How Uptime Reached 35,000 Monthly Active Users and Several Thousand Paying Subscribers in Its First Months (Interview with Co-Founder Jack Bekhor)

Introduction and What Uptime Does

Nathan Latka

00:00Hello everyone, my guest today is Jack Bekhor. He's building a company called Uptime.app if you wanna follow along. It's a five minute knowledge hacking app. Jack, you ready to take us to the top?

Jack Bekhor

00:10>> Yeah. Hi, Nathan. Nice to meet you.

Nathan Latka

00:12Nice meeting you as well. What does five minute knowledge hacking app mean?

Jack Bekhor

00:16>> So very interesting. So what we do, Nathan, is we take knowledge from all different sources. So we take from books, we take from courses, we take from documentaries and we hack that knowledge to condense it down into something a lot smaller Mhmm. Into a unique format that we've created that gives you the whole essence of that book or that course or that documentary in five minutes. Mhmm.

North Star Metric and Engagement

Nathan Latka

00:43And and how do you know if it's working or not? So there's a bunch of metrics you could track your business on number of downloads, number of consumer pieces of content, number of active users. What's your North Star sort of metric?

Jack Bekhor

00:53>> So the most important thing is that people like what you're doing.

Nathan Latka

00:56Okay. How do you measure that? So what's the metric?

Jack Bekhor

00:59>> The metrics we use internally, we look at hacks per DAU, we look at how people are engaging with our platform. We have some internal metrics around what we want to do around downloads and users, but actually the most important thing for us is people on the platform. When we look at it, we can see already,

01:21>> because we're still very early, we really only launched

01:25>> later in this year, February time. And we're getting around people completing about eight minutes a day average,

01:36>> which puts us actually probably close to TikTok territory.

Nathan Latka

01:41Okay. So hold on. So you said your your number one metric is number of hacks per daily active user. So what... Define to me what a hack is for us. Are those... An idea of... If I could... Let me just finish the question there. Can you define what a hack is?

Jack Bekhor

01:56>> Yeah. A hack is a five minute summary. We we call it five minutes because each of our hacks will take you about five minutes to go through. Okay?

Nathan Latka

02:06Great. And you were gonna add something on?

Jack Bekhor

02:08>> I was just gonna say that... Yeah. So so we're looking at at what we can do, hacks per DAU. Ideally, we'd want people to build a daily habit using our our product on on a daily basis. So...

Monthly Active Users Defined

Nathan Latka

02:23And how many are doing that currently? How many daily active users?

Jack Bekhor

02:27>> So so right now, we're... We are... What... We've got,

02:32>> about, on a monthly basis, about 35,000 active users.

Nathan Latka

02:37And how do you define active? Do they just have to log in or do they have to consume a certain amount of content?

Jack Bekhor

02:41>> They to they have to do piece of content.

Nathan Latka

02:43Okay. So at least so at least 35,000 people in the past thirty days have consumed at least one five minute hack. That's a book review, a podcast review, something like that.

Jack Bekhor

02:50>> Correct.

Nathan Latka

02:51Okay. Interesting.

Jack Bekhor

02:52>> Or a course or a documentary. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

02:55Okay. How are you getting... Like where are you getting all this content from? Are you paying someone else to curate it for you? Or you guys have your own big internal team doing this? How do you get it?

Content Production Process

Jack Bekhor

03:02>> The... We... So part part of the things we do is make sure we get the right content. So that's part of what we do.

03:11>> And we take that content and we use a mix of machine learning and human curation to bring the whole thing together. So it's a whole different thing. Process, machine learning, human curation to bring a hack. We do it that way so we can scale the business. So right now we can do a hack in about a couple of hours. Whereas someone else would have to read a whole book, do the whole thing, etcetera. So we have

03:39>> a process that enables us to scale that.

Nathan Latka

03:41So tell me about that process, right? So everyone knows the book, The Intelligent Investor, one of one of its favorite books. It's in your screenshot in terms of what you guys recommend. Walk me through the process you use on that book where you don't actually have to read it, but you're able to pull off the top insights.

Jack Bekhor

03:55>> We we have our... We can take the text, we have our machine learning, we go through what that is. We also cross reference that with a whole bunch of other things. I'm not going go into part of that detail, but we go across the web and across a whole bunch of other sources about where that book contextualize and sits, And we bring that all together to find what are the key points, the key elements, and what

04:19>> are the things that we need to take out. And it's then reviewed by someone who's actually read the book and we'll check and double check what's in there produce.

Nathan Latka

04:28How do you find a person that read the book?

