Workforce Next Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Hey, folks. My guest today is Gaurav Seth. He is building a work from home platform to reduce OpEx and enhance productivity called workforcenext.in, and he's an entrepreneur and people manager working in this area for the past sixteen years trying to solve the problems at their root. Alright. Gaurav, you ready to take us to the top? [00:17] >> Yeah. Hi. [00:19] It's good to have you here. So tell me, give me an example of a customer that's paying for workforcenext. [00:25] >> So basically, India is the country where most of the people offering the services [00:36] >> in order to run any business or in order to make things done. So there are a lot of problems in this sector and there are a lot of hurdles to manage things online or using telephone. So what we do, we made WFM platform to managing those business and specifically for managing the labor or the workforce they are having. So they can manage all the workforce using a single platform [01:12] >> and name is Workforce Next. [01:14] And and what are they paying you on average per month to use the technology? So [01:21] >> that's it. [01:25] >> Yeah. Sorry about that. I think I [01:27] can What's a range? What's a range? Right? So what are customers paying you per month to use the tool? [01:32] >> Okay. So that's a that's a quite nominal charges on the that's the SaaS platform, and we we charge only for 3 to $4 per user per month in order to use that platform. [01:48] And so how when a company signs up, how many how many seats are they paying for usually? [01:53] >> So there are a number of companies and large enterprises are using this platform. I can I can have some names into that, like LG is using our platform and there are some production houses? [02:09] My my question my question is when a company signs up [02:13] >> Yeah. [02:13] What are they paying total per month to use the tool? So I understand that's per user per per seat, but I don't know [02:20] >> how many users signed per month. So so that's a number of user depend it depend on number of user they are [02:25] So how many users do they usually sign up with? [02:28] >> So our target customers are specifically from 30 users. They they are having 30 workforce in their team to 500 workforce in their team. [02:40] Okay. So it's fair to say thirty thirty people at $3 each is about $90 per month. Yeah. Okay. And is that what most of your customers pay today on average $90 per month? [02:53] >> Yeah. Average customer the average size of company we are handling is people are having 90 to 100 employee in their organization. [03:03] Okay. So a 100 employees at $3 per user per month, right, is something it's like $300 per month? [03:09] >> $300 per month. [03:11] I see. Okay. When did you launch the company? What year? [03:14] >> We started product development in 2019, December 2019, and started selling in June 2020, and incorporated the company as a private limited entity in December 2020. [03:33] Okay. And have you bootstrapped the business, or did you decide to raise capital? [03:37] >> Yeah. That's a bootstrapped business. [03:40] I love that. Congratulations. [03:41] >> So that's a quite sustainable, and we are running in that that into the lean mode. So now we are trying to scale that up. So [03:53] we can How many customer? How many customers do you have today? [03:58] >> Right now, we have approximate 50 companies who are using Five zero? Yeah. Five zero customers. [04:05] Okay. And can we do 50 times 300? You're doing about $15,000 per month in revenue? [04:11] >> Yeah. [04:13] Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with SaaS founders, but imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually. Saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this. We've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second, but you log in, you connect [04:36] your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time. You can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founderpath dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna [05:00] get a different valuation. A VC is gonna pay a different valuation, private equity firm is different. If you're gonna do a minority sale, that's different. And if you sell the whole business, that's a different valuation. You can see all those when I hover over here. Right? So the teal is what a VC would pay. Yellow is what private equity and red is if you sold the whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is [05:22] not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founders share with us on the show. So traction 1,200,000 seed round 3.7 raise. They sold 22% of their business. Go in here and filter by the event. Maybe you only wanna see companies that have sold the whole business. Well, here are a bunch that have been acquired the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're [05:48] going out right now and you're raising your seed round. We'll go in here and look at all this recent seed deals that went down, what they raised, what valuation they raised at and what percent