How FieldFlō Reached $6.5M Revenue and 470 Customers by Dominating the Abatement and Demolition Niche (Interview with Co-Founder and CEO Roni Szigeti)

Introduction to Roni Szigeti and FieldFlō

Nathan Latka

0:01Hey folks, my guest today is Roni Szigeti. He's the co-founder and CEO Building Out Field Flow. He's building it out of first hand experience in the abatement and demolition industry. Co-founded it with his partner Brittany SCOO. They've scaled, launched in twenty sixteen, scaled since. And we'll jump into the full story today. Rony, you ready to take us to the top?

Roni Szigeti

0:20I am, you bet. Thanks for having me on.

Background in Abatement and Demolition Industry

Nathan Latka

0:22All right. So so take us back to day one. I mean, were you working in demolition and abatement before you quit and launched and got into software?

Roni Szigeti

0:29I was. Yeah, I'd had for about a ten, twelve year stint in ⁓ abatement demo game working from the largest in the world to small, mid sized companies before ⁓ jumping into a SaaS founder, which was quite the experience.

Nathan Latka

0:44In the age of AI, there's a ton of like folks actually working in an industry. And the argument is if you know your industry better than anyone else, you'll build the better AI software. So you're ahead of your time. Which one of these was you cutting your teeth, actually doing demos, abatements, asbestos, et cetera?

Roni Szigeti

0:58Yeah, yeah, so Orion, C E S, L V I, which is now North Star. Yep, so those minute Yep.

Nathan Latka

1:04Yep. Okay. So what that was many years. Okay. And then you took a stint here, it looks like between twenty eleven and twenty sixteen. Was this sort of a side thing here?

Grad School, Huami, and the Path to Founding FieldFlō

Roni Szigeti

1:15It was, yeah. I went to grad school. I got I I got out of the business, went to get my master's in international business, ⁓ and that was my thesis for global enterprise management and founded this thing called Huami, which turns out master I was a little ahead of my time, it tur it was really the idea was master class. If you you've ever seen what master class was, that was my idea about four years earlier.

Nathan Latka

1:39Very interesting. Okay. So people are listening right now going, How does this someone in asbestos teach himself to code to get the the MVP launch? So how did you get the MVP launch in twenty sixteen?

Roni Szigeti

1:49Yeah, so I'm not that smart. ⁓ I I actually was very lucky in the fact that ⁓ two ⁓ of my really good friends were building out their s their own software. ⁓ and I, you know, being the ⁓ the demolition abatement guy ⁓ drew my idea down on pieces of paper. And I said, Hey, can you guys build this? And they're like, Yeah, we c we could build it. And literally, if you would have seen my wire like my wireframe l drawn on pieces of paper with buttons, like button here, handed it off to them, and then they created it in about ⁓ two, three months. I mean we're talking version negative thirty-two. ⁓ but I rolled that V thirty two negative thirty-two out to the field and it changed the game.

Building the MVP on Paper Wireframes in 2016

Nathan Latka

2:34And what did are these three co founders? You guys just split it thirty three, thirty three, thirty three at the start or what?

Roni Szigeti

2:40Yeah, kind of. ⁓ I mean it was to a certain extent, but we we we chipped away at it at different things and we got a little startup money from some of our buddies and then went went out from there. But we were the working co founders, yeah.

Nathan Latka

2:55Okay, so three of you or two of you?

Roni Szigeti

2:57Three of yeah, Angelico, Ryan and I. Yep.

Nathan Latka

2:59Okay, there you go. And here's a here's a throwback. Seven years ago, was this your first trade booth ever?

Roni Szigeti

3:05It is. Yeah, look at that thing. Man.

Nathan Latka

3:08So you can sort of see what the product was back there. It says a one-of-a-kind software platform developed specifically for asbestos abatement environmentally and demolition environmental and demolition contractors. So you were hyper focused on a very specific niche with a very specific software. What was the number one product those early users were using you for? And how did you get your first a hundred customers?

Roni Szigeti

3:27⁓ pen and paper is our is is and still continues to be our biggest competitor. spreadsheets. ⁓ but pen and paper out in the field is is really ⁓

Nathan Latka

3:42Ronnie, we lost your audio completely. It's like your mic disconnected or something.