Jack Bekhor

04:30>> We have a we have a a system that we've created that enables us to do that.

Nathan Latka

04:36Well, I assume that, but what is the system? How how do you find that person?

Jack Bekhor

04:41>> We... I I mean, we we have people that can go out and and look at people with subject matter expertise in different areas. And we we build a team of people who can do that.

Nathan Latka

04:55So I guess who who was the person that did the final review on the Intelligent Investor?

Jack Bekhor

05:00>> I don't know the actual person who who did that, but it would have been someone within our team.

Nathan Latka

05:05So it is someone who's full time on your team?

Jack Bekhor

05:07>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

05:08Got it. For

Jack Bekhor

05:09>> final review, yes, absolutely.

Team Size and Funding Background

Nathan Latka

05:10How many people are on your team?

Jack Bekhor

05:13>> We have 45 people in the business.

Nathan Latka

05:1645. Okay. You just got going. So you must have raised a bunch of capital to get this thing going. Is that right?

Jack Bekhor

05:20>> Raised 20,000,000.

Nathan Latka

05:22Okay. So $20,000,000. And and you must have some background that enables you to go out and tell the story and raise 20,000,000 off the bat. Yeah. Tell me more, I'm missing a part of the story here.

Previous Company LifeWorks and Track Record

Jack Bekhor

05:30>> So so Nathan, we... I've done I've done this before, so this is not the first time that we're we're doing something. The last business I did was in the HR space, it was in the well-being space, and we did mental, physical, social and financial well-being.

Nathan Latka

05:46What was the name of that company?

Jack Bekhor

05:47>> It was called LifeWorks. Okay. And we built that business over four years, We touched 13,000,000 employees and had a 100,000,000 ARR revenue, which we sold in two thousand eighteen, seventeen.

Nathan Latka

06:05How much had you guys raised to build the 100,000,000 ARR?

Jack Bekhor

06:08>> We raised at the time, 7,000,000 u... GBP.

Nathan Latka

06:15Okay. So I mean, then pretty I mean, pretty capital efficient then. Was there any... Was this traditional SaaS margin where of the 100,000,000 it had 85% margin or did you have of people you had to pay out our big...

Jack Bekhor

06:23>> No. We had... We had... We were we were services, so we had both people and SaaS.

Nathan Latka

06:28I see. I see. I see. Got it. So services company in the HR tech space. You guys... I'm read... I'm reading as we're interviewing here. Right? So so it looks like this happened. Now Morneau Shepell Inc acquired that company in 2018?

Jack Bekhor

06:41>> Correct.

Nathan Latka

06:41Yeah. Why did you guys sell that company? Why was it the right time to sell?

Jack Bekhor

06:44>> Well, it's... It wasn't about the right time to sell. Actually, we were just gearing up for our next phase of growth.

06:52>> When we went out to the market, everyone loved the company so much. No one wanted just to put a slug of money in just to help grow the business, they wanted to acquire the whole company. So we we just went so we just went and and sold with that.

Nathan Latka

07:08And did you sell... And and so what was your role there by way? I'm reading Jamie True was the CEO, some other folks. What was your role?

Jack Bekhor

07:13>> I was the CFO at the... Of that business.

Nathan Latka

07:16I see. I see. Okay. So CFO at that company, you guys raised 7,000,000. You grow GMV. You end up selling. Now did you sell for, I guess, more than one x of that 100,000,000 GMV or under?

Jack Bekhor

07:29>> More. More. Okay. Sold for $325,000,000.

Nathan Latka

07:32That's great. Okay. So... And and so how... This is this is relevant because there are lot of SaaS founders or will be SaaS founders listening right now that start off in services or agencies, and they're always wondering how to value their agency when they go to sell it to move into SaaS. So what multiple... If you sold for $325,000,000, what multiple is that on your... Like how was it valued? Was it top line services revenue, bottom

07:49line profit?

Jack Bekhor

07:51>> So actually it was a mix of both. Okay? So we we were we were a profitable business, but we chose to sacrifice profit for growth to really make that go on steroids.

08:08>> But when it came to the purchaser, the purchaser would be anyone looking at the business would be looking at, well, you're a mix of tech and services, so your tech will probably be valued at blah and your services X, so we'll come up with a multiple. I think in our case it was three and a half times.

Nathan Latka

08:27So the blended multiple is three and a half times bottom line trailing EBITDA?

Jack Bekhor

08:32>> Of top line revenue.

