How Onde Reached $10M ARR and $350M+ GMV Processing 1M+ Rides Monthly (Interview with CEO Martin Gallardo)

Introduction and Martin's Background

Nathan Latka

0:01Hey folks, my guest today is Martin Gallardo. He's the CEO of Onde, which is based in Poland. Per his own bio, he's scaling this company to over 10 million bucks of revenue with tech built for sort of the ⁓ Uber in a box industry. Local feats completing against go global players. They're not charging per additional driver or trip. They support over 40 service types and advertise crazy uptime. He he joined just about six months ago as a CEO. Martin, you ready to take us to the top?

Martin Gallardo

0:28Yes.

Why Martin Joined as CEO Six Months Ago

Nathan Latka

0:29All right, why join six months ago? You're not a founder, you don't have founder equity, why join?

Martin Gallardo

0:33Exactly. No, actu actually I was the CEO of a payment gateway company in in in Saudi and they came to me as like, okay, based on your your CB, we are looking for a professional CEO, and you take all all the boxes, right? And I said, ⁓ no, I have it very comfy, I'm fractional, running my own ⁓ strategy house, I I have it very good. But then they were sort of coming back to me as like, really, you have the profile for us. ⁓ and And then I said, okay, how old I am? Like 40 years old? Okay. Let's do some crazy shit. So they they they give me the mandate to do to grow the company ten times, right? So that's actually my equity play is connected to to ⁓ let's call it Elon Musk package. So so yeah, so basically I need to take ⁓ bootstrap ⁓ 10 million error ⁓ SaaS company and build it into a billion dollar company basically.

Nathan Latka

1:34So the company, just to be clear, the company has passed ten million of ARR.

Martin Gallardo

1:38Yeah.

Nathan Latka

1:40That's and is it growing or did growth flatten? That's why they brought you in.

Martin Gallardo

1:43It it was flattening, right? So that's one of the reasons they they they brought me in. So it was like a typical S Curve and ⁓ then you are sort of flattening or stuck on the business model that you have and then of course they were thinking that okay, now it's time to bring a professional management and and take the company to the next level.

Company History and the S-Curve to $10M ARR

Nathan Latka

2:01Can you share, can you sort of reverse engineer the story for me? What year did the company launch?

Martin Gallardo

2:07So the year where the company launched, you mean? Yeah, so that's ⁓ fifteen years ago. Actually we are going on a summer party two weeks from now to celebrate the fifteen years. One five. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

2:09The year. Twenty eleven. Wow. Okay. When did they break a million of revenue? Do you know the year?

Martin Gallardo

2:22I think twenty fifteen, something like that. I have sort of the chart somewhere. but yeah, it's ⁓ in about four or five years the after four or five years they break one million, yeah.

Nathan Latka

2:35Yeah, I'm trying to capture that S curve you talked about. So yeah, because that's ultimately why you came in. So one million around one million in twenty fifteen, where did they hit five million?

Martin Gallardo

2:36Yeah, I know. The the score, yeah. Yes. And then and then it was going really good twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. I would say like around that time, five million. and then COVID came, ⁓ but they were continue continue growing, especially like twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three. I think they were growing ⁓ a lot. And basically they arrived to ten million in in twenty twenty four, right? And since then has been.

Nathan Latka

3:04Martin, real quick, your speaker, your speaker's rubbing your shirt and it's making your audio quality go down. Just try to keep it away from your shirt. Yeah, but don't do that because I don't want you to cover your face. Like maybe open your collar a bit more or something so that when it falls, it yeah, it doesn't hit your collar. I don't want you to have to hold it for twenty minutes. So all right, that's better. There we go. Okay, so five million in twenty eighteen. COVID was tough. No one was driving during COVID, right?

Martin Gallardo

3:08⁓ okay. I'll keep it away. Yeah. Yes. Huh. Exactly, right. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

3:30Okay, so COVID was tough. Twenty twenty six, you break ten million bucks of AR, you come in. Now take us into the product today. So what do you do and how do you double revenue?