Roni Szigeti

3:49It's like your mic disconnected or something. No way. Can you hear me? No. What didn't I

Nathan Latka

3:52Now I can hear you. Yeah, so pen it pen and I don't know. ⁓ it's it's no worries, but pen and paper was your biggest thing. ⁓ walk us through those first hundred customers. What was your go to market strategy?

Roni Szigeti

4:05⁓ purely ⁓ friends of the industry and w and referral and word of mouth. And actually that was the strategy. I mean, I don't know if it was necessarily strategy as much as it was a demolition guy crowing a SAS company like a construction company where I didn't add to anything until I had the dollars to add. ⁓ so strategy was really just going to friends and then getting referrals and that got us to about the the first two hundred and fifty clients.

Nathan Latka

4:32Why and what were you charging back then? People changed price points all the time. What was your starting?

Roni Szigeti

4:37⁓ it was about fifty bucks a user. ⁓ there was no sophistication whatsoever. It was more on like I you know, well, the y we did try to do an ROI analysis and back into that we did kind of somewhat there was no competition in this world, but there was other kind of s you know construction software. So ⁓ honestly there was no sophistication. ⁓ it was a demolition guy running a so a software company and was just saying, Hey, this works good, and people were buying it.

Nathan Latka

5:04That's great. So fast forward to today, what's the average logo paying you per month, would you estimate?

First 250 Customers Through Referral and Word of Mouth

Roni Szigeti

5:11⁓ yeah, it it ranges, right? We have startup packages ⁓ that can go down to five hundred and we can go all the way up. I mean we have enterprise clients paying us ⁓ a good amount of money. So it it ranges there. i we do an all in one mo in with somewhat of a la carte for some premium packages that can go range from, you know, forty bucks a user all the way up to ninety depending on what what type of products they're using. So

Nathan Latka

5:37Just so I can focus the story though, if I forced you into an average, it sounds like your cheap your lowest price plan is five hundred bucks a month, then you have some folks that pay you way more. Do you have any million dollar per year customers at this point or no?

Roni Szigeti

5:49⁓ yeah.

Nathan Latka

5:52You you hesitate a little bit. How did that feel to land that first million dollar account?

Roni Szigeti

5:56⁓ g amazing. Yeah. I mean it was you know what's cool though is that the pro the value that we provide to that million dollar account is like you they're probably ten X ⁓ at least on on the value that we bring to them. So it's it was unbelievable to think that we created something that just can touch that many people and those types of clients. ⁓ at you know, me founding this thing I had no grand idea of this becoming what it has. But the coolest part is is that there is that value there, that we built something that, you know, a company would pay a million dollars for and then realize that they just save themselves ten million at minimum in in savings, real tangible dollar savings and then also s time savings.

Nathan Latka

6:42I mean, take us actually in the weeds there, use industry specific terms. My audience has no idea what this world is like. So when you say savings, is it they're replacing headcount because they're automating contracting for asbestos removal? I mean, give us some real examples. What's that account use you for?

Early Pricing at $50 Per User and No Competition

Roni Szigeti

6:57Yeah, there's a lot of different so one of the biggest ones is there's a huge safety component. When it we're talking about this niche vertical, there's huge regulatory safety and compliance. And so where we have v theoretically and in some cases got them out of some serious harmful ⁓ safety issues because of the safety components baked into field flow, the savings there are, you know, two to three million dollars set aside. So one of our clients, for example, Yeah, there was an issue where an employee said they got hurt said it was been four months, that was a million, it was a two million dollar set aside. We were able to pull, we got subpoenaed for our metadata. Field flow was able to pull seventy-four times where this individual signed off that they showed up to work injury free, went home injury free, signed off on the jobs job site s it's job hazard analysis, which is like their pre-job safety planning, that they were not supposed to be doing what they claimed they were doing. That person and their attorneys walked away. Zero dollars paid on that. So we're talking like the tangible value there is is incredible. That's one example. The other piece of it is the actual process where we have like overpay overtime paid out because they can't track it in real time. Now where they can track it in real time and they can sit people, send them home early, or nor where they're at, or be able to control those. It's about an eighty thousand dollars a year, even for the smallest company. ⁓ and so that company that I'm telling you that has millions, they have multiple companies, multiple offices. So you do that 80,000 times 20, 30 offices, the return on investment is ⁓ exponential. So those are just I mean, even the time value of like, let's say your supervisors have to go to the job site and have to constantly go back to the office to get their paperwork, their job books. So in this industry, you get job books and you get all these paper pieces of paper. You have to go back and forth. It's not like they have printers sitting on job sites or in their cars most of

Current Pricing, ARPU, and the $1M Enterprise Account

Nathan Latka

8:32Interesting.

