Founder Interview
How Walls.io Reached 500 Customers and 60 to 70% Year-Over-Year Growth Running Bootstrapped from Vienna (Interview with CEO Michael Kamleitner)
- Interview Date
- September 18, 2018
- Interviewee
- Michael KamleitnerCEO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Customers (2018)
500
Customer Acquisition Cost (2018)
€100
Team Size (Walls.io) (2018)
11
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Michael Kamleitner during the interview recorded in September 2018 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Walls.io’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Walls.io launched in 2014 and has been bootstrapped since day one
- 02500 paying customers as of September 2018, with 700 to 800 paid walls in use
- 03Year-over-year growth of 60 to 70% in the twelve months to September 2018
- 04Customer acquisition cost is approximately €100, roughly half the average monthly price
- 05Pro plan priced at €200 per month; a free plan was also introduced
- 06Team of 11 people dedicated to Walls.io, all based in Vienna, Austria
- 07Amazon US is a notable logo customer, using the product internally in their offices
- 08Churn is naturally elevated due to the event-based segment of the business
- 09The parent company behind Walls.io and Swat.io is profitable as a bootstrapped business
- 10Michael is weighing splitting the two products out of the parent company; only after a split would venture capital be "at least theoretically thinkable"
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2014 | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Customers (2018) | 500 | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Paid Walls (2018) | 700 to 800 | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Year-Over-Year Growth (2018) | 60% to 70% | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Pro Plan Price (2018) | €200 per month | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Customer Acquisition Cost (2018) | €100 | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Team Size (Walls.io) (2018) | 11 | Interview, Sep 2018 |
| Profitable (Parent Company) (2018) | Yes (bootstrapped) | Interview, Sep 2018 |
Growth Breakdown
Customers
Walls.io had approximately 500 paying customers as of September 2018, with 700 to 800 paid walls deployed. The customer base spans event-based users and a growing segment of permanent, always-on display use cases.
Growth
The company grew 60 to 70% year over year in the twelve months to September 2018. Michael attributed growth primarily to new customer acquisition, with notable momentum coming from the United States.
Team
Walls.io operates with a team of approximately 11 people, all based in the company's Vienna office. The parent company Die Socialisten employs 22 people in total, split roughly evenly between Walls.io and Swat.io.
Profitability and Funding
Walls.io was bootstrapped, and Michael said the company running Walls.io and Swat.io was profitable: "obviously we are profitable as being bootstrapped." He gave no profit figure. He agreed that a VC would not invest in one product while he split his time across both, so a split would have to come first; only then would the "VC route" be "at least theoretically thinkable."
Growth Strategy
Content Marketing
Michael described Walls.io as "a great business to grow through various channels from content marketing to paid acquisition." He did not say how much of the growth came from content marketing.
Paid Acquisition via AdWords
Walls.io uses paid search advertising, with a customer acquisition cost of approximately €100. Michael acknowledged the keyword space is competitive and that paid acquisition alone cannot scale indefinitely.
Expanding Use Cases Beyond Events
The company was moving its focus away from the event-based use case, which carries high natural churn, toward permanent display installations at offices and retail locations. Customers like Amazon US represent this higher-retention segment.
International Expansion
Walls.io started in Austria and German-speaking markets but saw significant growth from the United States in the year leading up to the interview. Michael described this as a key driver of new customer additions.
Free Plan Introduction
Alongside the Pro plan (€200 per month) and the Premium plan (€500 per month), Walls.io had offered a free plan since 2017, the year before the interview. Michael did not say why it was added or how many free users convert to a paid plan.
Best Quotes
“Yeah, it's a pure SaaS play. It's a social media marketing tool. Social media walls is what we are doing with walls.io. 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 lesser ones or nascent ones like, I don't know, Reddit, Flickr, stuff like that.”
“That's a pro plan that's about €200 per month and the premium package is €500 per month. I'm sorry I don't have the dollar price.”
“Well, year over year, the last year we grew about like 60, 70%.”
“Well, I mean, I can't give out any exact numbers, but since we still have a large part of our business being based in the event space, churn naturally is relatively high compared to our other product.”
