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Founder Interview

How Vooozer Reached 90 Customers with an Audio Marketing Platform for Company Blogs (Interview with Co-Founder and CEO Albert Hayfaz)

Interview Date
July 28, 2021
Interviewee
Albert HayfazCo-Founder and CEO
Watch
Watch the full interview

Company Metrics at Interview Time

Customers (2021)

90

Total Funding Raised

About $50K

Cash in Bank (2021)

$50K

Monthly Churn (2021)

4%

Team Size (2021)

5

Historical Snapshot

These numbers were reported by Albert Hayfaz during his interview with Nathan Latka in July 2021 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See VOOOZER’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways

  • 01Vooozer was founded in 2016 and secured its first paying customers in late 2017
  • 02The company raised about $50K from family and angel investors in late 2016 and has not raised since
  • 03As of July 2021, Vooozer had around 90 customers and a team of 5 full-time employees
  • 04New customer additions were running at 3 to 4 per month
  • 05Monthly churn was 4%, and Albert said the majority of it came from customers restructuring rather than from dissatisfaction with the product
  • 0630% of customers paid upfront for a full year
  • 07Customers in the US and other international markets paid $200 for the software
  • 08The company had around $50K cash in the bank and was intentionally burning cash to reinvest in growth
  • 09The Powered By Vooozer link on customer blogs drove a few hundred targeted clicks per month
  • 10At one point, 40% of customers came from a single partner relationship

Company Metrics at Time of Interview

MetricValueSource
Customers (2021)90Founder interview, Jul 2021
New Customers Added (2021)3 to 4 per monthFounder interview, Jul 2021
Monthly Churn (2021)4%Founder interview, Jul 2021
Pricing (US and International) (2021)$200Founder interview, Jul 2021
Cash in Bank (2021)$50KFounder interview, Jul 2021
Monthly Expenses (2021)$17,000Founder interview, Jul 2021
Angel Round (2016)About $50KFounder interview, Jul 2021
Year Founded2016Founder interview, Jul 2021
Team Size (2021)5Founder interview, Jul 2021
SaaS Revenue Share of Total Revenue (2021)40 to 50%Founder interview, Jul 2021
Customers Paying Upfront Annually (2021)30%Founder interview, Jul 2021

Growth Breakdown

Revenue

Albert reported monthly revenue of $15,000 in July 2021, with roughly 40 to 50% of that coming from the SaaS product and the remainder from customer success services and professional narrations. Thirty percent of customers paid upfront for a full year, which gave the company some cash flow predictability.

Customers

Vooozer had 90 customers at the time of the interview, adding 3 to 4 new customers per month. Monthly churn stood at 4%, with Albert noting that the majority of it came from customers restructuring their teams, SEO and blog strategies rather than from dissatisfaction with the product.

Team

The company ran with a team of 5 full-time employees, co-founded by Albert Hayfaz and his partner Matteo. Narrators work on a flexible, part-time basis similar to a marketplace model, with one full-time narrator based in Brazil.

Profitability and Funding

Vooozer raised about $50K from family and angel investors in late 2016 and has not raised additional capital since. The company had been profitable for an extended period but was intentionally burning cash at the time of the interview, reinvesting savings accumulated during the COVID period, with $50K remaining in the bank and monthly expenses of around $17,000.

Growth Strategy

Powered By Vooozer Viral Loop

The embeddable audio player displayed a Powered By Vooozer label on every customer blog, which generated a few hundred targeted clicks per month from readers who noticed the player and searched for the product. Albert credited this as a core inbound driver, describing it as the player selling itself.

Strategic Partner Relationships

Early on, Vooozer offered its service for free to partners whose buyer personas overlapped with its own target customers. This strategy was highly effective: at one point, 40% of Vooozer's customers originated from a single partner relationship, which later converted to a paying account.

Inbound Content Marketing Focus

The company targeted businesses with active content marketing blogs, positioning audio narration as a way to improve engagement and reach audiences who prefer listening over reading. This niche focus emerged after a first year spent building the tool and trying portals, personal blogs and all kinds of other sites before settling on content marketing blogs.

Transparent Metrics and Community

Albert cited inspiration from other founders who share open metrics publicly, including Diego Gomez of Rock Content, as a way to build credibility and attract inbound interest. He also pointed to Bannerbear as the company that first got him interested in publishing open metrics.