Roni Szigeti

8:49them do not. So the time savings that we in the case studies that we've done is that they're spending on average per supervisory reforeman five to ten hours and just like having to drive back and forth just to go get pieces of paper. It's insane. So like all of those just keep adding up and adding up. And so if you're looking at each one of these offices and so one like some of our biggest clients have one of our biggest clients has 150 160 offices do that

Nathan Latka

9:15How many people on that account? How many seats? Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?

Roni Szigeti

9:19Tens of I'm there's on on the largest account you have about fifteen hundred. Something like that. So yeah, you do that ⁓ t times each one of them, one hundred and twenty thousand times that many offices, there's your there's your savings.

Nathan Latka

9:37How many times life to date have you sub peanut?

Roni Szigeti

9:42three.

Nathan Latka

9:43Okay. So my audience might hear that and go, Well, that's a good use case, but it's not it's not your biggest use case 'cause that doesn't seem like a big number to me. But ⁓ the reason I'm asking this question, there's people that sell software that's that's you know, you hear about the vitamin, right? Versus so you're selling preventative stuff versus you're selling software that reacts to something else. And s many people would argue the vitamin is a hard sale, but if you can help them go, listen, buy our software and it saves you from five million in lawsuits, that's powerful.

Roni Szigeti

10:08Yeah, but the difference is is you talked you asked me subpoena. The difference is is where they've just been able to hand over the paperwork and there's no subpoena because it already gets them out. They don't even have to go through the lit litigation process because they were able to provide. There's so many I mean, I don't even know how many hundreds of instances where there was an issue. There's one actually in North Carolina, one of our clients, a scaffolding fell. Wasn't theirs. They didn't that could have gone serious litigation. They just handed over their daily logs out of Field Flow where we have intelligence built into the daily where they were able to show, Hey, this was blogged In this meeting at this time, here's a photo of the subcontractor to put up the scaffolding that didn't even have to go to it. That theoretically could have been five hundred thousand dollars in just litigation fees, not to mention whatever the judgment would have been. So there's a lot, there's hundreds of examples of where it doesn't even go to an actual subpoena. Subpoenas when it went very far and then we had to get our metadata involved.

Value Delivered: Safety, Compliance, and Overtime Savings

Nathan Latka

10:59Yeah. Now we're talking obviously about your largest customer, but it but if I forced you into an average just for the sake of focus, would is like the average demolition company paying you at ten grand a year, fifty grand a year, or is it much smaller or larger?

Roni Szigeti

11:11on average, yeah, you're probably at fourteen.

Nathan Latka

11:17Per year, 14,000. The reason I'm asking is because I want to dive more into your sales motion. Your references from the industry for your first two hundred fifty customers can only take you so far. Scaling past that requires a sales motion. Is $14,000 per year in terms of an average price point big enough for you to put human touch on that sale and pay an AE quota? Or tell me how you scaled above $250 customers.

Roni Szigeti

11:18Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, fortunately the way that we built the software, one is incredibly intuitive, but we've always had the white glove support. ⁓ one of our hugest values is like obsessing over client success and that starts from ⁓ obviously the sales process, but definitely the onboarding ⁓ implementation process. And so they get a dedicated every client gets a dedicated account manager that they know and will not leave their side until they are fully they essentially have to get their ⁓ their award of being kicked off and then it transitions into the customer success. ⁓ their person, their account manager has lived and breathed the same jobs that they've done. So everybody on my team comes from the industry, knows exactly the same pain points, has been in the field, has been as a project manager, has been as a project coordinator. And so that's where I think we've been successful on that touch point. And fortunately, that ACV has allowed us to, you know, one, be profitable, but two be able to give them that white glove approach ⁓ so that, you know, both sides are successful.

Nathan Latka

12:42Well what break that down for me a little bit. What's the total team size today and how many would you say are in marketing and sales?

Roni Szigeti

12:49⁓ gosh. ⁓ with the the reason I'm saying it's hard to pinpoint. I mean it's since November ⁓ with mainsail, I mean we've grown to 70 people. I would say ⁓ a f twenty

Nathan Latka

13:11We'll fix this up in post production. Keep going in and out, you're still muted. video is crystal clear, so it's not an internet issue. It has something to do with the microphone. Still nothing on my end. I can see you clearly though. It's very strange. I've never had this happen before where the audio doesn't work, but the video does. Are you using Ronnie, are you using your computer mic? Or are you talking into just

Roni Szigeti

13:56computer mic?

