top where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of Revenue or customer base you'll learn how much revenue they're making what their marketing funnel looks like and how many customers they have I'm now at $20,000 per top 5 and6 million he is held bent on global domination we just broke our 100,000 unit sold Mark and I'm your host Nathan lka okay top tribe this week's winner of The 100 bucks is Jose Aila he is a 17-year-old that doesn't want to go to college and he wants to start his own business for your chance to win a 100 bucks just like Jose every Monday morning simply subscribe to this podcast on iTunes right now and then text the word Nathan to 33444 to prove that you did it Nathan lka here this is episode 607 and coming up tomorrow morning you're going to learn from Matt's Horn of tiny tail which has raised $4 million and it's shipped over 15,000 units of a watch that makes phone calls no phone needed no connection none of that it's really unbelievable he's got he's 29 years old and is really onto something special good morning everybody my guest this morning is Peter schit he is the founder and CEO of the SAS company with their new product called Lisa he's a 30-year-old from Germany he's a poker and Esports playing politician who became an entrepreneur Peter are you ready to take us to the top definitely it's probably a good move going from you know being a politician and entrepreneur right you make way more money in entrepreneurship yeah definitely and you have way more motivated people around you that is true so tell us what the SAS co.com does and how you generate Revenue so the sasco actually is an agency for B2B lead generation and we have a subscription model and we also get some money for positive qualified appointment from our customers but actually where we have our focus on in the moment is Lisa and Lisa is learning intelligent sales agent it it's a bot for salese actually what she does is when you receive an email she reads it she understands it and drafts a reply for you okay a reply for what like what if the know doesn't need a reply it's like um all the emails what you receive in your inbox so you will see if you have answered before to some similar kind of emails and drafts they the reply for you interesting well what does she do like so one of the challenges is to know what emails need to reply versus which ones don't need to reply at all or which emails should be deleted did she do all that um she don't deletes any emails um when she don't find any replies she cannot answer so there you don't get any reply from here okay so let's back up for a second uh the sasco what what year did you found it in um we July 2014 okay so July 2014 and do you remember what your first year Revenue was or 20K something like that and how and what was that money what were you selling specifically and we were selling actually um to do the full sales for tech company and then we kind of um specialized to do only the appointment settings for B2B tech companies okay so if I was a B2B SAS company I would come to you and say Here's all here are all my leads get them on the phone or via email and set up a meeting time for tomorrow at 3M actually what we are doing we are providing four things first of all we are providing the leads so finding the decision makers second of all we contact them so doing the typical email campaigning third of all we qualify them so to find out do they have a need in your specific products we are talking in your name and then um when there is a match so we know okay this is the right customer for you we hand it over in an appointment to you okay and what do I pay for that so depends when you're a bigger company like we worked for um from twio to German Stock Exchange to Microsoft um but when you're a startup you're paying ��� 2,800 per month plus plus a fee per positive qualified appointment the so but the fee normally it's around 150 Euros okay uh okay so so 2,800 bucks a month in terms of sorry 2,800 Euros per month plus a ��� 150 fee per qualified appointment landed yeah exactly got it and so you launched in 2014 Now take us up to present day how many customers are you working with so right now um as we make 90k um monthly recurring Revenue um we have around 20 customers okay and is that truly monthly recurring revenue or does it also include fees for like appointments um it also includes fees uh for appointments and on average how many fees across your entire customer base are you are you setting up per month so normally um a customers pays us in average 4,800 4,600 okay so if I'm doing the math again there's there's there's about 20 20 customers quite straightforward well let me just make sure though so the audience can follow along so youve got 20 customers paying on average 4600 bucks or Euros per month of the 4600 EUR 2,800 EUR per month is a flat fee and the rest to go from ��� 2,800 to ,600 are fees per successful appointments created is that right that's correctly got it that's correct very cool okay so what is the uh for and is any of this revenue from Lisa or no no we don't charge for Lisa the moment okay is Lisa something just you guys use internally to land appointments for your clients or is it something that anyone can sign up for anyone can sign up for and we hope that anyone will sign up for it but um we are using it day in day out uh for ourselves and our customers are also using it and what is the so again you launched in 2014 fast forward us through up to today have you raised Capital are you bootstrapped what's the story there so we bootstrapped