How SARAL Hit $34,000 Per Month in Revenue with 103 Customers in Under a Year (Interview with CEO Yash Chavan)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Guys, getsaral.com is what companies use to quickly find a list of influencers to promote their brand. Yash built this, they're doing $34,000 per month in revenue. Just sole founder owned 100%, got his first customer back in December 2022 using Apollo to build an email list, LinkedIn Sales Navigator to focus on influencer marketing managers at e commerce brands, and ultimately reached out with Loom videos, Figma screenshots, etcetera to get fifteen minutes on their calendar to land his

00:24first five pre sold paying customers. Again, scaling nicely profiting $10,000 per month with his team of six as he looks to scale. Hey folks, my guest today is Yash Siobhan. He's a marketer at heart who dropped out of engineering college to work in sales and eventually fell in love with growing companies, SaaS companies at his agency. Today he's working on a company called getsaral.com. It's an influencer marketing platform for e commerce brands. Yash, you ready to

00:49take us to the top?

Yash Chavan

00:51>> Yes, Nathan. Two years ago I read your book.

00:53I wish

00:54>> you liked being on the show. So here I am. Awesome. We're thrilled to have you.

Why Influencer Marketing for E-Commerce

Nathan Latka

00:58Well, so why'd you why'd you choose influencer marketing for e commerce brands in terms of, you know, your first your first SaaS company? This is a tough space. Influencers come and go. Churn is tricky. It's sort of a marketplace problem as well.

Yash Chavan

01:10>> Yeah. So we're not building a marketplace. We're building a search engine, which is fundamentally different from most other like influencer platforms in the market. And the reason why I started this was because we were doing influencer marketing for some brands. And we found that the whole process of if an e commerce brand wants to work with an influencer, they got to find them, they got to contact them, they got to send them a contract, they got

01:31>> to figure out a way to track when they post affiliate link shipping products. All of that is very clunky and expensive if you use a software or a bunch of software to do it or extremely time consuming if you do it manually. So it all basically like simplifies this process and brings it brings it under one roof.

Nathan Latka

01:46I see. So if someone's listening right now and they wanna launch a certain product and they're looking for influencers in the fitness space. They could go to getsaral.com and look up type the word fitness and you'll give them a list of influencers.

Yash Chavan

01:59>> Correct.

Business Model and Pricing

Nathan Latka

02:00Yes. At what point do you make money?

Yash Chavan

02:02>> We make money. We are a SaaS subscription. So we make money based on we have a SaaS subscription, which comes with a certain number of influencers. And if they need more influencers than that limit, they gotta pay more. So we have that expansion revenue as well. So

Nathan Latka

02:16I see. I see. Okay. So what does the average company pay you per month to use your in use your influencer search engine?

Yash Chavan

02:23>> $2.99 a month.

Nathan Latka

02:24299?

Yash Chavan

02:26>> Yes.

02:26That's great. How did you come

Nathan Latka

02:27up with that price point?

Yash Chavan

02:29>> So we started so story when I started, again, so Dean Maxwell is one of my mentors. So I pre sold the software to five people at $99 before I wrote the first line of code, before we wrote the first line of code. So I was like, okay. 99 is the base price. And my offer was you will get two months of the software if you pay me for one month. So we just, like, split board 99

Pre-Selling Before Building

Yash Chavan

02:49>> to be honest, and then slowly we started increasing it. So when we launched, we made it. We launched at 99 in a couple of months, we made it 150. Couple of months, we made it 199. Then we like increased it to $2.99. Saw relatively in in fact, we saw higher quality customers come in, the higher our price point went. And then so that's why we settled on $2.99. So yeah.

Nathan Latka

03:09That's great. Yash, when did you land that first paying customer? What month?

Yash Chavan

03:14>> That was in December of last year. December 2022. Yep.

Nathan Latka

03:19That's great. And then fast forward to today, how many customers total?

Yash Chavan

03:22>> 103.

Current Customer Count and MRR

Nathan Latka

03:24That's amazing. Okay. So 103 customers paying $2.99 a month. Is that right?

Yash Chavan

03:28>> Correct.

Nathan Latka

03:29Congrats. Okay. That's $30,000 of monthly recurring revenue. Right?