“I don't see any one of those products failing. Failure for me would be like stagnation and no growth at all. But like I said before, with both products, we're seeing great growth.”
“I can now tell you that the CAC is around €100.”
“We are currently at around seven to eight hundred paid walls as we used to say.”
“I think the customer size is like 500 right now.”
What Happened Next
At the time of this interview in September 2018, Walls.io was a bootstrapped product with about 500 customers and 60 to 70% year-over-year growth, run by a parent company that Michael said was profitable. He was weighing whether to split Walls.io and Swat.io out of the parent company, which he set as the condition before a venture capital route would be "at least theoretically thinkable." Visit the Walls.io company profile on GetLatka for current figures and updates.
View Walls.io’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:01Introduction and Company Overview
- 0:36Choosing Which Company to Focus On
- 0:59What Walls.io Does and How It Makes Money
- 1:44Pricing Plans and Average Customer Value
- 2:11Launch Timeline, Bootstrapping, and Team Size
- 2:35Customer Count and Use Cases
- 3:58Growth Rate Year Over Year
- 4:44Churn and the Event-Based Business Model
- 6:54Running Two Products and Staying Profitable
- 8:28Considering a Split and the Venture Capital Route
- 10:24Customer Acquisition Cost and Paid Channels
- 12:13Why Not Scale Paid Acquisition Further
- 12:50Team Location in Vienna
- 13:32Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Introduction and Company Overview
Nathan Latka
00:01Hello, everyone. Our guest today is Michael Kamleitner. He is the... Founded a parent company called, in 2010 doing agency work and then nascent in a gen... Then nascent social media marketing space. They were the first in Austria to build apps for the Facebook API, which is kind of a unique side. A few years later, they pivoted to SaaS and are now running two successful products in the social media marketing space. Swat.io, an enterprise social media management
00:24tool, and walls.io, a social media hub for all marketing purposes. They're a bootstrapped team of 22 based in Vienna, Austria. Michael, are you ready to take us to the top?
Michael Kamleitner
00:33Totally ready. Hi, Nathan. Hi, everyone. Glad to be here.
Choosing Which Company to Focus On
Nathan Latka
00:36Real quick. So I wanna focus on one of these companies today. Which one's bigger in terms of revenue, Walls or Swat?
Michael Kamleitner
00:42Well, they're basically equal size, but I would suggest to focus on walls.io since it's a much more internationally targeted product and basically it's our most exciting baby right now.
Nathan Latka
00:55Okay, let's do that. So what's the product do and how do you make money? Is it pure play SaaS?
What Walls.io Does and How It Makes Money
Michael Kamleitner
00:59Yeah, it's a pure SaaS play. It's a social media marketing tool. Social media walls is what we are doing with walls.io. 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 lesser ones or nascent ones like, I don't know, Reddit, Flickr, stuff like that. So we pull in content, let users
01:26curate, moderate this content, then provide the content on all types of physical displays, for example, for trade shows, for your venue, 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 website.
Pricing Plans and Average Customer Value
Nathan Latka
01:44And what do people pay for this per month on average?
Michael Kamleitner
01:49Basically, offer two pricing plans. That's a pro plan that's about €200 per month and the premium package is €500 per month. I'm sorry I don't have the dollar price.
Nathan Latka
02:01What's the average euros per month though? What do you take your total customers?
Michael Kamleitner
02:04Well most of the customers are paying the pro plan so that's €200. Oh, and we also are offering a free plan since last year.
Launch Timeline, Bootstrapping, and Team Size
Nathan Latka
02:11Okay, very good. We'll talk more about that here in a second, but but it's... Give me... Put this on a timeline for me. When did you launch the company?
Michael Kamleitner
02:17The product was launched in 2014. So like four years ago.
Nathan Latka
02:21Okay, 2014. And you've bootstrapped today, correct?
Michael Kamleitner
02:24Exactly, yeah, that's right.
Nathan Latka
02:26And what's the team size just on Walls?
Michael Kamleitner
02:29Our whole company is 22 and we are about split half half. So that's about 10, 11 people right now. So that's it, yeah.
