How Walls CEO Michael Kamleitner grew Walls to $10M revenue and 700 customers in 2024.

hello everyone our guest today is Michael comm Lightner he is the founder of the parent company called in 2010 doing agency work and then nascent and then nascent social media marketing space they were the first and Austria to build apps for the Facebook API which is kind of a unique side a few years later they pivoted to SAS and are now running two successful products in the social media marketing space SWAT I owe an enterprise social media management tool and walls I owe a social media hub for all marketing purposes their bootstrap team at 22 based in Vienna Austria Michael are you ready to take us to the top throws are you ready hi Nathan hi everyone all right could be here real quick so I want to focus on one of these companies today which one's bigger in terms of revenue walls or SWAT well but they're basically C equal size but but I would suggest to focus on balls vo since it's a much more internationally targeted product and basically it's it's our our most exciting baby right now okay let's do that so what's the what's the product do and how do you make money as if your place ass yeah it's a pure sauce play it's a social media marketing tool social social media walls is what what we are doing with wall story oh so what do I mean by that well social walls is all about getting content user-generated content from all different sorts of social media platforms the classical ones like Facebook Instagram and so on but also also lesser ones or in essence want once like I don't know ready to flicker stuff like that so we pull in content lets users curate moderate this content and then provide the content on all types of physical displays for example for trade shows for you when you for for for the point of sales or also as a widget for your website for example for marketing campaigns for having a social media newsroom on your web sites what do people pay for this per month on average we do offer three years basically we offer two two pricing plans that's the pro plan that's about 200 euros per per month and the premium package is 500 euros per month I'm sorry I don't have to the dollar price what's the average per month so when you take your total customers well most of the customers are paying the pro plan so that's 200 euros oh and we also offering a free plan since last year okay very good we'll talk more about that here second but buttocks put this on a timeline for me when did you launch the company the product was launched in 2014 so like four years ago okay 2014 and you've bootstrap today correct exactly yeah that's right and what's the team size just on walls our our whole company is 22 and we are about split half half so that's about 1011 people right now so that's it yeah okay and how many customers have you scaled to we are currently at around seven well seven or eight hundred paid walls as we used to say okay so as there are those customers or sometimes do multiple walls belong to same one customer that is sometimes the case yeah I think the customer size is like five hundred to five hundred right now okay five hundred and where are people give me an example of where they might use a wall is it an event kind of thing is it above the kitchen counter in the office where do they put it yeah yeah so our original core used case really was having a social media wall or a Twitter wall as it used to be called at a at an event at the tradeshow so that was the core use case but well that was our first idea but then we learned that customers started to do different things with our product which was interesting to see for example they are really using our product to have social media displays at the at the store for example at the point of stay failed to inspire customers walking by and to see what what kind of user-generated content around their brand is posted and we also have this use case of of hashtag campaign so people doing marketing campaigns around the hashtag on social media and that is usually not done on physical displays that really is mostly done on websites so that is our widget use case and so can I take 500 customers times at $233 that's us it's 200 euro price point you go doing about a 100 grand per month in euros that's not too far off yes and what does growth look like so go back a year from today in September 2017 what we're doing per month then oh well well year-over-year the last year we grew about like 60 70 percent okay that's pretty good so maybe you were doing about 70 grand a month a year ago something like that yeah you're totally right and where's the growth come from adding new customers or getting more revenue from the same customers that is mostly well that is split honestly we do see a lot of new customers popping up we also see well we started in Austria and the german-speaking countries but during the last one year we see tremendous growth coming in from from the from the states actually so so I would say it's mostly new customers and what's the churn look like today well I mean I can't give out any any exact numbers but since we still have a large part of our business being of based in the in the event space sure naturally is relatively high compared to our other product for example because people people used to have one conference a year they're using our product for a few weeks and then they come back next year so there is quite some churn and that is really something you we or I have to get used to that we have this natural churn in the a band space so so we are like I said I don't give out any specific numbers here but it is it is significant we