Yash Chavan

03:32>> Actually, 34 because there are some bigger brands that use us, who are doing they want, like they wanna reach out to 2,000 influencers a month. So they are on a slightly higher package, like I said, the expansion. So it's 34. But

Nathan Latka

03:44That makes tons of sense. Walk us through how you you know, a lot of founders struggle that, you know, they spend a year writing code and they realize nobody wants to buy their software. Where did you find those first five customers you pre sold?

Finding the First Customers on LinkedIn

Yash Chavan

03:55>> Yeah. It was pretty just like do doing things that don't scale, reaching out on LinkedIn to people who were doing influencer marketing and saying, hey, I'm looking to build a software. And I just said, hey, do you have pain? I'm building software that solves this for persona. Would you mind hopping on a fifteen minute call to review it? Or as soon as send them a Loom video of, like, Figma mock ups saying, hey. Like, what do

04:18>> you think? Would this be useful? And people shared feedback with me. And then we actually refined the product in the Figma MVP stage before we even, like, hired a programmer or whatever. So yeah.

Nathan Latka

04:28That's very cool. Okay. How did you what did you search on LinkedIn to find the persons to send the cold messages to?

Yash Chavan

04:35>> Yeah. InfluencerMerch. So that's our core user, which is an influencer marketing manager at an ecommerce brand. So we just reached out to those people saying and I sent thousands of cold emails as well. So it's like, I sent cold emails saying, hey, we're launching the software. I'm not looking to sell you anything. I just need feedback. Would you be open? And people were surprisingly, open to it. So

Nathan Latka

04:57Oh, 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

05:20your 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

05:45get 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

06:07not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founders share with us on the show. So traction, 1,200,000 seed round, 3.7 raise. They sold 22% of their business. Go in here and filter by the event. Maybe you only wanna see companies that have sold the whole business. Well, here are a bunch that have been acquired, the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're

06:32going 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

Cold Email Strategy with Apollo and Instantly

Nathan Latka

06:54if 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

07:20the interview. Sticking with LinkedIn, and then we'll go to your cold email strategy for a second. So what button are you pushing on LinkedIn to find only ecommerce companies? And then what button are you pushing after you get that company list to find only the influencer marketing manager at the company?

Yash Chavan

07:35>> Yeah. In Sales Navigator, there's a filter. I think it's the retail filter or something you can use to find ecommerce brands and you can type in the keyword ecommerce. You can look at hashtags on LinkedIn as well. So if someone's posting about hashtag influencer marketing, very likely they're in the influencer marketing space or hashtag ecommerce marketing, see who's posting those are content creators, which means they're also engaged, because LinkedIn has a lot of leads, but they're

07:57>> not on LinkedIn, like they log in once a month. So it's pretty useless reaching out to those people to reach out to people who are actually actively posting, commenting, things like that. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

08:06Did you give any, you know, I understand reaching out saying you have a new product. Are you open to help on a fifteen minute call? Here's a Loom video as a tease. Did you give them any incentive for their time? I mean, time is valuable. Did you say take the call and I'll give you a free year or something?

Yash Chavan

08:19>> I didn't say free year. I did add a line. I think I heard Jason go ahead and say this. I said something like, I'm happy to pay you for your time if you're open to just chatting. But nobody took my money. They gave me money. So

Nathan Latka

08:34Okay. No one. That's very cool. Yep. Alright. So and then now let's pivot over to cold emails for a second. So first off, what tool did you use to send them? Was it a reply. Io, SendGrid, something else? It was instantly. Okay. Instantly. Yeah. They're crushing it, hear. Yeah. So instantly is what you use. Were you happy with them?

Yash Chavan

08:52>> Yeah. Pretty good. It's a good tool. Okay.

Nathan Latka

08:54How did you get the cold email list to put into instantly?

Yash Chavan

08:58>> Think it was Apollo or I think sales one one of those sources, Apollo Sales Nav, I had subscriptions for, for these tools. So

Nathan Latka

09:05What does Sales Navigator cost you?

Yash Chavan

09:08>> I think it's, like, $50 or something. Yep. Yep. Something like that. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

09:13Cool. And then, okay. Got it. So what did you search? And we already know Sales Navigator, how you used it. What did you search in Apollo to build a cold email list?

