How Typeform Reached $48M ARR and 100,000 Customers in 2021 (Interview with Co-Founder David Okuniev)

Intro to Typeform and VideoAsk

Nathan Latka

00:00hello everyone my guest today is david okanyev he is building a company you've probably heard of it called typeform

00:05inside of typeform he released a new product called video ask which we'll focus on today we'll have a lot

00:10of fun where it takes the top yeah so let's let's talk type what's tease video ask for a second

David Okuniev

00:16when did you launch it yeah officially about just over a year ago but we were running it as a

Nathan Latka

00:23beta for around eight months okay so give us parent company first type form when did you guys launch your

David Okuniev

00:30co-founder i think when did you launch the company typeform was launched around 10 years ago something like that in

00:372012. and yeah like i said videos was officially launched like uh beginning of last year and give me a

Typeform early days and bootstrapping

Nathan Latka

00:46bit of a sense of the early days of type form the first year i mean do you remember what

David Okuniev

00:50were you two thinking about were you bootstrapped yeah bootstrap but actually like it's kind of like trying to repeat

00:57the same journey again with video ask but uh this time and after raising the capital so it's uh it's

01:03quite a nice sweet spot let's come back to the capital uh question here in a second um but again

Nathan Latka

01:09let's let's uh one more question type typeform then we'll go to video ask when people are paying for typeform

01:16i assume you did something to learn about what you should build next and then video ask sort of surfaced

01:21so walk me through how you used your type form user base to uncover the need for video ask actually

David Okuniev

01:28to be completely honest it's not something that came out of any user research just just like typhoon didn't it

01:34was just an intuition that that we wanted to create better forms and videos were just an extension of that

01:39it's like how can you make forms more human well put humans in them so it just seemed like a

01:44logical pathway for us for us to take and at the end of 2020 before we dive deeper into the

Approaching 100,000 customers

Nathan Latka

01:49video ask product can you give me a general sense of where type form was and maybe how many customers

01:53you guys are working with we're approaching a hundred thousand customers now wow and you think we just passed actually

David Okuniev

02:01okay that's is that that's an exclusive there we go but we like exclusively a hundred thousand castle type now

Funding journey and $50M raised

David Okuniev

02:08you haven't you you have raised capital but you know i usually like bootstrappers but if you raise capital you

Nathan Latka

02:13do an efficient way that's not crazy to move it can work out nicely so talk to me a bit

David Okuniev

02:17about your funding journey how much have you guys raised uh 50 million okay would you do it again would

02:25would we do it again inside telephone would you do the exact same thing or would you try and bootstrap

Nathan Latka

02:29or do something great more well yeah i think so i think we needed to because we really didn't have

David Okuniev

02:35a clue what we were doing and i think our investors actually helped us learn how to run a sas

ASP and upsell levers

David Okuniev

02:39business so yeah no regrets and help me understand you know there's different sort of go to go to market

02:45motions freemium you know smb et cetera what's the average customer paying you per month around 40 40.

02:55and and what's your most effective way to get people addicted is like number of type forms or the number

02:59of customized fields i know we pay because we do like a bunch of your if then statements built into

03:05the type form and we wanted that extra feature yeah you know what i've done off the top of my

Nathan Latka

03:09mind uh top of the head i've been so buried in videos for the last year and a half but

03:15i've kind of like gotten away from that but you know i think it's a typical thing if i had

03:19to assume it's like the ability to use advanced features like logic redirection uh there's also a certain amount of

03:27questions you can go on to type from on the free plan so those are big upsells to pay plans

03:32yep and then again i want to talk about uh video ask if you have a paid plan what usage

David Okuniev

03:37looks like it's wrapping up the story i'm tight for me can i take the hundred thousand customers times that

03:4240 average you gave me i mean did you also just pass about what four million a month in revenue

03:47yeah you should i guess you're close that's exciting i love it when you do why do you do you

03:52listen to the show uh you listen not that much but it was the same thing last night like kind