Nathan Latka

14:02Okay, we can hear you now.

Roni Szigeti

14:08So what it keeps doing is going over to my iPhone for whatever and I'm not connected to my iPhone.

Nathan Latka

14:13Yeah, well that that's the that's the that's what's that's what's happening. So if you could figure out a way to maybe put your iPhone in airplane mode or something, that will prevent that from happening.

Roni Szigeti

14:22Has that ever happened? Never had that happen in my life.

Nathan Latka

14:24I've never I've never had that. We've done thirty eight hundred episodes. I've never had that happen.

Roni Szigeti

14:28Nice.

Nathan Latka

14:30Are you are you airplane mode now?

Roni Szigeti

14:32Yeah, let's see how that goes.

Nathan Latka

14:34Epic, epic. We'll edit it in post production. But you were saying you're at you think you're at about seventy right now, and I think you said twenty and then we lost ya.

Roni Szigeti

14:41Yeah, so we're seventy about seventy employees. Like ⁓ we're on a huge ramp there on an employee count. ⁓ twenty are on the CX side. ⁓ and then G go to market is about twelve, I believe.

Nathan Latka

15:01Yep, makes sense. You we you referenced mainstay, my audience doesn't know yet. I know this obviously in my research too, but you you bootstrap this for a very long period of time. ⁓ what year do you bootstrap it through?

White-Glove Onboarding and Industry-Specific Hiring

Roni Szigeti

15:12So two on E seventeen was our first contract signed. ⁓ we didn't take our first ⁓ investment until twenty twenty three, ⁓ which is a b small, you know, it's a minority deal. And then ⁓ main sale ⁓ came in in October of this of twenty twenty five. ⁓ and that was awesome, awesome investment, awesome partner to bring on to Fieldflow to help us ramp.

Nathan Latka

15:37Well walk us through before you took that big chunk of outside capital. So what did you scale to in terms of you told us your first two hundred and fifty customers, but how many customers did you have before the main sale deal?

Roni Szigeti

15:48Before the main sale deal we had two hundred and forty-ish. Two hundred and forty. Mm-hmm.

Nathan Latka

15:55Okay, two hundred and forty cuss customers. Okay. And now, I mean, a lot of people ask me, Nathan, what's it like to let PE into my business, right? Main sales are very well known private equity shop. I believe the deal is a $35 million growth investment, right? Okay. And they do both minority and majority recaps. Are you comfortable sharing what you did with him? Was it majority, minority? Okay, fair fair enough. They they do both. ⁓ regardless though, the prerogative there is usually grow.

Roni Szigeti

16:07That's correct. Yep. I don't think I can.

Nathan Latka

16:22that's also the dependent on if the thirty five million was going onto the balance sheet to fuel growth or if you enabled all your early employees yourself to do some liquidity. Was a portion of the secondary or was all primary?

Roni Szigeti

16:33I can't talk all a at all about that. Sorry, man.

Nathan Latka

16:36Okay. Well w why why not? This is part of MainSale's key strategy. So part of my audience learning from you is about how to work with secondaries, primaries, and folks like main sale.

Roni Szigeti

16:45Yeah, I don't I don't know what I'm allowed to say about the deal, honestly. ⁓ had I known that you were gonna ask some of these questions, I would probably have gotten a little more clear like clearance on on that.

Nathan Latka

16:55okay. Okay. Why I won't push harder there since you can't share. ⁓ I guess what is the growth progressive look like now? I assume they have a board seat. What are they pushing?

Roni Szigeti

17:04Yeah, so one, they're per w ⁓ hundred percent pushing innovation and growth from a Rev standpoint. ⁓ what's been phenomenal about main sale is their adoption and early adoption to innovation AI, ⁓ making sure that we stay ahead of that curve, ⁓ at at ⁓ Field Flow for sure and a across the porcos. ⁓ and then making sure that we build out the team to scale this thing how it should be scaled. I mean we've grown this with a really nice growth rate. on on nothing, on being bootstrapped and so putting the pieces in play to really get that rocket fuel underneath field flow and, you know, from obviously go to market, innovation, being product led sales as well. ⁓ we're leaning heavy into all those.