Nathan Latka

08:33Forward looking or trailing Oh, 12 wow. That's great. That's great. That's not horrible at all. Very cool. Okay. So this is this is why you are now able to go launch Uptime app, tell a great story here and raise 20,000,000 off the bat. Now do you have co founders at the company?

Jack Bekhor

08:46>> I do. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

08:47Okay. How many?

Jack Bekhor

08:48>> I have Jamie who... Two co founders. Jamie who I've actually worked with for twenty years. So we've... We've done... We did LifeWorks together. We did a number of other businesses together as well.

Nathan Latka

08:58So just you and you and Jamie are the shareholders right now along with the 20 million investors?

Jack Bekhor

09:01>> And then we have Patrick, who is also co founder of the business. So Patrick, he... He's had a a long career at Google, most recently at Facebook where he

09:14>> he he had a very senior exec role in EMEA around growing their partnerships and... For Instagram and Instagram TV and Facebook Watch. So he's joined us as well as a co founder in the business.

Nathan Latka

09:29And so... So three co founders?

Jack Bekhor

09:31>> Three co founders.

Nathan Latka

09:32Where does James True come into the picture?

Jack Bekhor

09:35>> So James is is a partner. He is the guy I've worked with for twenty years, and we we built... We we we did LifeWorks together and we're doing Uptime together.

Nathan Latka

09:48But you don't call him a co founder?

Jack Bekhor

09:51>> Call him a co founder. Yeah. I do.

Nathan Latka

09:53Oh, you do. So there's four co founders?

Jack Bekhor

09:55>> No. Three. James...

Nathan Latka

09:56James and Jamie are the same person?

Jack Bekhor

09:58>> Same person.

Nathan Latka

09:59Perfect. Got it. So three co founders there. Now did you guys just go, you know what? We don't wanna argue. We're just gonna go thirty three thirty three thirty three. How do have the equity conversation? It's always tough.

Jack Bekhor

10:11>> Yeah. You know, it's very interesting. I think the most important thing about any equity conversation is that you're fair to everyone involved, and that's the most important thing. You and you have to also recognize what each person brings to the table. Yep. The other thing about that is timing. Timing is also very relevant. So it depends at what time people get involved in the business as well. So someone getting involved a lot later will probably have

10:37>> less of equity than someone coming in right at the start. Yep.

Pricing Launch and Subscription Model

Nathan Latka

10:41Okay. So just get going this year, you're you're partnering up with your buddies again, which is great. You guys raised $20,000,000, can go conquer the world. You're already at 35,000 monthly active users. You're helping people again consume stuff whether it's a documentary on YouTube or a famous book or anything else. You're helping them consume or podcast, so they would consume this stuff very quick. What's the revenue plan? How do make money here?

Jack Bekhor

10:59>> So revenue is subscription.

Nathan Latka

11:01Mhmm. Consumers or or companies buying this for their employees.

Jack Bekhor

11:04>> So consumers, principally. I would imagine if companies wanted it, we wouldn't say no. But principally, we're going after consumers.

Nathan Latka

11:14And have you launched pricing yet or are still pre revenue?

Jack Bekhor

11:17>> We just launched pricing, so it's very early days for us. So we've just started going out with a subscription product. Early indications look positive, very positive for us.

Nathan Latka

11:29We have to celebrate if you've passed your first customer though. Do have your first paying customer?

Jack Bekhor

11:33>> Yes, we do.

Nathan Latka

11:34There we go. First paying customer. Okay. And so what are they paying?

Jack Bekhor

11:38>> So we had a Founder offer for people who came onto our platform. So right now, if you came onto our platform, you could get a 50% discount. So usually it's $79.99 year.

Nathan Latka

11:50A month or a year?

Jack Bekhor

11:51>> A year. So you could get it for 36... $35.99 a year. Okay.

Nathan Latka

11:56Okay. Got it. So we're talking like, you know, it's like $6.50 a month sort of deal will be full price.

Jack Bekhor

12:03>> Yeah. Full price.

Nathan Latka

12:04Yep. Okay. How did you come up with pricing? There's a lot of people... They don't know how to launch the pricing page.

Jack Bekhor

12:08>> It's like a it's really hard. You you know, Nathan, it's not like, oh, boom. Here we go. Pricing. We did a lot of research around pricing. We looked at a lot of different businesses to see what they're doing. We also spoke to both Apple and Google around pricing. One of the key things I would say is you have to test because you need to know where your price value point is as well. One of the things

12:38>> that we're gonna be doing is testing pricing.

Nathan Latka

12:40And so how we go... Are you using any interesting softwares to test that stuff dynamically or are you just manually hard coding this stuff?