Yash Chavan

09:21>> Same thing. So I actually targeted different personas. I went after founders of e com brands, hey, is influencer marketing even something you're looking at doing? Why haven't you done it yet? Because everyone was, if I just gave you 100 influencers, would like, it said like, hey, e commerce brand, there's 100 influencers who are ready to promote you. Everyone's going say yes to that. So what's the friction? Like, why aren't you doing it? So I figured that

09:41>> out speaking with founders and then obviously speaking to influencer marketing managers or just marketing people in e comm in general, asking them what their pains were while they were doing influencer marketing. They shared this main feedback was around two bits. There were people who were using some enterprise source space is very like, I think it's typical of the SaaS space where it's kind of like a mature industry where there are some companies that were started in

10:02>> 2013, 2015 built for that market and they're priced at like $20,000 $30,000 a year paid upfront annually. And newer modern brands don't want to do that. Like I don't want to pay 30 ks without even a free trial. So I wanted to build something that was a startup SMB friendly equivalent. So we offer a free trial. We are transparent with our pricing. We don't force people to hop on three sales calls and all that. So all

Solo Founder and Ownership Structure

Yash Chavan

10:24>> these are pain points that I discovered. So the pain points are not just in terms of the product, but also in terms of Excuse me. That's you. The pain points are not just in terms of the product, but also in terms of the business model, for example. So, like, hey. I don't wanna hop on three sales calls. Well, here's a free trial and so on. So, like, I discovered all of these things. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

10:42This makes tons of sense. Okay. When you launched the business, you're you're sole founder, you have a co founder?

Yash Chavan

10:47>> Solo founder.

10:47That's awesome.

Nathan Latka

10:48So you still have a 100% today?

Yash Chavan

10:49>> Correct.

Nathan Latka

10:50That's awesome. Any plans to raise or you wanna bootstrap?

TinySeed Applications and Fundraising Thinking

Yash Chavan

10:54>> I actually applied to TinyC twice before. They rejected me. So we were at like 800 MRR they rejected, 3,000 MRR they rejected. Now at 32 ks I applied like a couple of weeks back and now they're like, yeah, we're excited. So I'm speaking to Rob Walling tomorrow. So I don't know how that's going to go, But I think that there it's gonna be undervalued, so we're likely not gonna go with them. But, yeah, let's see. I'm

11:16>> I very likely wanna raise for some, like, hiring and growth purposes, but I don't wanna go to a VC route. But we'll see. Like, if I just hit $60.70 k MRR in a couple of months, then I can just bear the brunt and not raise.

Nathan Latka

11:26What do you think TinySeed will value the business at? What what what's their typical offer?

Yash Chavan

11:31>> They give so they invest $1.20 k to $2.50 k for a 10 to 12%. I assume given our revenue, they'll give us, $2.50 k for a 10%, which will be 2.5. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

11:42Mhmm. So that's basically what I want to that's a five x multiple on your current ARR, something like that? Yeah. Is it worth so I mean, is that worth the dilution to you or how do you think about that?

Yash Chavan

11:51>> No. I I don't wanna give up 10% for $2.50 k because I I just know my numbers will be at 50 by end of year. So at 50 then I don't need the, I don't upfront need $2.50 ks anyway, right? It's not like $2.50 ks. Even if I get the $2.50, I'm probably going to spend it 10 ks at a time. So if I'm at 50 ks, I don't need the $2.50. Unless someone's like a strategic

12:11>> investor or some of our brands are bigger brands, like $8.09 figure companies who are using Seral. Some of those founders are interested in me and the tool in general. So they're like, hey, you're ever raising, just I'll write an angel check. So if I ever need money, I can just raise from my customers.

Nathan Latka

12:25Have you have you identified any other capital sources besides TinySeed and besides traditional VC?

Yash Chavan

12:31>> No. I haven't really looked at the VC model or raising money. I just focused on the product. But right now, we are having some friction in the model that just like I think I need more people to do some support onboarding, that sort of stuff for which I need more money. So, yeah, right now I'm just like getting into that world.