until end of last year we made last year um around 600k um planning to have now this year around 1.8 million um we raised last year uh 500k um from business angels and we got ���300,000 in funding from the European Union uh for being so Innovative is that a grant like a non-dilutive grant so we don't have to pay it back but is it dilutive do they get Equity no free money yeah what do you have to do for that to get to 300 um you have to get to a whole and really long and painful process and um writing a lot of papers so meaning papers so say for what you want to have the money um yeah so we also had some help so you've raised 500k plus 300 from the government so you raised a total of about $800,000 that's correct okay and you did 600,000 bucks last year uh in 2016 and you want to do 1.8 million um this year how do you how are you finding new customers how do you scale um when it's for the sasco we use the same process what we use for our customers so we eat our own food yeah okay got it but what would you actually do so you you you'd use the SAS company you'd put in an area you want to Target by geography and profession like actually tell me the inputs you put into the sasco to find new customers for yourself exactly so um what you said size of the company all the other metrics of what kind of Technology are they using um what position does the person have what changes they had in the past have they raised money um we have like as all the lead generation companies we also have a database uh with 240 million leads in it um we also have there our own crawlers um to proide provide us the leads now when we have the leads um and know who we want um we verify the emails also there for this um Unown tool and yeah then shoot out the campaigns wait for replies qualify them and then close them are you buying uh for API access to f F like clear bit full contact Etc to double check your data um no um actually we double check uh what we use sometimes so shout outs to data validation. comom uh quite a good company data data validations docomo there's a lot of companies in the space like get a lead Etc you don't have subscriptions to any of them no it's not really not so um by the way I'm using full contact UM privately um so I have it on my own email account but um not for the company okay so where are you getting all your data from it's from your own web crawlers all of it um we are getting from yeah from the same sources as everyone else is getting which are what um oh which is common knowledge I just don't say it because I'm afraid yeah more or less so them that's why I wanted you on right it's it's to help educate our audience so if it's common knowledge help us out educate us what what what part of it tell us what the common knowledge is um he about what band I all told in the past it's it's they should listen to your last podcast it's like um we um also find it like I'm confused why are you being we're from different cultures so I'm I'm trying to understand if you're if you're wanting to be humorous right now or if you're actually scared to share something why why are you kind of doging around this question um because it's big uh it's big corporates and big corporates always can see you and um I don't want to yeah what what is Big corporate yeah big corporates um they have data they try to protect their data um yeah so you're so you're getting data from Big corporates in ways they wouldn't like how you're getting it yeah okay well why do you do that that doesn't sound like a good thing to be doing no like it's like everyone is doing it it's like um yeah you so basically what I'm going to just to you're scraping data from places you shouldn't be scraping data from and you're saying that's okay because everyone else does it no no it's it's open here you can go to it but they wouldn't appreciate it if they knew that you were scraping their data that's what you're saying yeah okay got it that's why you're not wanting to share got it okay but you said you have 240 million leads in your database you're saying all of those came from your own technology your own web scrapers you're not you don't you haven't purchased access like to to an API like clear bit or full contact or these other guys to bring in their data set exactly yes interesting why not why haven't you done that uh we tried it um we tried a lot of stuff um actually was good data but it's also a price point yeah it's a question um of how much you put into it and what do you need and when you have all the informations there are also these great companies like build with yeah what's um uh well known full contact is great things great stuff um yeah and what is your what's your current team size how many are you at to date we have now 31 people here okay and how many of those are developers um we have 17 of them are developers okay got it's a little over half and what do the rest do um the rest do sales got it got it and help like our customers so you are you spending any money right now on paid acquis position on paid marketing no not really so like testing balloons of hundreds EUR like 100 here in Edwards hundreds in LinkedIn but we only do sales and do it also for ourselves okay and what about churn so how many customers have left you um normally a customer stays with us between 3 and 9 months because normally then we are through the whole um the whole Target group and Target all of them okay so that's a really small uh length of time to with you you're not really a monthly recurring Revenue business in other words you have to keep adding new customers in order