that they sold. There's never been a larger dataset of SaaS valuations than what you can get now inside of Founderpath. And we're thrilled to bring it to you. Alright. We're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but if [06:10] you wanna check this tool out, if you wanna jump in and sign up, you can check it out for free to get your valuation at this link. This link, founderpath.com/products/valuations. Or if you go to founderpath.com and hover over products, click on get your valuation here, and go ahead and sign up to give it a whirl. Again, all that valuation data live right inside the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into the [06:36] interview. That's great. And where were you exactly a year ago if you're doing 15 per month now? [06:43] >> So in this in this financial year, we are expecting to double it down. So approximately, we will have a 100 customer in this financial year. [06:52] So, Gaurav, this month, you're doing 15,000 a month in revenue. How much revenue did you do did you do last year in May? [07:01] >> Last year, that was we are scaling that up. I mean, we are having the customer on the twice rate of every year. I mean, for example, if we have [07:15] No, Gaurav, sorry, I think this is getting too complex. I'm just asking you, what was your revenue in one month, May of last year? [07:23] >> May of May. [07:26] One year ago? [07:27] >> Yeah. The the half of that. You can say approximate 2,000 to 2,500 USD. [07:36] $2,000 to $2,500? [07:37] >> Yeah. $2,000, $2,500. [07:40] So you grew from 2,500 a month in revenue to $15,000 a month today? [07:45] >> Yeah. [07:46] That's great. Congratulations on the growth. [07:48] >> Yeah. Thanks. [07:49] And so how are you getting you have 50 customers. How are you getting these customers? [07:53] >> So most of the customers are coming [07:58] >> either from advertisement or we are some of the larger enterprises. We are out teaching them. [08:06] How much do you spend on ads each month? [08:11] >> I didn't have an exact figure right now. So sorry about range? Yeah. [08:18] >> Approximate, if I can tell you Indian rupees, will that work? [08:23] Sure. [08:25] >> Okay. So approximate, we are spending approximate 1 to 2 lakh rupees per month on reaching the the those people. [08:33] 2,000,000 rupees per month? [08:36] >> No. Not 2,000,000 rupees. That's a 2 lakh is sort of 200,000 rupees. 200,000. [08:47] 200,000 rupees? Yeah. Okay. Got it. So 200,000 rupees. You're spending like 2,000 or 3,000 United States dollars per month on ads? Yeah. [08:54] >> Yeah. [08:55] And where are you spending that money? [08:57] >> LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, somewhere else? [09:00] >> Most most of the time, the money is spending on either on Google or LinkedIn and some some time on the outreach the outreaching them people. [09:10] Mhmm. [09:10] >> So we we we have the team of people who outreach the enterprise and chase them over the call, over the email marketing, so on that thing. [09:21] And, Gaurav, how many folks are on your team today? [09:24] >> Right now, we have four people in our team for the sales only. [09:29] Are you the well, how many how many total on the team? [09:33] >> Total number of people we have right now, 10 to 11 people. [09:38] Okay. How many engineers? [09:40] >> There are four engineers. [09:42] Four. And are you the only co founder? [09:44] >> Yeah. I have a co founder. That's the CTO of our company. I mean, the main technical guy. So he take care of everything. [09:52] So did you guys just split equity fifty-fifty at the start? [09:57] >> Yeah, sort of. But till that, we didn't raise any kind of funding, so we didn't split the equity as of now. But as soon we'll raise some fund or we will try to raise some fund, then we will decide that how many equity he will have and how many equity I will have. [10:15] My question is when you started, how did you split the equity? [10:21] >> As soon we'll start raising the fund. So we'll start it. [10:26] Right now, Gaurav, if you sold the company, how what percent of the money do you get? [10:32] >> If I sold the company [10:35] How much equity do you current how much equity do you currently own in the business? [10:40] >> Right right now, I have 100% of equity. [10:42] So okay. So that's my question. How did you motivate a technical co founder to join you, a startup very risky and to get no equity? [10:50] >> Yeah. So, my thing is that we didn't split the equity as company didn't have any work initially. Right? So, yeah, but we have the equal salary model. So whatever we are earning, are splitting that in equal amount. [11:08] So you own 100% equity, but you're splitting profits fifty fifty? [11:12] >> Yeah. [11:13] I see. Does your co founder make any fixed salary or no? He's just doing profit sharing with you? [11:18] >> He he he is having fixed salary as well. [11:21] Okay. I see. Got it. So he didn't take any equity because you gave him a fixed salary, and then he also gets 50% of profits. [11:27] >> But but we we have plan. I mean, I have particular plan that as soon we'll start