Nathan Latka

12:46Yeah. How much money would you need over the next three months to make this these one or two hires that you mentioned?

Yash Chavan

12:53>> Probably like, I don't know, not much, maybe for three months, probably like 30 k, 50 k around that.

Team Size and Hiring Needs

Nathan Latka

13:00Mhmm. So if someone I guess if someone looked at your current 103 paid customers, right, that pay you $2.99 a month, And they, you know, and they expect those customers keep paying $2.99 per month based off your historical churn values. And they offered to basically pull that cash forward for you and give you 30 ks today. Is that a kind of structure you'd look at?

Yash Chavan

13:18>> Yeah, I'd consider it. I see what you're doing, Nathan. You're good at this.

Nathan Latka

13:23Just curious. Just curious.

Yash Chavan

13:24>> Real recognize real.

Nathan Latka

13:26Yeah. Yeah. Just just curious. We I mean, I I

Yash Chavan

13:30>> I I consider it. No. I genuinely consider it.

Profitability and Reinvestment Strategy

Nathan Latka

13:32Yeah. I spent years, you know, thinking about what is the right product structure for founders, like with your mindset, right? Yeah. You want to keep equity and that's why we launched Founderpath. So, okay, very cool. Congrats on the growth. Talk to me more about your full team size today. How many full time? Six people. Six people. Okay. And profitable or are you burning?

Yash Chavan

13:53>> Profitable.

Nathan Latka

13:54Can I ask how much?

Yash Chavan

13:57>> Make roughly about 10 k. It depends because I reinvest a little bit in, like every dollar I make, I reinvest in marketing. So we are profitable at 20 k, for example. But then every every like 5 k increment we have, I'm reinvesting in, people, I'm reinvesting in marketing. So we're intentionally low profitable, but, like, we are making 5 k, 8 k profit, sometimes 10 k depending on the month. So I love that. This is a

Nathan Latka

14:20>> great story. Let's wrap up here, Yash, with the famous five.

Famous Five Rapid Fire

Nathan Latka

14:22Number one, favorite business book.

Yash Chavan

14:24>> Third business book, $100,000,000 offers. Yeah. Hermosy, that's a good one.

Nathan Latka

14:28Number two, is there

14:30is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Yash Chavan

14:32>> I'm gonna name three, the three b's of bootstrapping, Becker, Brunson, and Barry.

Nathan Latka

14:37Who's the who's the last one actually?

Yash Chavan

14:40>> Nathan Barry.

Nathan Latka

14:41Oh, Barry. Nathan Barry.

Yash Chavan

14:42>> Yep. Yeah.

14:42>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

14:43Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building the company?

Yash Chavan

14:47>> Close.io CRM.

14:48>> Yep.

Nathan Latka

14:49Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Yash Chavan

14:52>> Six. Six hours.

Nathan Latka

14:53Situation, married, single, kids?

Yash Chavan

14:55>> Single. No kids running around yet.

Nathan Latka

14:57Alright. How old are you?

Yash Chavan

14:59>> I am 24.

15:00>> 24.

Nathan Latka

15:01Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Yash Chavan

15:05>> I guess I was very impatient. I I guess I'm I still have. Like, I want things to be done now now now, but then I guess, like, if I were I were to give myself some, was like, just be patient, keep showing up, and things will happen. So yeah.

Nathan Latka

15:16Guys, getsaral.com is what companies use to quickly find a list of influencers to promote their brand. Yash built this, they're doing $34,000 per month in revenue. Just sole founder owned a 100%, got his first customer back in December 2022 using Apollo to build an email list, LinkedIn Sales Navigator to focus on influencer marketing managers at e commerce brands. And ultimately reached out with Loom videos, Figma screenshots, etcetera to get fifteen minutes on their calendar to land

Closing Summary

Nathan Latka

15:41his first five pre sold paying customers. Again, scaling nicely profiting $10,000 per month with his team of six as he looks to scale. Yash, thanks for taking us to the top.

Yash Chavan

15:50>> Alright. This is great. Thanks, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

15:52One 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 1PM

16:17Central. Additionally, remember these recorded Founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM 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 an acquisition, a big

16:40fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you want to take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign up

17:01for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We

17:21got 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.

17:28>> See you.