Jack Bekhor

12:47>> Yeah. We do use software to...

Nathan Latka

12:50Who do you use out of curiosity?

Jack Bekhor

12:52>> You're asking the wrong person.

12:56>> Fair. Fair. I do know that we we probably use about 50 different software platforms

13:03I believe it.

13:04>> Within within the business to help us grow, and I think in some areas, it's probably even more. So... But, yeah, we do... We use a lot of different third party software platforms to help us with that.

Nathan Latka

13:18Let me get a sense of growth. We know you're at 35,000 MAU right now, but talk to me. Know, June's about to wrap wrap up here. How many, I guess I guess the right question is... We'll sort of go down the funnel here. How many total downloads do you guys get on the app in June?

Sign-ups and Growth in First 100 Days

Jack Bekhor

13:29>> We did... Just so you you know, within the first hundred days of launching, we did a... We got a 100,000 sign ups.

Nathan Latka

13:38100,000 downloads of the app?

Jack Bekhor

13:40>> 100,000 sign ups, not downloads.

Nathan Latka

13:42Why would those be different?

Jack Bekhor

13:44>> Because someone who downloads doesn't necessarily sign up.

Nathan Latka

13:47So how many total downloads? So we can understand how many with the conversion.

Jack Bekhor

13:51>> I don't have that number right now. But it but it it it was... It would have been higher than the 100,000.

Nathan Latka

13:58Got it. What would you be... Based on what you know from other industries, Google, etcetera, what would be a healthy conversion rate from a download to an actual sign up?

Jack Bekhor

14:05>> From download to sign up, I would say healthy is about 70% sign up.

Nathan Latka

14:10Seven zero?

Jack Bekhor

14:11>> Seven zero.

Nathan Latka

14:12Oh, wow. Interesting. Why would someone download but then not sign up? What's the friction?

Jack Bekhor

14:17>> I don't get that. I don't get that either, Nathan, but people do.

Nathan Latka

14:21Interesting. Okay. So so...

Jack Bekhor

14:24>> Some people, I think they feel they don't wanna register for a product. People will have different reasons. I don't know.

Nathan Latka

14:30Okay. So how many new signups will you add in June?

Jack Bekhor

14:35>> It's a very good question. I think we will probably, right now, I think we'll probably add about 15,000 maybe, 20, something like that.

Nathan Latka

14:48And and what's the biggest issue right now with converting a 100,000 of these sign Like you have a drop off, right? 35,000 are the only still active ones, the MAU number you gave me. So there's, you know, you're losing 60, what is that 65 ks? How do you re engage?

15:00>> Right? Conversion rate.

15:04Correct. My question to you is that like, what do you have to do to get more of those signups to stay active to be included in your in your weekly... In your monthly active user number?

Jack Bekhor

15:12>> Have a great product experience.

Nathan Latka

15:14Mhmm. Why are they dropping off currently? Do you... How do you... Do you you get any feedback from people that stopped using you? Do you have any way to do that?

Jack Bekhor

15:20>> No. Not right now.

Nathan Latka

15:21Mhmm. Interesting. Okay, cool. So so got it. So folks are scaling. So you have your first... How many total customers do you have right now that took advantage of the Founder plan?

Paying Subscribers and Early Revenue

Jack Bekhor

15:33>> So so we could... Because we've just been a hundred days since we we launched, we have...

Nathan Latka

15:39I know you're early. Yeah. And we know you're early. I assume it's a small number of experience.

Jack Bekhor

15:43>> Really it's really early. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

15:46So how many? You're past one, but you're still early, so I'm not expecting a massive number, but I am curious.

Jack Bekhor

15:51>> Oh, I... It's we've got several thousand people who subscribed.

Nathan Latka

15:56They're customers? Yeah. Can you break 10,000 subscribers this year paying subscribers, you think?

Jack Bekhor

16:00>> I think we'll easily do that.

Cash Management and Next Funding Round

Nathan Latka

16:02Interesting. So so how do you manage cash? Are you... You've hired up, you're hiring ahead of growth and growth is coming now, it's a lagging indicator that's coming behind that growth. Do you go raise another round early next We

Jack Bekhor

16:13>> will be raising another round early next year. Yeah, for sure. That will help us with growth. There's a lot that we need to do, growth with products, with languages, with different territories as well. Mhmm. So there's a lot that...

Million Dollar Run Rate Outlook

Nathan Latka

16:27Yep. Do you guys think, you know, obviously in SaaS, whether it's really consumer or b two b, the magic number is that million dollar run rate. Do you guys think you can get to that by the end of this year or at least maybe early next year?