Product Overview: The Uber-in-a-Box Platform

Martin Gallardo

3:38So what what we are doing is of course we ⁓ have not the typical SAS where basically a lot of customers are the same. So we have a pretty pretty different customer base. So we got guys that are doing one million rides a month. Okay, so that's a pretty big ⁓ feast of engineering. So we I will not claim we are Uber, but I will say it's not far from bold or other type of right hailing technology. And we have the entire setup of things like imagine like you can enter into the Uber engine, if en if Uber was a car, right? And you can control everything, like tariffs, ⁓ like ⁓ zones, like imagine setting up Uber whatever you want in in the world, even in your neighborhood. You can set it up, right? And we allow you to do that. and compete locally with Uber and it then it's your choice. You can be ⁓ limo or you can be a cheap alternative or you can be a super local. ⁓ So that's that's your choice, right? And what happens is a lot of people they try, some of them they don't manage to launch and some of them are extremely successful. So our customer base is extremely different. So you have guys with one million rights a month, and then you have guys with twenty rides a month, fifty rights a month, right? So and you have a sort of I don't know, airport shuttle in Canada, and then you have like ⁓ five thousand drivers in Tanzania. for example, right? So you have like we are in seventy countries and hundred and fifty customers basically. So but it's a really, really ⁓ difference on the size and since we are on revenue share, of course we have very different segmentation on on the on the customer base, right?

Pricing Model: Setup Fee and Revenue Share

Nathan Latka

5:20So here's what it sort of looks like inside the app a little bit. And you go down here, you're saying your pricing plan is built only around Revshare, no fixed fees?

Martin Gallardo

5:27There is a setup fee because obviously it takes some time to set up these these apps. we make the design for them, ACO, so we set up everything for them basically. We spin up the servers and all of that. So there is like a setup fee around five thousand dollars. And then is is basically revenue share three point nine percent.

Launch Packages and App Install Guarantees

Nathan Latka

5:45How do you help with them? I've never seen somebody do this before that you say, Not only will we sell you the software, we'll help you get your first eight or sixteen thousand app installs. How can you guarantee this? What do you do?

Martin Gallardo

5:54Yeah, so we have a lot of experience launching these ⁓ apps ⁓ for for customers and we do different things. So we do like Google Ads, we can do Meta, we do also Apple ⁓ ads on the store. So we have our own agency team. so of course if someone buys like a set of fee package of five thousand, we don't do it. But if they buy like fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, then we in it includes sort of the launch package with ⁓ agency service, right? So we will actually set up a campaign, run it for you and we will ensure that you You have of course, it depends on the country, right? On Africa we get a lot of downloads, and in the US is much less. So of course, yeah.

Nathan Latka

6:29Do you pay for that acquisition that Google ads out of the one time setup fee? Okay.

Martin Gallardo

6:33Yeah, yeah. So so we we take like a twenty percent margin on the ads and and yeah, the rest is basically going into ads.

Nathan Latka

6:41Okay. And then you're taking the your revenue model as percent of trip cost. So w I mean what percent? What's the smallest and biggest percent?

Martin Gallardo

6:50It's about three three three point nine. I mean we sometimes we do exceptions for for ⁓ we can do a bit of discounting or exceptions or yeah. If someone comes with l let's say if someone comes I have a ten thousand cars fleet, right? So I warranty you that I'm going to be having certain volume, right? That's a little bit like payment gateways, right? So of course we can take a look and we can sort of try to make a discount. But generally it's it's three point nine. We're In the middle of an entire repricing of the entire SAS, right? So we want to convert it more into a like SaaS like. and ⁓ we know that we need to maybe bet more on them and actually perhaps actually have it almost for free for the first month for them. So let them lunch, right? and give them like 30 days free. That increases the the the chances of them growing because of course the more they grow, the better it is for us, right? So the more we can delay. our fees, the higher chances that we have for for growth. So this is a little bit of a dilemma for us, right? So how much CAC versus LTV you do you want to capture? ⁓ how much payback time do want to have versus how much long term success ⁓ because it's not only the conversion rate, it's also the success rate of these guys, right? So it's it's a paradox and and we are in the middle of a re repackaging and and pricing of of the entire thing.

GMV, Customer Concentration, and the $100M Customer

Nathan Latka

8:17Well so what's your best answer to that right now? How are you signing up new customers?

