Founder Interview
How Wrky.ai Reached 50 Customers and a $30K Run Rate with a 6-Person Team (Interview with CEO Dheeraj Mehndiratta)
- Interview Date
- November 1, 2022
- Interviewee
- Dheeraj MehndirattaCo-Founder and CEO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Annual Run Rate (November 2022)
$30K
Customers (2022)
50
ARPU (per month, 2022)
$50
Team Size (2022)
6
Pre-Seed Raised (2022)
$150K
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Dheeraj Mehndiratta during his interview with Nathan Latka in November 2022 and reflect a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Wrky.ai’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Wrky.ai launched in 2021 and began billing customers in October 2022
- 0250 companies were paying an average of $50 per month at interview time
- 0316 additional companies were on free trials at the time of the interview
- 04The company raised a $150,000 pre-seed round from angels in India and the US, selling under 10% equity
- 05Dheeraj and his co-founder invested approximately $20,000 to $25,000 of their own savings to build the MVP
- 06The team consisted of 6 people with plans to hire 3 more within two months
- 07Net burn was between $10,000 and $15,000 per month at interview time
- 08The company targeted SMBs with 30 to 100 employees for OKR and performance management
- 09Dheeraj and his co-founder ultimately settled on a 50/50 equity split
- 10The company was founded on the principle of building from first principles without prior industry experience
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Run Rate (November 2022) | $30K | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Customers (2022) | 50 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| ARPU (per month, 2022) | $50 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Free Trial Customers (2022) | 16 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Team Size (2022) | 6 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Pre-Seed Round (2022) | $150K | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Equity Sold in Pre-Seed (2022) | Under 10% | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Founder Personal Investment (2022) | $20,000 to $25,000 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Net Burn (per month, 2022) | $15,000 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Year Founded | 2021 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
| Pricing Range (per month, 2022) | $50 to $99 | Founder interview, Nov 2022 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Wrky.ai began billing customers in October 2022 after spending roughly six months running free trials to validate product-market fit. At interview time the company had reached $30K in annual revenue, with 50 customers each paying an average of $50 per month.
Customers
The company was serving 50 paying companies, all SMBs in the 30 to 100 employee range, alongside 16 companies still on free trials. Dheeraj noted the team spent the first three months of each customer relationship in a discovery phase to help clients understand whether OKRs would deliver ROI.
Team
Wrky.ai had a team of 6 at interview time, built deliberately lean. Dheeraj planned to add 3 more people within two months but stated the team would stay small until the company reached 100 paying customers.
Funding and Cash Flow
The company raised a $150,000 pre-seed round in early 2022 from angels in India and the US, selling under 10% equity. Prior to that raise, Dheeraj and his co-founder invested approximately $20,000 to $25,000 of their own savings to build the MVP. Net burn at interview time was between $10,000 and $15,000 per month.
Growth Strategy
Free Trial to Paid Conversion
Wrky.ai onboarded new customers with a one-quarter free trial, allowing them to run OKRs for a single department. The goal was to demonstrate ROI before asking for payment, which Dheeraj credited with building trust and increasing the likelihood of multi-year retention.
Focus on SMBs First
The team initially built a competency framework product aimed at enterprise customers, but pivoted after recognizing they were not yet equipped to serve that segment. Concentrating on 30 to 100 person companies allowed them to move faster and learn more quickly.
First-Principles Product Development
Dheeraj described spending the first year studying the industry from scratch, identifying that founders and small business owners most needed help with company focus and key talent retention. This research-first approach shaped the OKR and performance management product they ultimately built.
Lean Team and Capital Discipline
By keeping the team at 6 people and targeting 100 customers before scaling headcount, Wrky.ai aimed to extend runway and reach a stronger revenue base before adding costs. Dheeraj expressed confidence that revenue growth would offset the monthly burn before the pre-seed capital ran out.
Sell First, Build Later
Dheeraj's closing advice captured his core go-to-market philosophy: sell first and worry about a polished product or website later. This mindset drove the company to prioritize customer validation over engineering completeness in its early months.
Best Quotes
“Wrky is helping companies to achieve their north star. It's all about people performance and potential. We are working with SMBs to help them with their goal tracking and performance management.”
“We started with the nominal pricing, a bundled pricing of between 50 to $99 per month because we thought that with the first 100 customers, spend we'll understanding what pricing strategy is, something which works for us, which works for the people, especially for the ones who are starting their journey with us.”