don't just say your number but when you say significant you mean like above 10% logo turn per month well that would be about right yeah okay in that space and so are you are the good news sorry to interrupt you what the good news is that these customers tend to come back at you later once to the conference or the event is repeating well then why don't you measure different I mean so like let's look at the past 12 months you had I'm making this up 400 people do one event how many of them did that same event the year prior in other words if you have 400 one year how many of them come back the next year you're totally right in terms of KPIs we do still have a lot of homework to do so so the next natural step or something we should already do but yeah just didn't have the time to is too more segmentation when talking about to churn we're talking about growth because it's really because it's because it really two kinds of businesses mixed into one right now just event based business is not so much recurring or at least not monthly recurring but like I said before we are of course more interested in more excited about this new use cases which which involve a permanent use of our product like having a display on your shop or having a display at your at your office that is also a use case by the way so so we have one of our latest latest a showcase or logo customers is like Amazon us they are using the product internally and in their offices to raise awareness for social media content and obviously we were very much excited about these use cases because they tend to have to the product and the social media display all year long so this is more the typically recovery the other SAS company that you're running that's about the same size its churn is way lower than ten percent per mo yeah that's quite honestly it's a very much different business so I just slowed down on that why not focus on that well it's it's like like I don't know Nathan do you have kids yeah I have do not have kid Lord I'm mercy I can't keep a see monkey alive okay me neither it's probably true about me as well that's why I'm running two products in one company well but I'm what I'm getting at is it's like like like having two kids and both are super exciting and they're both are developing in two slightly different paths always but I would be quite honest a median founder I could never I could never abandon one of my kids especially since both are doing really fine and our healthy products but that can be that could be like a really bad thing right the definition of insanity is keep doing the same thing over and over without growth or adding value so like I mean how do you know when one of these fails and you should shut one down or sell it well that's that's an interesting question I mean as long as we are growing and obviously we are profitable as being bootstrap there is no other way to that I I don't see any any one of those products failing Fela for me would be like stagnation and no growth growth at all but like I said before we with both products we're seeing great growth so both kids are developing just fine yeah but sure I the kid in algae is tough because I know many people with lots of kids and they all come out great and fantastic it's very different in with businesses right I mean there there are there are people competing with you only focused on hit like destroying one of your businesses so you're literally fighting a war on two fronts and that's self-inflicted so so I'm just curious like if you really care about both of them why not have a hard conversation with yourself figure out what when you care about more and go and try and win that space versus doing both yeah yeah to be to be totally honest that is a conversation I'm having with myself since since quite some time since last year or so and and I think I think to to really to really be to really do both products or both kids justice there there is definitely a way to do that and that would be like to either split split up both products from the front parent company and find a good co-ceo or some other way to split rows because I totally agree with you - that's a social media management tools so yeah like HootSuite but more more on the enterprise side of things so so so bigger companies bigger teams using our product but compare ibly it's comparable to you 1.5 in terms of AR right now sorry it's dream about 1.5 million in terms of run rate that's about that's about the ballpark yeah so so if someone offered you 3 million bucks to buy the whole company today would you sell it no not at all no way why not why is that so quickly well imagine to do in walls with 3 million in cash and it's the undiluted capital well well I I see I see I see the value of each product way higher quite honestly and and I don't see the need for that I mean I see a clear possibility to do this split and then for example go go the venture route with one of those products or we knows maybe with both even so so I don't sleep because a VC would never give you money in one of them if they know you're splitting your time and this other baby they have no upside in that is that is absolutely correct that is what I learned the hard way in the in past months or years I I totally agree but that's why I say the the condition would be of course to do the split first find someone someone capable maybe from inside the team to step up in the CEO role for one of both products or find someone from from outside and then really have to split and only then you are completely right the the VC on route is at least at least theoretically thinkable okay back to walls what are you paying to acquire