Martin Gallardo

8:22So most of of what we do, how we sign sign customers, I mean, it's like our customer is like finding a diamond on a haystack. I mean, it's not a CFO or a chief of of of staff. It's a guy who wants to beat over. And that's a very specific type of person. It's actually pretty difficult to find. So we really behave like a venture capital type of thing. Like we have like a big funnel and we just scout, we promote a lot, ⁓ especially a lot of Google ads. ⁓ Which works good. AI search is starting to show up quite quite well, a bit of YouTube, but mostly Google Ads. And and is a lot of sales goals. Like showing them okay, what are you going to launch, what's your volume, and ⁓ yeah, showing them the software, demo it and so on. We are trying to move more to a mix of product led growth, ⁓ plus sales assisted rather than sort of sales heavy process. So that's one of the things that we're doing, sort of spin out a ⁓ demo environment for very cheap, let them play, but not release the app. The app will be an upsell to the core experience, which is a progressive web app, like a booking, right? ⁓ on a web. but the app of course they have a cost, right? So we have to upsell it with a setup fee, right? But perhaps we will also do the subscription instead of revenue share until certain volume, right? So we ⁓ we are exploring three or four different packaging ⁓ options, ⁓ but it is yeah, it's complex.

Nathan Latka

9:49Yeah, you're B to B to C. What's the total transaction volume you processed over the last twelve months?

Martin Gallardo

9:55Three hundred and fifty million dollars?

Nathan Latka

9:57Okay, got it. So not everyone's paying the three point nine percent, because you'd be doing more than ten million. Maybe some of them are on discounts where they're paying maybe three percent or something. That's a lot though. I think that'll surprise a lot of my audience. Three over three hundred and fifty million of GMV flowing through your platform and you have a hundred and fifty customers, right?

Martin Gallardo

10:04Correct. Yeah, correct, correct. Yes, yes. As as they grow, yes. Yeah, correct.

Nathan Latka

10:17So I mean that's a lot of I mean well three hundred and fifty million divided by one hundred fifty customers means on average they're doing two point three million dollars in terms of the value of the rides they're doing every year. Is that right? Wild, interesting.

Martin Gallardo

10:27Correct, that's right. But that's the average, but that that's average, right? So you have a very like skew, like the the we have very high r revenue concentration on the top five, ten. And then we have a huge scale of small taxi companies, basically, right?

Nathan Latka

10:44Yep. Those the the largest customer processes how much through you annually?

Martin Gallardo

10:49⁓ I can't say because he will kill me. No, I can but let's say that about a hundred million.

Nathan Latka

10:52Well that we don't know who it is. Don't say his name. Okay, got it. That's concentrated in your top couple customers. I I see. And and I guess walk me through like for you, this to me is like a very special kind of entrepreneur you have to go find, right? So like is this gonna be the go forward strategy or are you gonna pivot the business dramatically in some way?

Growth Strategy and Product-Led Growth Pivot

Martin Gallardo

11:03Yes, yes, yes. Yes. We are going to pivot the business dramatically. I cannot say much about it. But but of course we are going to maintain this business. And I think with good management, OKRs, a lot of focus, ⁓ segmentation, packaging, ⁓ product led growth. We are implementing ATIO CRM. we have Gleep now for customer support. So we are doing everything we can to do like the best white label size business we have. And I think we will grow like twenty, thirty, forty percent per year on a twenty to forty percent ⁓ margin. I think that's perfectly doable. Yeah, yeah. I mean this last month we grew twenty eight percent, for example. Right. So so

Nathan Latka

11:50You're profiting twenty to forty percent right now. Okay. What does that mean? So last last month what was total revenue and then total profit?

Martin Gallardo

12:01⁓ last month I think we were making nine hundred thousand euro. Yeah, and and the profit like a hundred thousand euro.

Nathan Latka

12:11That's great. So where do you reinvest that? How are you how are you allocating capital?

Martin Gallardo

12:14on the new business. So we are we are preparing for to launch in something ⁓ quite radical on on the right hailing concept. of course I mean we have an amazing technology, right? and we are the only company in the world with this level of technology that does not have its own brand. So that's pretty much all what I can say. But but you can ⁓ more or less get get what is going. But but there is a lot of demand for for what we do, but we need to tackle it from another angle. Plus we need to position ourselves on the robo taxi thing. Like if you see in the US it's it's blooming, right? So we have a very efficient dispatching, right? ⁓ and that that dispatching is is ⁓ we are able to do dispatching instead of 30% like Google is taking, we can do it for three percent, let's say, right? So how where are we going to put our dispatching? That's perfect for the robotaxis, right? ⁓ so when they come we can do the Robo Taxi or we can do the Y label app for a Robotaxi company, right? So so that's also another angle that that we are exploring.