“So we are currently working with 50 companies. And, so we spent actually six months working a competency framework product, which we thought is more for an enterprise scale customer, and we are not ready to serve the enterprise scale customer as of now.”
“So we raised in the beginning of this year around March, we raised an undisclosed round from a couple of angels from India and US. So this enabled us to build the POC and onboard these customers.”
“Our round was pretty small. It was up to 150,000 US dollars.”
“Our burn is somewhere around 10 to $15,000 every month.”
“Build I mean, sell first and think about building a beautiful product or dark themed website later.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured Wrky.ai at a very early stage in November 2022, just weeks after the company began charging its first customers. At that point the business had 50 paying customers, a $30K annual run rate, and roughly 12 to 14 months of runway from its $150K pre-seed round. The figures here are a historical snapshot from that conversation and will not reflect where the company stands today. Visit the Wrky.ai profile on GetLatka for the most current available data.
View Wrky.ai’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Company Overview
- 0:46What Wrky.ai Does and Who It Serves
- 1:21Pricing Strategy and ARPU
- 1:55Company Launch and Founding Story
- 2:53Customer Count and Market Focus
- 6:52Free Trial Customers and Activation
- 8:08Fundraising History and Pre-Seed Round
- 9:19Founder Personal Investment and Equity Split
- 11:13Team Size and Hiring Plans
- 11:44Burn Rate and Runway
- 13:12Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
- 14:08Closing Advice: Sell First
Introduction and Company Overview
Nathan Latka
00:00Wrky.ai helps you set your OKRs. They've got 50 customers paying $50 a month right now for $2,500 a month in revenue. They did a $150,000 pre seed round. They sold under 10% there. Now using that money to scale, net burn per month is about $15,000. They've got a team of six looking to move their 16 free trialing customers into paid plans as they look again to continue to scale. Sure. Hey, folks.
00:24My guest today is DJ. He's the founder and CEO of wrky.ai, spelled w r k y dot a I. He started his career as a financial analyst, built two startups previously in ed tech and health care, managed investments with an angel network, and then built a community of 15,000 student developers during the pandemic to help students and startups with internships and trainings. DJ, you ready to take us to the top?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
00:44>> Yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Nathan.
What Wrky.ai Does and Who It Serves
Nathan Latka
00:46So what is Wrky? Tell me about a customer who's using you and how they use you.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
00:51>> Sure. Wrky is helping companies to achieve their north star. It's all about people performance and potential. We are working with SMBs to help them with their goal tracking and performance management. So we we are helping small businesses, especially the IT first businesses and startups. They are using to keep a track of their goals and starting their goal tracking journey with us.
Nathan Latka
01:14I love this. Okay. So companies like Pandora, First Sight pay you. What are companies paying you on average per month to use Wrky?
Pricing Strategy and ARPU
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
01:21>> So we started with the nominal pricing, a bundled pricing of between 50 to $99 per month because we thought that with the first 100 customers, spend we'll understanding what pricing strategy is, something which works for us, which works for the people, especially for the ones who are starting their journey with us. Of course, goals and performance journey who are starting on our platform. So it's a new experience for them as well. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
01:48So so the average customer today pays you about $50 per month. Is that right?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
01:53>> Yes. Yes.
Company Launch and Founding Story
Nathan Latka
01:55Okay. And give me the backstory. When did you launch the company? What year?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
02:00>> So it's been it's been around a year. So we started with one principle in mind that we'll build this product on first principle basis. Since we are not from this industry from past I mean, we are not from someone who has experienced in five years, ten years, we just spent last year understanding and learning about this industry. And we found out the problems that founders and small business owners face, right, the two things which are really
02:26>> important for them, their focus as a company and their key talent. What what are they doing to keep a track on these two things, right, if we keep the market a considerable market market conditions or capital aside. So key talent and focus of a company. This is where we are targeting and helping these companies.
Nathan Latka
02:44So, DJ, I think we're totally understand the products. I appreciate that. You launched one year ago in 2021. Fast forward to today, how many customers are you serving?
Customer Count and Market Focus
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
02:53>> So we are currently working with 50 companies. And, so we spent actually six months working a competency framework product, which we thought is more for an enterprise scale customer, and we are not ready to serve the enterprise scale customer as of now. That is something we see in the year three. So we started with our learnings from the small sized companies. Like I said, 30 to 100 people sized companies are the ones with whom we have
03:22>> started, and we are working really well with them.