new customer well I I can't share that with you honestly because I really don't have the number from top of my mind okay what I can when I can what I can tell you is that that this is a great business to grow to grow through various channel channels from content marketing to paid to pay the acquisition how do you do it how do you know it's gonna grow unpaid if you don't want a kiss sorry how do you know it's good to grow via paid channels if you don't know your is well I I can I can look up the CAC I really don't have it from top of my head it's obviously it's obviously way way will lower than the lifetime value of a customer well why is that so obvious to you if that was obviously everyone I wouldn't be building the same business okay well I that's why that's why I have my numbers not not in top of my mind but I can here I can check them up oh no I'm just curious I don't know that I don't even what the actual number is but you say with such confidence I know I can grow via paid but you don't know what your cactus I'm trying to understand why do you have so much confidence in that channel this is actually actually social laws this is actually a very competitive keyword the cost per click is very very high what would you say the click that cost per click is it's like I would say it's in a five six seven dollar range oh it's even it's even higher to be honest yeah so how do you know that I mean you said it was such confidence but you don't know what the calc number is I'm just trying to understand what is guiding that that that thought yeah well well I can I had I have a browser window open I can I can now tell you that the CAC is is around 100 euro so that's that's about half our our average average per month yeah exactly yeah so so that's about it and like I said we are moving away from the event business and towards this more permanent usage models where we have a much better to CSC to LTV ratio and that's why I'm pretty I'm pretty comfortable with that so why I mean why not why not scale that alright why not spend more money in that channel now well that's that's that's mostly a matter of being bootstrap to be honest of course there were there's always more more to do and more to spend and also of course as you as you I'm sure you will agree paid paid acquisition through Adwords also also it sound at some point hits the ceiling and we're seeing like you said the space is competitive so so it will not be it will not work to grow only from from from cost-per-click forever that's that's that's true yeah okay interesting very good let's uh team says you said was 11 or you guys were in remote locations or you in one headquarters no we're pretty old-school in that regard and have our whole team based on our we enter office in Vienna yeah very good are you going to sass talk by chance in Dublin yes yes I I've seen your post yesterday and even left the comment so we might even meet in person soon that'll be fun and you can just you can beat the hell out of me and say why were you so mean to me on the interview right let's see how the last few minutes go oh no it gets easier from now that's what I do I put all the tough stuff first so that you like me at the end right you know I thought he's really he's really nasty person and then by the end you're going oh my god he's a teddy bear that's and that's a nice trade you I have to alright Michael let's wrap up with the famous five number one what's your favourite business book my favorite one I will give you the last one I read and that's not in not not it's not a not a business book book per se but I think business people can get a lot of a lot out of it it's annulled Schwartz Negus my my coming from the same country as me from Austria and it's his biography it's called the Total Recall like the like the sci-fi movie from the 80s I guess or not and and that's a really good book with lots of business perspective as well good number two is their CEO you're falling or studying right now I guess they're there does anyone really stick out well I do I do I do follow David cancel from drift actually number three why what's your favorite online tool for building your business my favorite online to super simple I I'm so in love with calendly the the scheduling piece of software that allows you to to schedule meetings that's it's such a time-saver very good number four how many hours of sleep ticket every night I since I'm getting older I try to get about eight hours now that's good what's your situation married single kids I'm single without kids okay and how are you I'm forty forty years old okay last question what he was your 20 year old self knew I would just say relax there's enough time and don't don't take the take the time to learn things and and and don't and don't hurry too much guys relax there you have it from Michael launched in 2014 walls again really social walls but people like Amazon are using it in their office to track social comments and social behavior their boot strapped right now serving 500 customers doing about a hundred sixty six thousand dollars per month in revenue that's about up from you know seventy thousand bucks about a year goes to thirty forty fifty percent year-over-year growth 10 percent logo churn per month they're working on bringing that down willing to spend up to a hundred bucks to acquire our customer so pretty quick payback he's running two companies another one is about the same size I still think he should sell one of them but we'll see what happens Michael thinks taking us to the top thanks a lot Nathan and I'm looking forward to see you to see you in in Dublin soon all right take care good bye