Jack Bekhor

16:39>> Maybe. Mhmm. I don't know. We'll see. It might be too early because we we started later in this year. Yeah. I don't think we'll get there.

Nathan Latka

16:47Yep. Yep. I mean, I have you right now at, you know, a couple thousand customers call it maybe five, six thousand at 50% of an $80 ACV. Right? That puts you guys at something like 15 or $16,000 into at least a divert like SaaS revenue right now per month. So it's a nice Yeah. The nice chunk of capital right up... Right out the gate to sort of prove some of your points.

Jack Bekhor

17:04>> Yeah. It's an... It's a good start.

Churn, Retention and Cohort Strategy

Nathan Latka

17:05Are they churning? Do people stick?

Jack Bekhor

17:08>> So far, people have stuck. We we haven't seen much churn at all.

Nathan Latka

17:13So when did the first person start paying? What month?

Jack Bekhor

17:16>> In May.

Nathan Latka

17:18Okay. So so, okay. There's really only been like thirty to sixty days here. So no.

Jack Bekhor

17:22>> We haven't we haven't had enough time to... Yeah.

Nathan Latka

17:26Yeah. Yeah. What would be what would be a warning sign for you? So if you get the June cohort data and x percent churned in June who signed up in May, what would be a worry at some number?

Jack Bekhor

17:36>> I think the worry would be if our actives are going down, that would be a big issue for us. Actually, really, we just care about growth and ensuring that the cohorts are going up. It's really about stickiness on the product. People liking what you're doing and coming back, building a habit. Yep.

17:57I

17:57>> think five minutes, get your five minute hack a day, Nathan, that's what you need.

Valuation on First Round

Nathan Latka

18:02Yep, I hear you. Okay, last question before you raise up. Valuations on first round, it's a combination of things that are not science, it's very much art. You guys had a great background. You probably had much more leverage than most of my listeners, but just help me understand how you thought about negotiating a valuation on the first round, pre everything, pre MVP, pre revenue.

Jack Bekhor

18:19>> Yeah, it's really about having a track. The bigger the track record you have, the higher the number you can go. And that's it. That's really what it's down to. Yeah,

18:32>> that's really what it's down to.

Nathan Latka

18:34And most people on that first raise are selling between sort of 10 to 20% of the business. Were you guys sort of in that range?

Jack Bekhor

18:39>> Yeah. Most people would be 10 to 20% of the business. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

18:42And were you guys in that range?

Jack Bekhor

18:44>> We were in that range.

Famous Five Rapid Fire

Nathan Latka

18:45Okay. Great. Very cool. Alright, man. Let's wrap up here. Jack with the Famous Five.

18:49>> Number one, favorite business book?

Jack Bekhor

18:51>> What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School.

Nathan Latka

18:53Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Jack Bekhor

18:59>> No.

Nathan Latka

19:00Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Uptime?

Jack Bekhor

19:03>> Favorite?

Nathan Latka

19:04Online tool for building Uptime.

Jack Bekhor

19:08>> Google Workspace.

Nathan Latka

19:09Number three, four. How many hours of sleep are you getting every night?

Jack Bekhor

19:14>> Probably about six.

Nathan Latka

19:15Okay. And situation, married, single, kids?

Jack Bekhor

19:18>> Married.

Nathan Latka

19:19Any kiddos?

Jack Bekhor

19:20>> No?

19:20Kids? Dogos.

Nathan Latka

19:21How old are you, Jack?

Jack Bekhor

19:22>> Sorry?

Nathan Latka

19:23How old are you?

Jack Bekhor

19:25>> 52.

Nathan Latka

19:25Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Jack Bekhor

19:32>> It's a very good question. I think I knew it all at 20 and now I still think I know it all.

Nathan Latka

19:40Guys, there you have an Uptime app that came out of the gates blazing, raised $20,000,000, sold 10 to 20% of business to do that. They're trying to help consumers go in and engage every day to get bites of information out of their favorite books, documentaries, etcetera but much faster. They've got 35,000 monthly active users meaning they come in and engage and download at least one sort of summary per month. They have over a 100,000 signups over their

20:00first sixty days here. They've got several thousand people but less than 10,000 paying $80 for the year but at a 50% discount for that early tranche and they're hoping to hit that million dollar run rate here in the next twelve months before going out for another round of capital early next year. We'll see what happens. Jack, thanks for taking us to the top.

Jack Bekhor

20:16>> Thanks. Thanks, man.

Nathan Latka

20:19One 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

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