Nathan Latka

13:21But I think like why does Google's Waymo product right rely on Uber? And it's because Uber has the consumer's attention. It's how the GMV like goes up, right? So how much value in this business really is what you do just in the software? Isn't most the value actually in the cars, the assets, the drivers, and also the consumers using it?

Martin Gallardo

13:29That's correct. Exactly. It's a huge value chain and there is a little bit of game for everything, right? So so if if you look at the only the technology side, of course there is a lot of value in it, but there is of course a lot of value on the customer base, right? And the driver base, eventually the robotaxi. But but the robotaxis is going to take much longer, not because of technology, but because of capital deployment. I mean people underestimate the huge investment like trillion dollars to put on the robotaxis we need, right? To to to displace the the drivers globally it's it's just insane amount of money. ⁓ but yeah.

Nathan Latka

14:14Yeah, but isn't do you do you think there's a world I mean, look, if you told me today, right, that I could spend three million dollars to go buy ten Waymo's in Austin, Texas and put them on your on on on an app or your app, I'd still, even if I had all that, I would be going, Well, wait, what's gonna be most expensive? How do I go get the actual writers unless I'm just using it for my friends, basically, right? So how do you think about that?

Martin Gallardo

14:35Of course, of course. That yes, that this is why we are not going through the Robotaxi yet. We are starting to explore it, but we need to bring our own brand to the market. And we need to get riders, right? And this is this is why the the we are basically I mean I will tell you, we are launching our own brand, basically, right? I cannot say where, but we are launching our own brand to start saying that okay, okay, we we need to get the riders to expand our time, to expand our market sizing, right? ⁓ Plus we are going to learn a lot of things as our our own brand and we will also bring it to all of our wide level customers. So we are going to have like Marriott. Marriott has his own brands, but it has sister or partner brands, right? You have Citys you have Courtyard, right? They have their own brand. They have their local taste, right? But they are all part of the same sort of technology, umbrella and blueprint, right? So so that's pretty much where we are going now, where we're going to have like, yeah.

Nathan Latka

15:30But if I'm walking out of the JW Ariot in downtown Austin and you get a ride to the airport, I'm not gonna oop ask people what's the Marriott app to get I'm gonna open Uber and just order my thing to to the to the airport. So is your technology really for like if they have six shuttles on site and they wanna allow their hotel guests to book something at nine AM tomorrow morning to go to the airport, they're gonna use you?

Where Onde Beats Uber: Underserved Global Markets

Martin Gallardo

15:48No, it's it's i it's really like like Uber. So the only thing is if Uber charged you thirty dollars, I could probably charge you twenty two. Right? ⁓ but the only thing is I need about hundred and forty million dollars just to start on that route. Right? So that's obviously ⁓ for next year, but we will we will have to to discuss and and talk to investors if we will really take that route, we are doing some tests. We will do a pilot, we will do A V testing, we will gather the the numbers and then we will go to the investors at the end of the year and say, is this the route that we should take to do 10x? Because the current business to be honest, it cannot do a 10x. Like as I said, I can grow it twenty, thirty, forty percent per year. Great. We have a lot of offers from private equity firms that they want to buy us. Yeah, it's okay, right? We can sell it in three to five years and have a good outcome. But that's not the 10x that I was that I was hired for, right? So ⁓ so of course we need to do a test, right? Nothing. Nothing. Fully bus trap, owned fully by the founders.

Nathan Latka

16:49How much has the company raised today? So if they all own it and you guys control it, if someone came to you and offered you fifty million bucks all cash to sell the company, you wouldn't sell.

Martin Gallardo

17:01No. We got several offers. We will not sell.

Nathan Latka

17:03Why? I I guess I'm trying to understand if I believe the go forward story. If you're telling me, Nathan, I want you to believe that when you wake you're staying at Marriott in Austin, Texas, you wake up in the morning, you go outside, and you need to get to the airport, you open Uber, it says thirty bucks to get to the airport. I have to if I want to believe your story, I have to make the bet that somehow I'm gonna know about the Marriott app in the first place. And then second, saving six bucks when I'm trying to like speed to the airport quickly is worth the switching cost to then go in, download a new app. Maybe there's bad Wi-Fi. Like that's you're betting your whole business on that.

Martin Gallardo

17:37You are completely correct in Austin, Texas. And you are completely correct on every major city in the world. But what about the rest of the world? So we operate in seventy countries, right? Where we beat Uber locally. Some of our partners are beating ⁓ why? Because in some countries, I mean, let's say you go to Mauritania in Africa, right? We have some partners there. And the ride costs two dollars on cash. Who operates? Uber cannot operate there. But we do thirty thousand rides, forty thousand rides per month. And like that is a lot of countries on earth, a lot of secondary cities in Europe, where the cost base of Uber it does not compute.