Nathan Latka
03:25So, Dheeraj, today you have 50 customers paying $50 a month, which is about $2,500 per month in revenue. Is that right?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
03:32>> Absolutely. Absolutely.
Nathan Latka
03:34And how much revenue were you doing exactly one year ago?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
03:38>> So initially, we were doing the free trials in order to understand the market or to understand the customers. I think that was the learning which made us realize that tapping the enterprise market is something which is not good for us at this point. So we were mostly on the free trials. When we started building the OKR and performance management for small businesses, we gave them, on a free trial for a quarter and in second trial, we
04:06>> started billing them. So that is approximately six months we are working with these companies. And from October, we have started billing them. So I I I must say this is a pretty interesting quarter. We have started.
Nathan Latka
04:17DJ, sorry. My original question was how much revenue were you doing exactly one year ago? The answer is zero because you just launched pricing a couple months ago.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
04:26>> Yes. Yes. Okay.
Nathan Latka
04:28Oh, 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
04:52your 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
05:16get 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
05:38not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founder 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
06:04going 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. All right, we're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second. But
06:25if 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
Free Trial Customers and Activation
Nathan Latka
06:52the interview. How many folks right now are on the free trial?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
06:57>> So, currently, 16 companies are on the free trial.
Nathan Latka
07:01One six or six zero?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
07:04>> Sixteen is one six. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
07:06Okay. And how what do you know what do you try and get them to do in the free trial to activate them to increase the likelihood they start paying?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
07:14>> So, basically, in this time, they are understanding how the OKRs work, whether this really works for them or not. This is their more of a discovery journey where we are
Nathan Latka
07:24But, Dheeraj, what does that mean? What do you need them to do in the free trial? Is it set up 10 OKRs? Is it send five emails? Is it add four team members? What do they need to do so that they're more likely to pay?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
07:35>> Sure. So in the free trial, we allowed them to add a one function or one department from their organization and run the OKRs for a quarter where we help them in understanding whether this is going to work for them in a long run. So we are we are basically playing in their favor. They must realize whether this thing is paying, is bringing an ROI to their organization, and then they are likely to stay with us for
08:00>> the next couple of years where we believe three to five years we are going to be deeply embedded into their organization. That's why we spent first three months in the discovery.
Fundraising History and Pre-Seed Round
Nathan Latka
08:08And have you bootstrapped this business, or did you say to raise capital?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
08:12>> We have raised capital. When
Nathan Latka
08:14did you raise and how much?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
08:17>> So we raised in the beginning of this year around March, we raised an undisclosed round from a couple of angels from India and US. So this enabled us to build the POC and onboard these customers. Mhmm.
Nathan Latka
08:32When you say angel round, I mean, most angel are under a million bucks. Is was your round under a million?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
08:38>> No. No. No. Our round was pretty small. It was up to 150,000 US dollars.
Nathan Latka
08:45Okay. So you did an angel round earlier this year for a $150,000. Now most founders are selling between 10 and 20% of their business in their pre seed round. Did you sell about 20% of the business?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
08:56>> No. No. No. No. This is this is less than 10%.
Nathan Latka
09:01Okay. And why did you need the capital? What what I mean, what makes this expensive to build?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
09:08>> I mean, we made I mean, we we we made our tries in building that competency framework of a product where we spend the capital that initially initial money that we have invested.
Founder Personal Investment and Equity Split
Nathan Latka
09:19And How much did you put in?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
09:22>> So we put somewhere around $20,000 to $25,000, me and my cofounder.
Nathan Latka
09:28Was that did that make you nervous? Was that, like, all of your savings or what?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
09:32>> Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. All of us savings.
Nathan Latka
09:35This work then. Otherwise, you're bankrupt.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
09:38>> Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, actually, we have came out of the, you know, that bankruptcy thing and
Nathan Latka
09:45Okay. So so you and your you and your cofounder put in together $25,000. That that enabled you to build an MVP, then raised a 150,000 from angels to keep growing. Did you and your cofounder split equity at the beginning? You just do $50.50?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
09:59>> So, basically, I was holding 55, and he was holding 45%. But as he moved ahead, we realized that how on what functions he is performing, on what functions I am performing, what is our contribution. So we reached a point where we split made the split equal.