Nathan Latka

17:50Can you can you share about how customers sort of have grown since the main sale deal? You mentioned two hundred and forty customers right before them. Where are you at now today here in June of twenty twenty six?

Roni Szigeti

18:01⁓ five sixty, I believe.

Nathan Latka

18:05Okay, she almost doubled over the past seven, you know, eight, nine months since the deal.

Roni Szigeti

18:09Yeah, some of those are through different customer acquisitions, but yeah, what if I well, sorry, two four seventy four seventy. Sorry, four seventy. I apologize. It was four seventy.

Nathan Latka

18:20Still still significant growth. How where is that growth coming from? Did the playbooks change dramatically when the new money came in?

Roni Szigeti

18:26⁓ a portion of that. One was was definitely a little bit of luck with one of a a large enterprise ⁓ acquisition with that that came through another private equity channel. so no no no. So we we landed

Nathan Latka

18:40You bought another company?

Roni Szigeti

18:45A private equity that had a lot of companies, clients underneath it. So they it they were doing a roll-up strategy. We were able to grab all of their different offices and companies that came underneath them. ⁓ so what's really h fun and exciting about the niche that we're in is that there's a large roll-up strategy going on with private equity. And so being that we are one the the only and the best platform for them, they're using FieldFlow as a platform deal and then rolling up all of the different companies that they're either looking to acquire or acquiring and rolling them up through from FieldFlow up to to the mothership, if you will.

Nathan Latka

19:22Sorry, there's a hub and spoke model on private equity. You're either the hub or you're a spoke. Are you saying field flow is a hub for a larger strategy or a spoke plugging into somebody else?

Roni Szigeti

19:30No, it's the hub. Yeah. And so they're using it. So what's nice is that we we built the architecture to where you can have Field Flow HQ, which is for enterprise or private equity model, that then bolts on either whether they're doing an acquisition and we can bolt into the mothership, or if they're starting out the the the strategy where we can be the hub and then beam down to all of the different companies that they go acquire or they already have under ⁓ the umbrella. So

Nathan Latka

19:31You're the h okay. So

Roni Szigeti

19:59Go ahead, sorry.

Nathan Latka

20:00Yeah, sorry I have a confuser because my research team didn't identify any acquisitions that field flow was made. So ha ha have you used main sales money to go roll up other companies or or no?

Roni Szigeti

20:08No, no, no, no. No, I'm talking about the private equities that are our clients that are going out and buying all of these abatement and demolition companies. And so we become the hub for the private equity. Then they go and buy these companies and FieldFlow becomes the platform for all of their different acquisitions. The alternative is that a bunch of our existing clients are getting acquired, but we will are able to roll in to the platform that they've created with FieldFlow up top. And so what's cool. Does that make sense? Awesome.

Nathan Latka

20:33I see. It makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Hub and spoke in private equity terms means something else, but what you're articulating is obviously a great go to market strategy as well. It allows you to do a one to many approach and scale customers faster. talk to me a little bit more if you can. I mean, can I take four hundred and seventy customers today times that average ACV you told me earlier about fourteen thousand bucks to back into revenue, or would that math not be accurate?

Team Size, CX, and Go-to-Market Breakdown

Roni Szigeti

20:45Exactly right. Yep. ⁓ no, that wouldn't necessarily be accurate. ⁓ and the reason being is that there's obviously discounted on some enterprise deals and stuff like that. So ⁓ yeah, it wouldn't be exactly there. I don't know how much I can share at this point, but that's probably a good nap and math for you. ⁓

Nathan Latka

21:12Okay. So so s well, bootstrap founders can have way higher revenue per employee than VC backed ones. I I've seen bootstrap founders with a million dollars of revenue per employee. I've also seen them as low as thirty-five thousand of revenue per employee if they have a massive outsource team overseas somewhere. So yes, we could take your 70 FTEs times an average revenue per employee. But if I take the four hundred and seventy customers times the fourteen thousand dollar ACV, that would put you at somewhere like a six point five million run rate. And what I'm hearing you say is you discounted some of those customers who have been with you for a long time. You've grandfathered them. So you're not quite at that revenue level yet. Would that be accurate? Okay. Okay. So what's the goal going forward? What do you want to break by the end of this year?