Nathan Latka

18:18Okay, that's a different story though than what you launched to me, which is you told me people you told you you you you came in the podcast and said we this is for people that want to go compete with Uber. That's not what you just told me. You told me you're operating where Uber cannot operate.

Martin Gallardo

18:20Exactly, exactly. I I cannot launch in the US. Exactly. That's the right thank you. Yes.

Nathan Latka

18:32Okay. So you don't have to worry about the Marriott customer in Austin, Texas. You're serving you're it's the same way people like offer lending products to the unbankable. You're offering dri you know, a driver to somewhere Uber and Lyft won't go. I see, 'cause the economics don't make sense. And why don't the economics make sense for them?

Martin Gallardo

18:41Exactly. Because the economics they don't make sense for them. ⁓ so their return on investment, why would you not put another extra dollar on New York? Why would not put another extra dollar on the Robotaxis in San Fran? Why would not put another extra dollar on an airport at in Houston, right? So they will deploy capital where they have the highest return on investment. So that's the thing. Second is the structural cost. So they have a structural cost on dollar per trip. And their structural cost is higher than the trip in, let's say, forty to sixty percent of the countries on Earth.

Nathan Latka

19:23Why can't they though, if the laborer like if the driver is willing to take less money and consumers are willing to pay only two dollars per per ride, why is that set of economic conditions unique to the the person that uses your app to build their business versus Uber moving in themselves directly?

Martin Gallardo

19:39Could you could you rephrase that question again?

Nathan Latka

19:42Yeah, if economic conditions in a specific country in the world mean that you can only charge two dollars per ride, that statement is gonna be true both for you and Uber. So again, why can you operate but Uber can't?

Martin Gallardo

19:53Microspace.

Nathan Latka

19:55It's a too small of a market. Uber's not interested in moving in. That's what you're saying?

Martin Gallardo

19:58Uber is not in Uber is not interested on such a thing, but it will still be a billion dollar market. But Uber is only interested on playing where he can have a one hundred billion dollar market, right? So ⁓ it's just simply allocation of of capital and focus. There are other players that they are successful in those countries, like Indrive, for example, or Django from Russia. So they are sort of our they are competing with some of our customers. ⁓

Nathan Latka

20:06Mm-hmm. I see. Yeah.

Martin Gallardo

20:28But but yeah, so most of it's not only on all of those countries where our partners are. We will not compete with our own partners, so that's for sure. Like so we will launch in the places where

Nathan Latka

20:38Well hold on. Are these you leave these on your website, so I'm comfortable sharing them, but are these all your partners or are these your competitors you want to replace? Okay.

Martin Gallardo

20:44These are competitors, yeah. But to to to be honest, none of this is really a competitor. Like many of our leads they come to us and they say, like, it's literally a toy compared to what you got. Like ⁓ so so it's it's really we are at another level technologically than than than those guys. but I would say it's even in the US there is some space to do it, but it will have to be on a like a tier

Nathan Latka

20:57Uh-huh.

Martin Gallardo

21:13three city in the US, for example, where Uber is just not that interested, right? So you cannot compete with Uber. It's just impossible to compete with Uber and with Vault ⁓ in the bigger cities, right? It's just impossible. ⁓ or even tier two City in in the US is not possible, right? But there is a lot of other places on earth where it is possible. It is possible we I how we have the data. We know how it's possible, right? We know how much ⁓ commissions you need to give the drivers. You know how much you need to decrease the prices to win. ⁓

Nathan Latka

21:24Or lift, yeah.

Martin Gallardo

21:43We have a lot of cases. I mean we have we have Lanchin. In Europe, one of our our customers and he beat Uber in in a pretty big city in Europe. And another one in Saudi Arabia in one of the cities in Saudi. Right. So it is possible to beat them, ⁓ but not on the capitals, not on the biggest markets, because it's just ⁓ it is just the price elasticity for that type of customer, like even me myself, I will use Uber if I go right now to Dubai, right? Because I'm used to it. Right. ⁓ of course once I have my own brand and and I'm aware it's going to be cheaper at the end, but I will have to be aware and I will have to use it, right? So it's very difficult to compete in in Dubai, in London, in Madrid. But there is the market is huge, and if you find your positioning and your segmentation, I think this is something that that you can of course play both with our partners today and also with our own brand where we don't have partners.