Nathan Latka
10:20Interesting. That's very nice of you.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
10:24>> Yeah.
Nathan Latka
10:25Was that hard?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
10:27>> No. No. It wasn't. I mean, we were pretty, you know, sorted on this thing from day one that this is something we are not able to decide as of now. So we'll keep this 10% aside, and we'll we'll see what we'll what are we are going to do with this.
Nathan Latka
10:43Yeah. That's a very smart job, guys. Just for everyone listening that is a startup founder, I'm seeing this happen a ton where if you're trying to find a cofounder, just take 80%, split it forty forty. Right? And then wait a year to allocate the other 10 or 20%. Right? Because then you actually have a year of performance on your belt, and you see who's doing what.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
11:01>> Dheeraj would agree.
Nathan Latka
11:03Yeah.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
11:04>> Yeah. Absolutely. I do agree. This keeps the things pretty sorted, and you don't get to see any mess in the future. So you start with you and your cofounder.
Team Size and Hiring Plans
Nathan Latka
11:13What have you scaled to today in terms of total team members?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
11:17>> So we are a team of six people, and now we are planning to hire three more folks in next two months.
Nathan Latka
11:26That's a lot. Paying six people with $2,500 a month in revenue means you're burning money.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
11:33>> Yes. We are. But we want to keep that team pretty lean till the time we reach 100 customers, and then we will think of, you know, scaling the team.
Burn Rate and Runway
Nathan Latka
11:44But, DJ, you're burning, it sounds like something like 20,000 in net burn per month right now. Right?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
11:49>> Absolutely. Absolutely. We do.
Nathan Latka
11:53No. Is is that true? You're burning about $20,000 of capital per month right now, net burn?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
11:59>> No. Our burn is somewhere around 10 to $15,000 every month. And
Nathan Latka
12:04Does that make you nervous?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
12:07>> No. No. Because we believe that we'll be able to, you know, compensate this thing that we are burning now by the revenues or the growth that we will bring in the coming months. And we are pretty sure of that. And we have also thought of the if the market conditions are not favorable in the near future, saying everybody is saying the recession is coming in. Early signs of recessions are already there. So we believe we are
12:30>> pretty much confident on that.
Nathan Latka
12:33But, I mean, if you're if you're burning right now $15,000 per month in net burn and your pre seed round was a 150 k, you've already spent some of the 150 k, but that means you have under ten months of runway. Right?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
12:45>> So we initially, our burn was less. So this the burn, the 10 to $15,000 burn has reached in past two months. So, I mean, twelve to fourteen months is somewhat that we see from the fundraise that that we have.
Nathan Latka
12:59I see.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:00>> But the revenue pipeline seems pretty strong. Even if the funding round is not happening in the next couple of months, we see that we can survive with the strong revenues.
Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Nathan Latka
13:12Very good. Well, we're certainly rooting for you. In the meantime, though, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book, DJ?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:20>> Zero to One by Peter Thiel.
Nathan Latka
13:23Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:28>> It's. It's CEO of Zita.
13:34>> CEO of Zita.
Nathan Latka
13:35Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Worky?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:41>> Notion.
Nathan Latka
13:42Number three four. How much sleep do get each night?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:49>> Four to five hours.
Nathan Latka
13:51Okay. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:54>> Single.
Nathan Latka
13:55Alright. No kids.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
13:57>> And how old are you?
14:00>> I'm 29.
14:02>> 29.
Nathan Latka
14:03Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.
Closing Advice: Sell First
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
14:08>> Build I mean, sell first and think about building a beautiful product or dark themed website later.
Nathan Latka
14:15Guys, there you have it. Wrky.ai helps you set your OKRs. They've got 50 customers paying $50 a month right now for $2,500 a month in revenue. They did a $150,000 pre seed round. They sold under 10% there. Now using that money to scale, net burn per month is about $15,000. They've got a team of six looking to move their 16 free trialing customers into paid plans as they look again to continue
14:38to scale. Alright, Dheeraj. Thanks for taking us to the top.
Dheeraj Mehndiratta
14:41>> Thank you, Nathan, for having me.
Nathan Latka
14:43One 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
15:08p. 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
15:29an acquisition, a big fundraise, 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
15:51are 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. 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
16:11counter 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.