Best Quotes

“So we offer the software and audio platform, a complete audio platform, and we also offer customer success service because our clients, they need guidance in audio marketing since it's a new strategy. And also, we offer the service for professional narrations. So it's not pure SaaS.”
“We have a team of professional narrators, and they are specialized in content marketing. So it doesn't sound as an advertisement or something like that. And since the content that we are dealing with, it's teaching people all sorts of things. We believe that a human narration is much better because it has the confidence that you need to achieve better results and all sorts of features that a human voice has than an artificial narration doesn't have yet.”
“So in Brazil, it would be less than $100 and in The US and international marketing, international market is $200 for the software.”
“In Brazil, it's kind of an inbound strategy. Actually, our player sells itself, so to speak. So the more customers we have, more people will notice the player on the blog's website, and they're going to Google that.”
“At some point, 40% of our customers came from a single partner.”
“Yes, 90 customers. So if we're talking about dollars, would be like $15,000”
“Actually, 30% of our customers, they pay upfront for an entire year.”
“Yes. Yes. We measure right now it's around 4%.”
“The majority of our churn comes through restructuring of our customers. So, they are restructuring the team, if they are restructuring their SEO strategy, the blog strategy, We know that these kinds of strategies from, like, a couple of years, they have a restructuring because, of course, Google changes the game all the time, so our customers need to do the same.”

What Happened Next

This interview captures Vooozer at a specific moment in July 2021, when the company had 90 customers, $50K in the bank, and was intentionally reinvesting cash to accelerate growth. The figures here reflect what Albert Hayfaz reported on the day of the recording and should be treated as a historical snapshot. For current revenue, customer count, and team size, visit Vooozer's live company profile on GetLatka.

View VOOOZER’s current profile and metrics

Full Transcript

Chapters

Introduction and Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Albert Hayfaz. He's the administration graduate, shines a problem solving and creativity applied to business and product development. That's where he's focused. He's today co founder and CEO at Vooozer, audio marketing leading solution in Brazil, selected by Google for startups as one of the most promising startups in 2019. He's advocates for harmony between startup life and his family life. Albert, are you ready to take us to the top?

Albert Hayfaz

00:23>> Yes. Let's go.

Nathan Latka

00:24What's family life like these days? You got kiddos running around or what?

Albert Hayfaz

00:28>> Yeah. I have a kid now and a dog.

What Vooozer Does: Audio Platform and Services

Nathan Latka

00:32Very two very important things. Very cool. Alright. What's Vooozer working on? Is this a pure play SaaS company or what?

Albert Hayfaz

00:38>> So we offer the software and audio platform, a complete audio platform, and we also offer customer success service because our clients, they need guidance in audio marketing since it's a new strategy. And also, we offer the service for professional narrations. So it's not pure SaaS.

SaaS vs Services Revenue Split

Nathan Latka

01:01Okay. But just to give us a sense of how much SaaS last month, if you look at total revenue, how, like, percent of the SaaS would you say?

Albert Hayfaz

01:08>> I would say around

01:11>> 40 to 50%.

Nathan Latka

01:13Okay. So about half and half. And what is the SaaS product? If someone listening right now wants to try it, what would they be buying? Just the SaaS side.

Albert Hayfaz

01:20>> Okay. So we're built for company blogs. We're built for improve for improving content marketing strategies. So the idea is to add an a professional narration of an article right along with the article. So it's an embeddable player.

Nathan Latka

01:38Yeah. The structure makes a lot of sense. Now, you're doing auto transcription. Is there an SDK? Are you using Google Speech SDK? Or how are you doing it?

Human Narration Approach and Technology

Albert Hayfaz

01:47>> We have a team of professional narrators, and they are specialized in content marketing. So it doesn't sound as an advertisement or something like that. And since the content that we are dealing with, it's teaching people all sorts of things. We believe that a human narration is much better because it has the confidence that you need to achieve better results and all sorts of features that a human voice has than an artificial narration doesn't have yet.

Pricing in Brazil vs International Markets

Nathan Latka

02:19So just on the SaaS side, what's a customer paying you on average to use this technology?

Albert Hayfaz

02:25>> So in Brazil, it would be less than $100 and in The US and international marketing, international market is $200 for the software.

Nathan Latka

02:38Fair to say sort of between $100 and $200 on average then?

Albert Hayfaz

02:41>> Yes. And we have some features built for content marketing. So, have a lead gen feature on the player. We have integrations with RD Station, HubSpot, Zapier, Spotify, and other softwares. And of course, we have a bunch of solid metrics that you don't have when you're working only with text.

Team Structure and Narrators

Nathan Latka

03:02And how many of these narrators are full time on the team today?

Albert Hayfaz

03:06>> In Brazil, we have only one, and all the others, they are part time. It's something that they use to complement their income. And we have a big team. They're all applying our narration methodology, and they can work whenever they would feel like working. So it pretty much works similar to the Uber marketplace.

Co-Founders and Equity Split

Nathan Latka

03:30How many total people are on your team that are full time employees, not not narrators?

Albert Hayfaz

03:35>> Okay. So right now we are in five.

Nathan Latka

03:40Five of you guys. And how many co founders? Just just you?

Albert Hayfaz

03:43>> No. It's me and my partner, Matteo.