Capital Allocation and Revenue-Based Financing

Nathan Latka

22:41If you had an extra five million bucks to grow the business, where would you invest it?

Martin Gallardo

22:45that's exactly what we are doing because we are taking ⁓ some some sort of revenue based financing. so of course we are going to invest it on the new business. Because the current business works pretty good. the ROI of I getting of taking one dollar into the current business is smaller than one dollar into the new business. So so that's ⁓ that's pretty clear. Yet I mean w I would like to put more on engineering even though our engineering cost is like sixty percent of the cost. So we are very heavy on ⁓ R and D, we are very lean on sales, like we spend like ten, twelve percent on sales marketing. so it's I could put more on sales, but I'm going to get much more. I'm not sure. But if I launch the the the new business line, ⁓ of course also for the valuation wise, it's it's a better game. Right. ⁓ so especially if you borrow money, if you do revenue based financing, it's extremely interesting because if you deploy the capital efficiently, even though it's an expensive instrument, but it's a great instrument. And as I send you an an email, it's not that typical in Europe. In the US you are doing an an amazing job. and you are one of the pioneers of talking about this topic, which is great. ⁓ but in Europe it's not that common. But you can use that. If you know how to deploy properly, you can of course increase the valuation and then you can raise capital instead of the other way around.

Nathan Latka

24:09Well, so how do I mean, yeah, you know what I do? My full time thing is I've you know, I manage my fund, right? We we've made seven hundred plus investments here. So how can I convince you to take money from us? What are you seeing in the world of revenue financing?

Martin Gallardo

24:14Exactly. So revenue based financing I I'm very open to to talk to you right now. R right. I mean we are we got a couple of offers from ⁓ PE firms from the US and yeah, I will absolutely like to talk to you like one or two million runs. Like absolutely.

Nathan Latka

24:37What would be what will be the right payback period for you? One month, two months three month I'm sorry, three years, two years, one year?

Martin Gallardo

24:43Yeah. Like one month will be a bit a bit tough. Yeah. No, we so we got an offer now, for example. I will tell you an offer. ⁓ we

Nathan Latka

24:46Yeah, sorry, years, years. Yeah, yeah. You can name the other party too. Like you don't have to hide it 'cause it's on my show. I promise it's fine.

Martin Gallardo

24:57I cannot name it, but but they offer five years and one point seven X, right? So you you will pay one point seven back of the money re through through your revenues, regardless. Like if it's five years, then you have like an eleven percent annual or something like that. If it's one year, you pay seventy percent, right? that's that's the offer.

Nathan Latka

25:17And what's the what's the dollar amount that they'd fund on day one?

Martin Gallardo

25:20five million. So they they can borrow us five million dollars.

Nathan Latka

25:25But how how much would you want on day one? You don't want to obviously draw money that you're not going to use immediately, right? 'Cause then you're

Off-Record: Launching Own Brand in Poland

Martin Gallardo

25:29Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. No, I I I can deploy two million right away.

Nathan Latka

25:35Uh-huh. So what would I have to do at Founder Path to make you a better offer that matches your business? Would it be two million immediately paid back o you know one point four X over two years? Like I guess do you want to save money on the fee or keep your term as long as possible?

Martin Gallardo

25:52The as long as possible it's not that important for me, right? But the but the one point four X is more interesting than one point seven. Like and if you tell me it's in two years or seven years, I mean we'll I will think about the time, but I will only borrow if I have a very strong business case to give it back in two years, basically. So I have I've calculated, yeah.

Nathan Latka

26:06Yeah. Well, that's why I'm asking, right? We we like to match we like to match the capital I deploy with your use case for it to grow the business. So if you told me you're gonna put it all in ads, well that's an instant ROI. If it's gonna be something else hiring engineers, well then you need a longer payback period.

Martin Gallardo

26:18Exactly. So it is is going to be a plant. I will say like one million on ads right in three months spent all of it. ⁓ and one million on actually ⁓ secret project that is revenue generating as well, that has a payback in about two years. so that's basically the what we are looking at ⁓ at the moment. Two months, ⁓ two million to deploy in three months and and yeah, combination of ads which will have a ninety days payback time approxim and and ⁓ The other has a one to two years buyback time. The other million.