Roni Szigeti

21:58Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah, so ⁓ we wanna break well beyond that and have around sixty, sixty five percent growth. ⁓ which is is you know, a high goal given all of the change and everything that we're trying to do. ⁓ the one thing that I will say, you know, as if I can help any of your founders or listeners, like when going through a process like this is super exciting and it's so fun to get people so much smarter than you wrapped around you. To help you grow and scale your business, the one thing that you have to take into account is that you need to take care of those people that you're doing. And so some things will stall out because you're focusing on getting the infrastructure laid in place so that you can go and execute and go have that hockey stick growth that you're that you're looking for. And so being being comfortable in that the chaos of like, hey, I need to be there, I need to inspire, I need to train, I need to take my knowledge in my head over the last seven years and start transitioning that over to people that are way smarter. Than me, so that they can go and be successful and get us there. And that that's not going to happen overnight. You want it to happen overnight, but when, like me, for example, I think I've hired five direct reports very quickly at the same time. So you know I'm trying to ramp those so that then they can be successful. ⁓ so number one thing, the goal for this year is obviously the growth. Two is that we have three AI native products coming to market, and so that's a whole nother, I'm sure all other founders in the SaaS world are experienced the Same thing is that that is so exciting. It is such a transformation in the way that business is done from you know PDLC and product and all that is that just embracing the chaos and the learnings and all of that, and then making sure that you can you are learning, right? And having these pores mortems so that you can go faster. And so for us is one coming to market with those three AI products, and then obviously the revenue growth and having just the most exceptional team that's taking care of our clients every single day.

Nathan Latka

23:57And you've hired from your space so they have the industry knowledge, which is also I I think really cool and a massive differentiator.

Roni Szigeti

24:03It's huge. I mean, and we do that almost across the board. There's obviously outliers that, you know, on the engineering that it's it's more on on their technical acumen and stuff like that. But everything from yo, product managers, they they're either they're construction adjacent. ⁓ some obviously from the field, all of our CSCX are for the most part coming from demo and abatement, ⁓ or adjacent, ⁓ even from sales. They are all they all have some sort of fiber built into them from this construction world or Batman demolition world so that we We know what we're building for. And I think that's where a lot of generalists miss is that they think that their thing is gonna work for everything. And you get, you know, Nathan being wicked smart, but you have no idea the life that those other people have lived in that world. And it's a crazy life that they live in with a lot of, you know, compliance issues, a lot of a lot of risk. There's every single day. Right. And if you can't speak to that or build to that or support to that, then I feel like you're gonna fail and you're gonna put them in something that they don't they shouldn't be in.

Bootstrapping from 2017 Through the Mainsail Partners Deal

Nathan Latka

25:05No, it's a look, we're obviously rooting for you, you're in the space, three AI products coming, you're scaling now with more money behind you at main sale. We got just touching on the bootstrap to yours quickly before we wrap up. ⁓ can you touch on the your you said your first customers were twenty seventeen. Do you remember first year total revenue what you ended with?

Roni Szigeti

25:29I think it was a hundred and forty thousand dollars, hundred and fifty thousand.

Nathan Latka

25:33You and Brittany sit down at the kitchen counter, are you guys pumped with that number back then? Were you not? What you know, what were you thinking?

Roni Szigeti

25:38No, I mean I was a vice president. I was doing pretty good. So when I came up with this idea, I told my, you know, I was a vice president of a pretty nice size construction company, a demolition of baby company. And so I was doing okay. I tell her I'm gonna quit my job to start a software company. She told me I was we just had I had a baby. She told me I was an idiot. ⁓ and so and then I told her that the investment I was getting from the buddies that I was gonna use that to pay my salary, which I did not do. I paid myself $30,000 a year for three years. ⁓ and put all that money into the company. So no, she wasn't pumped. we were but the coolest thing is is that in that first year we went into beta, Nathan, like so we went in and went into beta for six months with ⁓ 10 clients, one of which was the fifth largest at the time in the United States. That they signed up on spot, but they said you have to prove this over six months. I was like cool. All 10 of those clients signed on August 17th, so 2017. All 10 of them are clients to this day. And that's the radis. And that was one while we weren't pumped about the financial aspect of it and that I wasn't, I did I didn't support my salary for like three years. actually probably four, but what was pumped was that we saw that what we were doing and that what we were building was actually gonna change the game. We just needed to figure out how to get in front of more people. ⁓ and that's it. Like right now, it's just like people still don't know about Fuel Flow. We just got our first marketing. higher ⁓ a month ago. And so like we're trying to get the name out there and so that people realize that there's a better option and a better way to do their business. And that we're like we are looking out at every angle to make sure that they are the best contractors in the United States.