Nathan Latka

03:46You guys just split it fifty fifty or what?

Albert Hayfaz

03:49>> Actually, we use the online kind of survey to define the equity. I guess it's founders. Cv, something like that.

Nathan Latka

04:00Founders. What?

Albert Hayfaz

04:01>> I think it's founders. Cv. I'm not sure. I have to look it up. So you answer like 20 questions and then they give you a suggestion on the equity regarding what every founder brings to the table and things like that. Between my partner and I, it would be like two to one.

Nathan Latka

04:21I got it. So you own like 60% and he owns like 30%, something like that?

Funding History: $50K Angel Round in 2016

Albert Hayfaz

04:26>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

04:26Got it. Okay. Very cool. Have you guys raised capital or no?

Albert Hayfaz

04:30>> We raised right on the beginning from family and investors like angels. And since then, we didn't raise anymore.

Nathan Latka

04:39We are What is the beginning? What year was that?

Albert Hayfaz

04:43>> It was late twenty sixteen.

Nathan Latka

04:46Oh, wow. Okay. So you've been around a while. How much did you raise?

Albert Hayfaz

04:49>> At the time, we raised around $50,000

Nathan Latka

04:53What did it feel like to raise that first $50,000 Were you guys excited or nervous or what?

Albert Hayfaz

04:58>> We were really excited. Actually, deciding to start Vooozer, one day I was working with Matteo at a company, and I told him, what if I told you that I have $50,000 to start a business? And then he immediately had a big smile on his face. And I said, okay, I don't have that money, but look how happy you are. Let's let's let's just chase that.

Nathan Latka

05:25That's a heck of a sales pitch.

Albert Hayfaz

05:27>> Yes. It worked well.

Nathan Latka

05:29Wow. Okay. Got it. So that was year one. And how many customers do you have today?

Customer Count and First Customers

Albert Hayfaz

05:34>> We have around 90.

Nathan Latka

05:36Okay. So how did you get your first customers back in 2016? Do you remember?

Albert Hayfaz

05:41>> The first year, like 2017, the entire year, we were like developing the tool and trying to figure out who would be our customer, who would value audio the most. And then we found, we tried a bunch of things. So portals, all kinds of blogs, personal blogs. And by the end of twenty sixteen, we figured out that the content marketing market would be a good fit for us. I guess the first paying customers, we got them at

06:13>> late twenty seventeen.

Nathan Latka

06:16And who do you remember the first customer? What was their name?

Albert Hayfaz

06:19>> I remember. It's Agender. It's a Yeah.

06:25>> It's a it's a CRM.

Nathan Latka

06:27Got it. And so they were using you for what?

Albert Hayfaz

06:30>> They were using for their blog. So they had a huge blog at a time. Now it's even bigger. And their buyer persona, it's a field salesperson. So they are always on the run, on the car and things like that. And they noticed that audio would be a good fit for them so they could learn more with the blog, but not having to read the blog simply by listening to it.

Nathan Latka

06:55Smart. And how are you acquiring customers today?

Customer Acquisition: Powered By Viral Loop and Partners

Albert Hayfaz

06:59>> In Brazil, it's kind of an inbound strategy. Actually, our player sells itself, so to speak. So the more customers we have, more people will notice the player on the blog's website, and they're going to Google that.

Nathan Latka

07:15So let's quantify that, though, Albert. That just doesn't magically happen. So people use your thing, it says Powered by Vooozer. How many clicks do you get per month from the Powered by Vooozer link?

Albert Hayfaz

07:24>> Oh, we have less, a few hundreds. Not that much, but it's like, it's really targeted for that person that is really interested in getting to know more. And we have some key customers that used to be like key partners. Now they are paying for the solution. And we have an intersection between our buyer personas. So at first, we offered our services for free because we knew about that intersection. At some point, 40% of our customers came

07:57>> from a single partner.

Nathan Latka

07:59Wow. And so how many new customers are you adding per month? Like how many last month?

Albert Hayfaz

08:03>> Okay. So now we are about three to four per month.

Nathan Latka

08:06Three to four per month. Okay. And any plans to raise additional capital or you're going stay with just the 50 ks?

Albert Hayfaz

08:13>> For now, we don't have plans.

MRR, Upfront Payments, and COVID Impact

Nathan Latka

08:16Okay. And so what is revenue today? 90 customers, you said?

Albert Hayfaz

08:20>> Yes, 90 customers. So if we're talking about dollars, would be like $15,000

Nathan Latka

08:27Per month?

Albert Hayfaz

08:28>> Yes. Okay. And where were That's you in MRR. That's in MRR. Actually, 30% of our customers, they pay upfront for an entire year.

Nathan Latka

08:40That's great. Where were you exactly one year ago in MRR?