Nathan Latka

26:58Great. Well look, we'll chat more we'll chat more after the show. But yeah, I mean this is exactly why we do what we do. I still want to push you on some of the product stuff. I'm curious the new thing is that you're cooking, but I'm sure you have a way to spend some capital to drive more growth and we love that you're bootstrapped.

Martin Gallardo

27:11Yes, yes. ⁓ Absolutely. no, so that's that's it. Let's let's let's talk more about it. I mean the the entire point is ⁓ do this and then let's look at the numbers, A B testing, growth hacking, let's say what actually do we get out of these dollars, right? Does it make sense to go through the route of the 10x or maybe it's actually su suicide, right? And we will let the data speak, right? And then it's like okay, we see the numbers and then we see that okay, we can do this one hundred times, right? We can spend on these ads, we are going to get this money, then we need hundred million, hundred and forty million. maybe we need three hundred, maybe only we need five, ten million, and then we need another revenue base, or we do equity with a friend of us like you. Right? ⁓ so so that's that's the plan for next year, but ⁓ let the data ⁓ speak, right?

Nathan Latka

27:52Mm-hmm. Ver very good. Well, hey, this is a great story. It sounds like you you joined just five months ago, but you got big ideas, big plans here. If people want to follow your story online, Martin, where can they find ya?

Martin Gallardo

28:09⁓ no I I talk a lot on LinkedIn from a very personal ⁓ level and no AI. So just just follow me on the LinkedIn. I'm going to be sharing amazing stories at the end of the year. A lot of ⁓ a lot of video content we are going to ramp up on on video and telling this story of building it in public. So yeah, follow me on on LinkedIn. I will be a bit less personal going forward and a bit more like sharing stories of what we are building.

Nathan Latka

28:37Awesome. Well, congratulations on over three hundred and fifty million dollars of payment volume flowing through your system, empowering all these local founders, building Uber competitors, you know, but enabling to provide car service where Uber and Lyft and Bolt won't go because the margins don't make sense. Incredible story. Onde dot app Martin, thank you for taking us to the top.

Martin Gallardo

28:49Exactly. Thank you very much, and Nathan. It was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you.

Nathan Latka

28:56You you bet. Cut. Martin, what'd you think, man? Thanks for letting me push you.

Martin Gallardo

29:01No, super. It was amazing. No, you are actually you're a very very good host. I I was I was thinking you're going to push even more. No, but you're a fantastic host. You listen very well. ⁓ you you let me speak.

Nathan Latka

29:12Thank yeah, I try to ask r relevant questions at the right time, you know, that's the key.

Martin Gallardo

29:15no, you were great. You were great. You were actually I was very positively s surprised. Like a very very good listener and and very finding v a amazing like the right angle and questions and very a lot of curiosity. So I was

Nathan Latka

29:29Yeah, I love that name. I'm I'm definitely a curious person. So hey, you'll have to when are you trying to close r this round of revenue financing?

Martin Gallardo

29:36So so for the revenue base I can just do it now, right? I mean today we got I will tell you now that we are not live, right? Exactly. So we are launching a competitor to Uber and and Vault in Poland. ⁓ we are getting everything ready. Like we have the technology, we have twenty thousand drivers ready to go that they told us we will switch our b Uber and Vault because you are going to pay us so much more. They are extremely pissed off. But like you said, you need the drivers, right?

Nathan Latka

29:43Yeah, yeah.

The Robotaxi and Mobility Hub Franchise Concept

Martin Gallardo

30:05the the riders, the the people, right? so we need to spend about a million dollars on ads on the spot, like like this, over a weekend, literally. ⁓ and ⁓ but we have fleets ready to to go and stay and solve the cold star problem that Uber had, right? So we are launching in about three, four months. We we are building the fleet management s piece of software we didn't have. We just need to sort of put together like a Frankenstein of all of our things into into one piece of software ⁓ to have fleet management for the fleets and ⁓ and of course there's a lot of legal and commercial things to actually launch it right so so we are setting up the company sending money blah blah the other thing that I told you is like a secret project is is on the robotaxi side of things right if you read a lot of the news like way more Uber all of these guys they need to have parking places and and places for charging who is going to charge the Tesla Robo taxi who is going to clean it who is going to service it right this is going to be a massive industry about servicing and operations. ⁓ and we know because that's where most money is today, right? ⁓ it's on the driver's money and it's on the capital payback of the car and it's on the servicing and ops. so we are actually we just got a land, 4,000 square meters on intersection of a highway. We are going to pull it full of billboards and we are building a place for preparing for the robot taxi. ⁓ it's ⁓ Let's call it R and D or LAP, right? So we what we are doing is we are putting on E V chargers. we just ordered them today. We are buying four Teslas, Y, to have our own fleet, just to wrap them and go around the city with the and make a lot of stories, right? Like, hey guys, you can have your taxi, you can rent this car, you can charge it, and so on. And ⁓ and then we are going to put a ⁓ drive through coffee ⁓ concept. So basically what we are

Nathan Latka

32:03Mm-hmm.