raising the fund, I will offer him some equity as well. [11:36] I see. See. [11:36] >> We are doing some good things. [11:38] That makes sense. Okay. Tell me more about the product. What are you building next? Where do you see sort of workforce management going? [11:45] >> So thing is the field employees to manage the field employee and forecasting them and how many people we have to put in campus staff. So these kind of problems every day any specific industry are facing in India specifically. So they are quite hard to manage this things or they are not even digitalized these processes as of now. So we are trying to digitalize those things. [12:16] And are you profitable today? [12:18] >> Yeah. [12:19] How much? [12:22] >> So [12:25] >> in in term of profit, our profit, [12:29] >> right Well, [12:30] >> yeah, it's in this is you're the interview. [12:32] No. Who else is profit? [12:34] >> No. No. No. I I I thought you are asking for if if they are having some profit or if that tool is giving some profit to them as well. I mean, if I thought you are asking for ROI. [12:48] No, Gaurav. I just I just wanna know the answer to the question. Are you guys you're profitable. How much? [12:54] >> Yeah. Approximately, we have 70% profit in our total income. [13:00] Okay. So of 15,000 top line, you're you're taking about 10,000 in profit per month? [13:07] >> Yeah. [13:08] So you're able to pay a team of 10 people using just $5,000 per month? [13:14] >> Yes. Sort of. [13:16] What do mean sort of? [13:23] >> See, nothing. Sorry about that. But, yeah, I I I don't have exact figure in my mind right now. [13:29] That's fine. A range is fine, but you just told me 15,000 of monthly revenue and 10,000 of profits mean you only spend $5,000 a month, and you told me there's a team of 10. [13:40] >> Yeah. So here in India, the cost is quite low, nominal. So we we are managing into that thing. [13:49] I see. I see. Okay. That makes sense. And then talk to me about churn. Are you seeing customers churn? And if so, what percent? [13:57] >> So we have quite low churn rate right now. So since we started, we have one or two customer only drop. [14:06] Oh, that's great. Congratulations. Sounds very sticky. [14:08] >> Yeah. Thanks. [14:09] Alright, Gaurav. We're rooting for you, man. In the meantime, though, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book? [14:18] >> I I I didn't read much of books, so I cannot. [14:22] We'll skip it. [14:23] >> Number two, is there a founder you're following or studying? [14:28] >> The founder, I'm follow mainly the Vijay Shekhar Sharma from Paytm. [14:35] Paytm CEO? [14:37] >> Yeah. The Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma. [14:39] Number three. What's your favorite online tool for building workforce? [14:47] >> My favorite online tool. I generally most of the time I use Adobe XD to create some graphics or some more [14:55] What is it again? Sorry? What's the tool? [15:00] >> Tool is Adobe XD. [15:02] Adobe XD? [15:03] >> Yeah. Adobe XD. [15:05] Alright. Number four. How many hours of sleep do get every night? [15:09] >> Sorry. I didn't get the question. [15:10] How much sleep hours? [15:13] >> Yeah. Sleep hours. I generally take six six hours in sleep. [15:17] And what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids? [15:20] >> Yeah. I'm I'm I'm married. I'm married. [15:23] Any kids? [15:24] >> Yeah. I have two kids. And luckily, when I started the company, I got a new I got a kid at the time. [15:33] All right, two kids and a startup. And how old are you? [15:36] >> I'm 40. [15:37] >> 40. Last question, Gaurav. [15:40] What is something you wish you knew when you were 20 years old? [15:47] >> When I was 20 years old, right? [15:51] Yes. Something you wish you knew. [15:53] >> Yeah. [15:59] >> Maybe business [16:03] >> psychology or the people management things I know at that time. I wish I know at that time, so maybe I could do a lot of difference. [16:15] Guys, employee time tracking tool and workforce management tool, workforcenext.in, just broke $15,000 a month in revenue, up from 2,500 just a year ago. Team of 10, Gaurav launched it back in 2019. Totally bootstrapped today. Four engineers, four sales reps as they look to scale. They've only lost two customers, currently serving 50 customers that pay on average $300 per month. That that's $3 per user per month or per seat. Alright, Gaurav. Thanks for taking us to [16:42] the top. [16:43] >> Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Nathan. Thanks for the time. [16:48] One 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 one [17:12] p. M. Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at two p. M. 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 [17:34] an acquisition, a big fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you want to 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 [17:56] are saying. Sign up for 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 and 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 [18:15] counter those people. We got to 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.