How UtilizeCore CEO Ryan Gottfried grew UtilizeCore to $15M revenue and 20 customers in 2024.

hello everyone my guest today is ryan gottfried he's providing a next generation platform to service companies to simplify integrated property and subcontractor management it helps increase visibility enable work order tracking process payments and streamline communication ryan you're ready to take it from the top yes absolutely thank you all right you bet so the site is utilizedcore.com if folks want to follow along help us understand what you're selling okay yeah sure absolutely so uh we'll let's take it back to where it all started in in 2017 we were called by brightview enterprise solutions which is the largest landscape and snow removal company in the world they were having a problem with their customer chase bank chase wanted transparency to see if their locations were plowed so that they could open up without having any issues of slip and fall huge compliance issue there chase bank said they were going to be done with brightview in the next 48 hours if they didn't have a solution brightview had flew us out to ohio we sat down in the conference room with brightview and you know chase bank executives on both sides and we strategized a you know growth hack hacky type solution that would uh you know fix the problem between brightview and chase bank allowing chase bank to sign into mobile application and see the service history and the service requests that are taking place in real time images of the bank that was plowed uh you know the time that it was plowed the provider that that actually performed the service from there we ended up going out to the greater market and saying okay are there other trades what year was that ryan by the way when did you guys launch the company 2017 i mean 2017 but and so i guess just tell me right now today who's paying for the platform is it chase bank or brightview or somebody else right right yeah brightview is paying okay and for people that obviously don't know who brightview is like name some other customers are these are contractors like support snow removal companies they are yes it's a service management company so they are actually managing large networks of subcontractors they don't actually perform the service themselves i see they are a call center they have you know individuals on the phones or on the computers taking those service requests and moving them downstream to those subcontractors we keep to right view an automated the majority of those processes how many of those companies are paying you today over 20 companies 20 companies okay and how do you build them how do you come up with pricing sure we it's it's 33 000 for the subscription for the year it's a one-time fee and then we charge per transaction we take a a half a percent per transaction that goes through the platform so i mean can we can take 33 000 per year times 30. i mean that's what about a million dollar run rate right there right uh yeah we're close yes well sorry the 33 thousand dollars you said one time fee but that is that actually the yearly subscription they pay that every year it's an annual subscription fee yes okay got it yeah so that 33 000 a year times 20 sorry times 20 customers it's like 800 900 grand a year in revenue just there correct right yes roughly and then a lot of the high valuations we're seeing in sas right now are these sas plus models so there's also a percent of gmb happening so help me understand that what does percent of gmv look like through your platform in other words how do you track what volume rightview processes through you so since it's an end-to-end you know automation solution we're actually capturing and sending the invoices from brightview to chase bank uh once the invoice is received by chase making our mobile device the payment processes through our platform and we take a a transaction fee for that additionally there's another transaction that happens between rightview and their subcontractors the subcontractors will send an invoice that's automatically generated upon work complete and right you will pay out their subcontractors and take what will take a percentage give me give me a bit about that gmv history so if you look back in 2017 how much total volume went through the platform sure yeah in 2017 we did 300 000 roughly not bad for your first year yeah not bad and um then 2018 sorry 2018 let me just i know you're good take your time it's a lot of history um yeah so 2020 1 6 uh 2019 um was seven around seven hundred thousand um 2018 was you know roughly 300 000 and then 2017 was around 150 000. 150 000. that's great so so obviously nice growth here now did you always take a percent of the fee even about back in the early days early on the first year we did not uh that model came into play around 20 19. and so 1.6 million going through your platform you're taking a half percent per transaction i mean that's only 8 000 of revenue right am i doing that right half a half percent per transaction so it's for example brightly processed 250 million through our platform we're just just to be clear sorry the 2020 1.6 million you did that's the that's the cut you took not the total gmb right correct oh what was the total so you made 1.6 million on percentage gmd but what was the total gmv through your platform yeah it was a couple hundred million wow okay and yeah so give me the brightview example they do 250 250 and since the invoicing you know component of the platform uh you know just went into play uh that will continue to pick up we're we're estimating close to a billion dollars of uh you know processing through the platform in the next you know uh 12 months so you've got again about 1.6 million in 2020 that came from percent to gmv you've got another like 500 to a million coming from your sas product 33 000 bucks a year 20 customers like bright if you pay for that have you done all this bootstrapped yes that dude that's incredibly that's you don't even see that with a smile that's incredible absolutely all bootstrapped it's uh you know where entrepreneurs in the family a long history or is it a family business so right it's not a family business however my father is on the board of directors my partner is where our history starts my father in 1983 built the first operation system out of my partner's grandfather's hvac business butch dropped that that was a bootstrap business until 1998. um in 98 you know we actually went with the venture out but um you know we're back to bootstrapping now now do you think you'll stay bootstrapped or are you looking at raising some capital so as of right now um you know it's been a very tough decision however we think that we'll have to move into you know actually accelerating growth faster it's it's a very large platform there are three parties that are involved you have the chase bank you have the management layer which is brightview and then you have the subcontractors so it's it's pretty much uh you know an uber type suit uh supply and demand play we think we're gonna need you know five seven plus million you know to really uh see growth uh you know is that what you're looking for now you're raising seven million bucks something like that yep and are you leading the charge are you the guy you're out having investor meetings yes exactly what valuation are you pitching we're we're letting the market define the valuation what is one that would make you super happy obviously maybe this is what it comes out to but what would make you really happy uh it it's it's complicated but uh we'll see over 30 million for sure and why is that the number for you back me into your math there yeah it's it's um just you know based on what we're you know willing to give up on in the business um we think that's a very fair amount to give up um you know we we believe in the growth of the business we need the land grab that we're going into this market and we can really capitalize and and um it's a 680 billion dollar market and there's no competitors so with that um you know quickly and we believe in you know our our information that's uh you know been evolving since 1963. so if you raise sort of 7 million on a 30 million pre-money that puts you like 37 million posts you know you're gonna sell something between 15 and 20 of the business something like that correct yep any investors you know we have a lot of investors listening right now maybe they heard you maybe they haven't but what would you tell them is there any specific strategic investor you're looking for or something you want them to deliver yeah so we're we're looking specifically in the venture space uh really going for high growth uh in terms of the actual you know play that we have here if you think about uber and what uber was able to do to the taxi industry we believe we're on the cusp of doing this in in the service management facility management space so being able to take uh you know an operating model that's currently working and fully optimizing it where you can allow these subcontractors to get matched up with these properties uh you know through an automated uh artificial intelligence type engine uh it's it's going to you know these companies are you know our at least our subscribers on the platform are going to see extreme growth with their own business and also bring a lot of transactions through our platform right i think you're going to see a lot of these folks reaching out again if you guys want to do diligence to utilize core.com you'll be able to find ryan's stuff on linkedin i'm sure talk to me ryan about your team today how many folks total sure we have uh so right now we are international we have a we run a 30 70 onto our offshore model so we leverage um mumbai as well as costa rica costa rica for the product design and then...