Customer Count and Use Cases
Nathan Latka
02:35Okay. And how many customers have you scaled to?
Michael Kamleitner
02:39We are currently at around seven to eight hundred paid walls as we used to say.
Nathan Latka
02:44Okay. So are those customers or sometimes do multiple Walls belong to the same one customer?
Michael Kamleitner
02:49That is sometimes the case. Yeah. I think the customer size is like 500 right now.
Nathan Latka
02:54Okay. 500. 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?
Michael Kamleitner
03:01Yeah. So original core use case really was having a social media wall or a Twitter wall, as it used to be called, at an event, at a trade show. So that was the core use case. 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 store, for example,
03:26at the point of sale to inspire customers walking by and to see what kind of user generated content around their brand is posted. And we also have this use case of hashtag campaigns. 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.
Nathan Latka
03:48And so can I take 500 customers times that $233? That's US. That's €200 price point. You go doing about 100,000 per month in euros?
Michael Kamleitner
03:56That's not too too far off.
Growth Rate Year Over Year
Nathan Latka
03:58Yes. And and what does growth look like? So go back a year from today in September 2017. What were you doing per month then?
Michael Kamleitner
04:04Well, year over year, the last year we grew about like 60, 70%.
Nathan Latka
04:10Okay. That's pretty good. So maybe you were doing about $70,000 a month a year ago, something like that?
Michael Kamleitner
04:16Yeah, you're totally right.
Nathan Latka
04:17And where's the growth come from? Adding new customers or getting more revenue from the same customers?
Michael Kamleitner
04:23That 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 The States actually. So I would say it's mostly new customers.
Nathan Latka
04:42And what's the churn look like today?
Churn and the Event-Based Business Model
Michael Kamleitner
04:44Well, I mean, I can't give out any exact numbers, but since we still have a large part of our business being based in the event space, churn naturally is relatively high compared to our other product, for example, because 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 we or I have to get used
05:09to that we have this natural churn in the event space. So so we... But like I said, I don't give out any specific numbers here, but it is it is significant.
Nathan Latka
05:18Mhmm. We don't have to say your number, but when you say significant, you mean like above 10% logo churn per month?
Michael Kamleitner
05:24Well, that would be about right. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
05:26Okay. In that space. Yeah. And so are you The
Michael Kamleitner
05:28good news, sorry to interrupt you. What the good news is that these customers tend to come back a year later once the conference or the event is repeating.
Nathan Latka
05:35Well then why don't you measure it differently? Mean, so like let's look at the past twelve 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?
Michael Kamleitner
05:48You'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 just didn't have the time to do more segmentation when talking about churn, when talking about growth, because it's really two kinds of businesses mixed into one right now. The event based business is not so much recurring or at least not monthly recurring. But like I said before, we
06:12are of course more interested and more excited about these new use cases, which involve a permanent use of our product, like having a display on your shop or having a display at your office. That is also a use case, by the way. So we have one of our latest showcase or logo customers is like Amazon US. They are using the product internally in their offices to raise awareness for social media content. Obviously we are very much
06:38excited about these use cases because they tend to have the product and the social media display all year long. This is more the typical recurring
Nathan Latka
06:46But the other SaaS company that you're running that's about the same size, its churn is way lower than 10% per month.
Michael Kamleitner
06:51Yeah, yeah. That's quite honestly, it's a very much different business.
Running Two Products and Staying Profitable
Nathan Latka
06:54So why not just double down on that? Why not focus on that?
Michael Kamleitner
06:57Well, it's it's like like... I don't know. Nathan, do you have kids?
Nathan Latka
07:00Yeah. Have... Do not have kids. Lord have mercy. I couldn't I can't keep a sea monkey alive.
Michael Kamleitner
07:04Okay. Me neither. It's probably true about me as well. That's why I'm running two products in one company. Well, what I'm getting at is it's like having two kids and both are super exciting and both are developing in two slightly different paths or ways. But I will be quite honest. Me as a founder, I could never I could never abandon one of my kids, especially since both are doing really fine and are healthy products.