Martin Gallardo

32:05going to do is brand it very very heavily. If you look at what Ball did to win against Uber in Europe, they invested six hundred million dollars on scooters, on these electric ⁓ scooters, just to show the brand around. Half of those scooters are broken now. I believe I can build a franchise like McDonald's that is revenue generating on that type of concept. So why of course people will think it's coffee, right? It's a drive thru coffee with our own brand. Of course you get a lot of riders and billboards and that's great for brand instead of burning ads all the time. So you have actually a physical place where people will see your brand, grab a coffee and talk about it. But the most important is it's three minutes from the city center on every single city in Europe. That is the key. Because once you have the taxi drivers and the robot taxis three minutes from the center, your ETA goes lower and my cost can be lower than than bought an Uber because of the platform. ⁓ then I can win on prize and I have a brand. So that's the entire concept. That's where we're going to spend another million dollars to to build it. we are starting with the land and all the containers and everything to build, the thing, architects and all of that. And we will take that template and we will sell it as a franchise. ⁓ so that's the entire plan to sell it as a franchise like McDonald's. for entrepreneurs that they want to another McDonald's. They open four McDonald's in in in Poland here.

Nathan Latka

33:25Mm-hmm.

Martin Gallardo

33:33So so that's that's the two lines of business, our own brand and the franchise for let's call it mobility hubs. but yeah, that's those are the two bets for the Tenex.

Founder Path Financing Discussion and Next Steps

Nathan Latka

33:43Well make I mean it makes sense. I mean why don't you go to Founder Path and sign up so we can try and make you a capital offer here? We'd love to be your financial partner as you go through the early stages of this.

Martin Gallardo

33:52Yeah, yeah. Let's do that. So I I'll sign up for for Founder Path. I will I will ping you when I have done through the process. we don't process the money through through Stripe. ⁓ we process mostly through checkout and bank transfers.

Nathan Latka

34:06That's fine.

Martin Gallardo

34:07But I can send you all the info. we can do So So yeah, I would say like if we could do two million, ⁓ have good terms with you, I would rather do it with you. And then we of course you can have the preference for the round. ⁓ because we will open a round.

Nathan Latka

34:10Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, no, we we love that. Who's the ⁓ obviously off the record, who's the other offer that you have from the revenue financing firm?

Martin Gallardo

34:28R actually R Riverside. I think we are on Riverside, but it's Riverside Capital, I think it's called Riverside.

Nathan Latka

34:34Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different yeah, yeah, I know I know those guys.

Martin Gallardo

34:37So we are on Riverside but this is also Riverside. Riverside Company, yes, yes.

Nathan Latka

34:40Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the the challenge the challenge with some of their paperwork is they force founders to take more money than that they need over a longer period of time so that you end up paying more fees. Yeah, yeah.

Martin Gallardo

34:48Yes, correct. Yes, correct. Correct. So this is one of them. ⁓ I have a couple of other more but not not formal like with the with the riverside guys.

Nathan Latka

35:00Yeah. So just to be clear, what would your perfect facility look like? It's two million paid back over two years or something different.

Martin Gallardo

35:07I would say two million, payback three years. One point one point four, I will sign it.

Nathan Latka

35:11Okay. ⁓ Well yeah, that one point four would be cheap. But if we can beat one point seven, like do one point five or something like that, that would be that would be doable for you. Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. Well yeah, sign that up today. I'll I'll try to get you an offer before I go to bed tonight.

Martin Gallardo

35:17Ha ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be doable. Yes. Okay. Super done. I mean, I'm ready. Super. Thank thank you very much. ⁓ I I'll I'll sign on the founder path and we will keep in touch. Anyways. Thank you very much guys. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

35:29Cool. All right, Martin. Good to good to meet you, man. All right. That's perfect. Sounds good. See ya. ⁓ huh. Bye bye.