to keep your Revenue base yeah that's true got it okay interesting I mean does that worry you at all like do you hate having to go out and find new customers every month just to stay flat growth um no this it's okay let say so uh we're say people how do you scale big though I mean if you have to constantly in other words you're Revenue doesn't stack a big chunk of it leaves every month you have to keep replenishing that how do you scale if you have to keep if your buckets you know eventually you go through the whole market now obviously you will have hundreds of millions of dollars of Revenue if you go through the whole Market but what do you do then okay um there are two things first of all um people um often scale through different areas yeah where we help them this is one point and the other point is um we have a big focus on Lisa yeah they're um starting with the sauce model got it so you think Lisa will help you scale and your and your lifetime value will be way higher exactly so definitely Lisa is all Focus here got it in the comp okay top tribe I have to tell you many people go Nathan and you came out of nowhere your website's growing so fast how' you do it the answer is simple so I use host skater I don't know if you guys know that but I use host skater and the reason I do they have like about 4500 free templates I can use cuz I don't code they've got a great e-commerce plugin and guys I bug the heck out of their support they've got 247 support which I love so what I've done is I've worked with them you guys know I make great deals if you go to hostgator.com Nathan you can sign up get your own domain for 30% off and a 45-day money back guarantee okay again I make great deals for you guys go to hostgator.com Nathan to grab that now very good well Peter let's wrap up well actually here before before we wrap up with the famous 5 where are you guys based we are based in Berlin Berlin yes all 31 um no we also have a few people sitting in cologne cologne very good it's beautiful over there I was just over there for DL D speaking in in in Munich oh nice that's beautiful all right let's wrap your Famous Five number one what's your favorite Business book so my favorite Business book um is the actually it's translated the way to become a successful entrepreneur it's kind of the worsest name but it's a great book who's the CEO who's the author the author of the book is um Marat interesting called the name number two is there a CEO you're following or studying right now yeah actually um I'm following quite actively Felix St from Factor 10 Factor 10 very cool number three is there a favorite online tool you have like host skater I thought about that um actually I want to say something new so I choosed One Tap One Tap yep you you know these questions you listen to the show don't you yeah definitely are you enjoying it yeah totally it's really nice why do you listen I I like that you get into it and really get down to the question so that I cannot wobble around and say h i would don't want to tell you this s this is a great thing nobody else gets as many Financial details as Nathan lka that's what I've been told yeah it is and this what's make it worth to listen yeah okay good number four yes or no do you get eight hours of sleep every night no but I want to have seven so I get every night seven and what's your situation married single you have kids um I have a girlfriend um she also works in the company so oh good so not married and how many any kids no kids and how old are you I'm 30 okay so take us back 10 years what do you wish your 20-year-old self new uh stop earlier with politicians don't do your master start your entrepreneurship earlier that's it there you guys have it don't do your Masters start your business earlier from Peter who founded the SAS Co he's also now launching into Lisa doing about $90,000 a month their occurring Revenue across 20 customers paying on average $ 4600 bucks per month for a combination of a flat fee plus a success fee where Peter hooks them up with qualified appointment so that they can grow their businesses there are about 31 People based in Berlin and cologne have a lifetime value per customer of about 9 months or $441,000 in lifetime value and they raised $800,000 a combination of 500 Grand raised and 300 Grand from the government did about 6 million or sorry 600,000 in 2016 on track and planning and hoping to do 1.6 or 1.8 million here in 2017 Peter thank you for taking us to the top thank you very much if you enjoyed Peter today go back and listen on to Kristoff whittig yesterday he's the CEO of hornet which has raised 8 million to become the gay content Hub the mobile app has over 17 million users with 3 million are monthly active they're doing over 700 Grand per month right now cuz users pay $7 for a premium version top tribe I love giving away free money I feel like o we're giving away cars and I have something special for you today how many of you have heard our super sharp guests talk about success they've had with Facebook and Google ads well all of you listening right now yes if you're listening you get $100 in free AdWords here's how you get it okay again thanks for listening get the free $100 from Google right when you sign up with my website host provider HostGator go sign up now to get your free money hostgator.com Nathan again that's hostgator.com Nathan okay top tribe I'll see you right late and early tomorrow morning and don't forget before you listen to any other episodes subscribe on iTunes right now for your chance to win 100 bucks every Monday [Music]