Albert Hayfaz

08:45>> Let me see. I have this number in place. We were pretty much at the same level. What happened is that when COVID, like when we started with that,

08:59>> we lost a bunch of customers, around 20% MRR due to the COVID crisis.

Nathan Latka

09:07If someone came to today and offered you a $250,000 of cash all upfront to buy the business, would you sell?

Albert Hayfaz

09:13>> A $250,000 depends on the context, but maybe. It really depends because we really believe in audio taking over content marketing strategies. I'm not so concerned if I'm going to be the CEO for life and things like that. We are interested in developing a great product and delivering it to as many companies as we can.

Nathan Latka

09:40Do want to give your email out? A lot of buyers listen to this. That way they can reach you if they're interested.

Albert Hayfaz

09:45>> Okay. So it would be [email protected]. Vooozer with three o's.

Nathan Latka

09:50Okay. Guys have it [email protected]. Okay. 90 customers today. Now are you profitable? Oh, yes.

Albert Hayfaz

09:57>> It's been a long time since we're profitable.

Nathan Latka

09:59Like last month, you did 15,000 top line. How much was profit?

Albert Hayfaz

10:04>> That's a tough one. Currently, we are actually burning cash because last year we saved some cash due to the crisis. We held everything that we could. And this year, we decided to invest this cash. So for the past few months and until the end of the year, actually, we are going to be burning cash.

Cash in Bank and Monthly Expenses

Nathan Latka

10:30Okay. Okay. Fair enough. How much cash do you have in the bank currently?

Albert Hayfaz

10:34>> Currently in the bank, let's say in dollars, around 50 ks.

Nathan Latka

10:38Okay, so you have some runway. What are your total expenses each month with these new investments?

Albert Hayfaz

10:44>> Okay, so we are around $17,000

Why Albert Shares His Numbers Openly

Nathan Latka

10:49And everyone's listening going, how does Nathan get founders to share all these numbers live? Why why do you feel comfortable I love it, by the way. Transparency is great. But what makes you excited and comfortable to share those?

Albert Hayfaz

10:59>> Okay. So two things. I found Bannerbear. It's a starter, but I found it a few months ago. And I got more into this kind of open metrics. They have a their metrics are open, and then I found out a bunch of other companies that do that that as well. And the other thing is because I watched the your interview with Diego Gomez from Rock Content. Yep. And that also made me feel okay. So if he's

11:29>> doing that with so much confidence, why wouldn't I do that? And we are in similar markets. We actually know each other. So it felt like That's good. Felt like it's an inspiration.

Churn Rate and What Drives It

Nathan Latka

11:40It's a big family. It's we're a big family. The bootstrap SaaS family, you know? Alright. Very cool. What about churn? Do you measure churn at all or no?

Albert Hayfaz

11:49>> Yes. Yes. We measure right now it's around 4%.

Nathan Latka

11:55Per month?

Albert Hayfaz

11:56>> Yes, per month. And the thing is about churn is we never had a churn related to the quality of the service, neither the quality of our customer success service. The majority of our churn comes through restructuring of our customers. So, they are restructuring the team, if they are restructuring their SEO strategy, the blog strategy, We know that these kinds of strategies from, like, a couple of years, they have a restructuring because, of course, Google changes the

12:29>> game all the time, so our customers need to do the same.

Nathan Latka

12:33Albert, great story. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Albert Hayfaz

12:38>> Exponential Organizations.

Nathan Latka

12:40Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Albert Hayfaz

12:43>> Diego Gomez.

Nathan Latka

12:44Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Vooozer?

Albert Hayfaz

12:49>> So I would go with hunter. Io has an extension that lets you see if the person opened the email, and it's a pretty important information for me and it helps me a lot.

Nathan Latka

13:03Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Albert Hayfaz

13:06>> Between six to eight.

Nathan Latka

13:08It's pretty good in which situation? Well, actually, you said one kid. Are you married? Yes. Married, one kid and a dog. And how old are you?

Albert Hayfaz

13:17>> I'm 32.

13:18>> 32.

Nathan Latka

13:19Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Albert Hayfaz

13:22>> I wish I knew myself better as much as I know now.

Closing Summary

Nathan Latka

13:27As there you have it, Vooozer started in '16, got their first customer in 2017. About a year ago, they were doing $13,000 a month in revenue, now doing $15,000 a month in revenue for their tool, helps blogs add audio narration to their blog, easier consumption. They got a team of five ninety customers right now, 50,000 cash in the bank. They're burning, call it $2,000 per month as they reinvest in growth to try and keep pushing

13:49again forward to more customers, $50,000 raised back in 2016. Albert, thanks for taking us to the top.

Albert Hayfaz

13:56>> Thank you for the invitation and thanks for the talk. It's been a pleasure.

Nathan Latka

14:01One 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

14:26Central. 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

14:49fundraise, 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

15:10for 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. 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 got

15:30to 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 comments. See you.