Nathan Latka
07:28But that can be that can be like a really bad thing. The 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?
Michael Kamleitner
07:38Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, as long as we are growing and obviously we are profitable as being bootstrapped, there is no other way to that. I don't see any one of those products failing. Failure for me would be like stagnation and no growth at all. But like I said before, with both products, we're seeing great growth. So both kids are developing just fine.
Nathan Latka
08:00Yeah, but true. The kid analogy is tough because I know many people with lots of kids and they all come out great and fantastic. That's very different with businesses, right? I mean, are people competing with you only focused on destroying one of your businesses. So you're literally fighting a war on two fronts and that's self inflicted. So, so like, I'm just curious, like
08:20if you really care about both of them, why not have a hard conversation with yourself, figure out which one you care about more and go and try and win that space versus doing both?
Considering a Split and the Venture Capital Route
Michael Kamleitner
08:28Yeah. Yeah. To be totally honest, that is a conversation I'm having with myself since quite some time since last year or so. And I think to
08:40really do both products or both kids justice, there is definitely a way to do that. And that would be like to either split up both products from parent company and find a good CEO or some other way to split roles because I totally agree with you.
Nathan Latka
08:56What's the other product do?
Michael Kamleitner
08:58That's a social media management tool. Like Hootsuite? Yeah. Like Hootsuite, but more on the enterprise side of things. So bigger companies, bigger teams using our product, but it's comparable to Hootsuite.
Nathan Latka
09:11And it's doing 1.5 in terms of ARR right now?
Michael Kamleitner
09:13Sorry?
Nathan Latka
09:14It's doing about 1,500,000 in terms of run rate?
Michael Kamleitner
09:16Well, that's about that's about the ballpark.
Nathan Latka
09:18Yeah. So so so if someone offered you $3,000,000 to buy the whole company today, would you sell it?
Michael Kamleitner
09:22No. Not at all. No. No way.
Nathan Latka
09:23Why not? Why do say that so quickly?
09:25Well, well, imagine what you could do in Walls with 3,000,000 in cash, it's non dilutive capital.
Michael Kamleitner
09:31Well, I
09:35see the value of each product way higher, quite honestly. I don't see the need for that. I mean, I see a clear possibility to do this split and then for example, the venture route with one of both products or who knows, maybe with both even. It has to be
Nathan Latka
09:52both because a VC would never give you money in one of them if they know you're splitting your time in this other baby they have no upside in.
Michael Kamleitner
09:57That is absolutely correct. That is what I learned the hard way in the... In in past months or years. I totally agree. But that's why I said the the condition would be, of course, to do the split first, find someone someone capable maybe from inside the team to to to step up in the CEO role for one of both products or find someone from outside and then really have to split and only then you are completely
10:20right. VC route is at least theoretically thinkable.
Customer Acquisition Cost and Paid Channels
Nathan Latka
10:24Okay. Back to Walls. What are you paying to acquire a new customer?
Michael Kamleitner
10:28Well, I can't share that with you honestly because I really don't have the number from top of my mind.
Nathan Latka
10:33Okay.
Michael Kamleitner
10:34What can tell you is that this is a great business to grow through various channels from content marketing to paid acquisition.
Nathan Latka
10:44But how do know it's good to grow on paid if you don't what CAC is?
Michael Kamleitner
10:47Sorry?
Nathan Latka
10:48How do know it's good to grow via paid channels if you don't know what your CAC is?
Michael Kamleitner
10:51Well, I can look up the CAC. I really don't have it from the top of my head. It's obviously way, way, way lower than the lifetime value of a customer.
Nathan Latka
11:00Why is that so obvious to you? If that was obvious to everyone, everyone would be building the same business.
Michael Kamleitner
11:05Okay, well that's why I have my numbers not on top of my mind but I can check them up.
Nathan Latka
11:12I'm just curious, I don't even know 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 CAC is. I'm trying to understand why do you have so much confidence in that channel. Actually social walls is actually a very competitive keyword. The cost per click is very, very high.
Michael Kamleitner
11:27What would you say the click, the cost per click is?
Nathan Latka
11:29It's like, I would say it's in the $5, $6, $7 range.