Nathan Latka

27:17You get going in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, a hundred and forty K of MRR. Do remember what year you broke a million of revenue?

Roni Szigeti

27:24man. ⁓ I don't. That's so bad, Nathan. I don't. I I would say that it was probably 2021, 2020. COVID. COVID was off. I mean, honestly, it had it did, it was in COVID. And I think I can't remember if it was the end of 2020 or 2021. COVID was terrible for the world and really bad for people. And I it's so but for SaaS software and especially in the construction world, given that it was one of the trades that was allowed to continue to work, they needed a way to work and a b a way to like be able to communicate and know what was going on in their project. So that's where we actually saw, even as bootstrapped as we were, that's where we saw a lot of high growth. ⁓ and that's where obtained a lot more clients and and had a lot more lands ⁓ because people needed a way to work.

Nathan Latka

28:13Yep, yep. Well, this is an incredible growth story. It just tells you the power of being specific and in a niche, growing great software with a team that you love, supporting your customers that never leave and ultimately scaling to millions of revenue, getting a nice thirty five million dollar deal done on the main sale. Now it's pedal to the metal. It's go baby, sixty five percent year over year year over year growth. Rony, if people want to follow your story online, where can they find you?

Roni Szigeti

28:27But Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn. Roni Sigity at LinkedIn. we're also have an awesome blog on fieldflow dot com, F I E L D F L O dot com. ⁓ and yeah, we'll be putting out a lot more content. so thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Nathan Latka

28:50Thanks for taking us to the top, man. Appreciate it. All right, guys. Cut. Good stuff. Roni, thanks for letting me push you, man. Sorry yeah, sorry if you didn't get a chance to listen to other episodes. I felt a little guilty, but my audience will jump if I don't ask those questions. And I didn't want them to like shit all over you in YouTube comments or something.

Roni Szigeti

28:52You bet. Yeah. No no no. No, well first of all I did I I have no time. I mean, I was on a three week that's why we ha landed here on the state. I've haven't had a chance to do anything, ⁓ other than try to close deals right now. ⁓ so had I known that, I would have just gotten this cleared by my board and understood like the for again, I should have said it in this thing is like I don't even I don't even know what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say. That's how new this whole thing is. And so

Nathan Latka

29:28Yeah, yeah, yeah. My audience they're they're pretty sharp. I mean, they know, right? Main sale is typically buying majority, right? And there's typically secondary. Otherwise you wouldn't do the deal. You'd say, Fuck off, I'm gonna keep building this myself and taking profits, right? So like they can read between the lines a little bit there.

Roni Szigeti

29:42Even I I'm wondering if I'm gonna get shot for that A C V. Like I have no idea I'm sitting there going, Damn dude, I wish I have to get everything cleared by a board now and I don't know what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not. So that's

Nathan Latka

29:53I mean we've look, I I've first off, I've helped main sale buy other companies 'cause I run a fund and I've given them deal flow and and many of their portfolio companies have come onto the show. So I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Customer Growth from 240 to 470 After Mainsail Investment

Roni Szigeti

30:03Well, that's the th so b after you re you review this or whoever does and and I can go back, if you wanted to do another take on this where I can divulge more and it can be a lot more impactful, I'm more than happy and I apologize, man. Like I had no idea the questions that were gonna get thrown at me and s I would have been a hell of a lot more prepared. and that might have been by the way, this went through ⁓ Emily, the our new VP of marketing, and so I didn't know. She's like, Hey, you're doing a podcast and I was like, Okay, cool. I and I thought this was like the intro to like go over that. So

Private Equity Hub Strategy and Enterprise Expansion

Nathan Latka

30:20No, all good man. I appreciate Yeah, yeah, no, no worries. I would just encourage her to be on our game so that you're prepared. You know, I if you're gonna do a bunch of this stuff, you know, we want podcast hosts loving you and having you back on and promoting the hell out of you. So I totally get it. Totally get it, dude. Thanks for coming on. All right, see ya. Bye.

Roni Szigeti

30:41Hundred percent. And I I appreciate it. Bye, brother. Thanks, man. Bye.