Michael Kamleitner
11:32Oh, it's even it's even higher to be honest.
Nathan Latka
11:34Yeah. So how do you know that? I mean, you said it with such confidence, but you don't know what the CAC number is. I'm just trying to understand what is guiding that thought.
Michael Kamleitner
11:41Yeah. Well, I can I have browser window open? I can now tell you that the CAC is around €100 so that's about half our average
Nathan Latka
11:55Per month.
Michael Kamleitner
11:55Yeah. Exactly. 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 CAC to CAC to LTV ratio. And that's why I'm pretty comfortable with that.
Why Not Scale Paid Acquisition Further
Nathan Latka
12:13So why not scale that? Why not spend more money on that channel now?
Michael Kamleitner
12:20Well, that's mostly a matter of being bootstrapped, to be honest. Of course, there's always more to do and more to spend. And also, of course, I'm sure you will agree,
12:32paid paid acquisition through AdWords also also at some point hits the ceiling. And we are seeing, like you said, the 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 true.
Team Location in Vienna
Nathan Latka
12:50Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Very good. Let's... Teams as you said was 11. Are you guys in remote locations or are you in one headquarters?
Michael Kamleitner
12:56No. We are pretty old school in that regard and have our whole team based in our Vienna office.
Nathan Latka
13:02In Vienna? Yeah. Very good. Are you going to SaaStock by chance in Dublin?
Michael Kamleitner
13:06Yes. I've seen your post yesterday I even left a comment, we might even meet in person soon.
Nathan Latka
13:12That'll be fun. You can just, you can beep it out to me and say, why were you so mean to me on the interview?
Michael Kamleitner
13:15Right? Well, well, let's see how the last few minutes go.
Nathan Latka
13:19Oh, 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 go, I thought he was really... He's a really nasty person. And then by the end, you're going, my god. He's a teddy bear.
Michael Kamleitner
13:28That's a nice strategy. I have to remember that and try myself.
Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Nathan Latka
13:32All right, Michael, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
Michael Kamleitner
13:37Oh, my favorite one. I will give you the last one I read. That's not a business book per se, but I think business people can get a lot out of it. Arnold Schwarzenegger is my... Coming from the same country as me, from Austria. And it's his biography. It's called Total Recall, the sci fi movie from the eighties, I guess, or night. And that's a really good book with lots of business perspective as well.
Nathan Latka
14:03Good. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?
Michael Kamleitner
14:07I guess there are there... Does anyone really stick out? Well,
14:13do follow David Cancel from Drift actually.
Nathan Latka
14:15Three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business?
Michael Kamleitner
14:20My favorite online tool, Super simple. I'm so in love with Calendly, the scheduling piece of software that allows you to schedule meetings. It's such a time saver.
Nathan Latka
14:30Very good. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Michael Kamleitner
14:35Since I'm getting older, I try to get about eight hours now.
Nathan Latka
14:39That's good. What's your situation? Married, single, kids?
Michael Kamleitner
14:41I'm single without kids.
Nathan Latka
14:43Okay. And how old are you?
Michael Kamleitner
14:45I'm I'm 40.
Nathan Latka
14:4640 years old. Okay. Last question. What do you wish your 20 year old self knew?
Michael Kamleitner
14:51I would just say relax. There's enough time and then don't don't... Take the take the time to learn things and then then and don't and don't hurry too much.
Nathan Latka
15:00Guys, relax. There you have it from Michael. Launched in 2014. Walls, again, really walls, but people like Amazon are using it in their office to track social comments and social behavior. They're bootstrapped right now serving 500 customers doing about a $166,000 per month in revenue. That's about up from, you know, $70,000 about a year ago. So 30, 40, 50% year over year growth. 10% logo churn per month. They're working on bringing that down, willing to spend
15:22up to a $100 to acquire a 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, thanks for taking us to the top.
Michael Kamleitner
15:31Thanks a lot, Nathan, I'm looking forward to to see you to see you in in Dublin soon.
Nathan Latka
15:36Alright. Take care.
Michael Kamleitner
15:37Goodbye.