04:00of enjoy it yeah well it's fun you know the show doesn't work without founders like you who are game

04:05to share these sort of data points right like otherwise you get these bits you get this business like on

04:12the spot like i don't like things that you have to prepare for so this is great just like just

04:18dive into the deeper it's all the other shows you have to be like david what was your biggest failure

04:23what was your biggest success you know it's no fun okay so they send you a list of questions and

What VideoAsk does

David Okuniev

04:28they're like oh geez i've prepared this and sounds smart four million run right okay let's go to video ask

04:34tell us what the product does yeah so it's an async video interaction tool essentially you can build a kind

04:43of workflow journey where you can take people through a journey you ask questions via video you can collect answers

04:50via video text audio multiple choice you can collect the payment nps and and you can do like a series

04:57of these things just like a form yeah uh and the other dimension of it is that you know with

05:02typeform it's just collecting the data and then analyzing it with videos there's a step more you can actually respond

05:08so uh you can respond by video and then you get into like in like an asynchronous video conversation so

05:15it's really just a great way to get like face-to-face with customers or anyone like like you know in a

Competitive landscape vs Loom and Vidyard

David Okuniev

05:23business context of course like in the most effective and quick and visceral manner yep so the reason this space

Nathan Latka

05:28is very interesting to me is there are different mouse traps on the peripheries relative to like the spot where

05:34you're playing so for example you know yak right they sent me up and said use our tool to do

05:38like video back and forth and get ask your audience video questions for your show then you have loom which

05:43i use with my team to record like how to videos and i send them off a loom video asynchronous

05:48video and then you've got like you know vidyard and that crew that have a little tool internally that is

05:52really an enterprise motion version of loom so where do you see yourself sort of in the space yeah i

David Okuniev

05:57think uh obviously we're when we're in the video space like all those those that you've mentioned i think what

06:03videos is doing differently is we're going like deep into the video interaction kind of form uh based uh workflow

06:12whereby let's say loon is more about doing presentation and you might have a call to action like with videos

06:18you know we transcribe everything we've even released a feature soon where it transcribes live in the browser and based

06:26on listening it will jump to a different question so we're really we're really like going deep into like video

06:33interaction without it being one of these video interactions where you just like let you know like what do you

06:38call that hot spots like the videos we're really just trying to it's i would say it's kind of like

06:45the next generation type form for people that really want to get visceral well there's also a use case here

06:51where there are cpg brands that always want to collect video testimonials and this is a great way to do

06:57that that's a strong use case for us but i think you know uh you know just like embedding a

07:05video ask on your on your website just as a widget as a contact form where you can just say

07:09and we have loads of customers using this just like presenting themselves on on the website because they realize that

07:15if they put their own personal brand and actually talk to people they actually get more engagement and then people

07:20might respond by video audio or text and then you know you're suddenly in a conversation with that person because

07:26you can reply back so it's just a really quick way of just like actually like going jumping through all

VideoAsk revenue pressure and pay plan

David Okuniev

07:33the hoops so you can actually get a meeting and actually create a meaningful and personal con connection now do

Nathan Latka

07:39you have the luxury of not having to worry about revenue because you're built inside of type form which makes

07:44revenue in other words do you have a pay plan for video ads it's a edged sword because we have

David Okuniev

07:49the luxury of not having to raise capital or worrying about like running out of funds but you know i

07:55i i needs to be successful for us to like carry it on so i've had that pressure as as

08:01kind of like the the lead on the project what does that feel like david what does that pressure feel

08:05like what number are you trying to hit well i i i think it's been okay because i've it's we've

08:11just been on the tear like the team's great we've just been you know just like shipping features so fast

Nathan Latka

08:17and we're just pretty sure what we're doing so i don't think we've felt that pressure so much like the

08:21first year has been pretty let's say like uh you know let's say easy to get to that first but

VideoAsk $1.4M ARR first year

David Okuniev

08:28we've done like what around 1.4 uh millionaire arr in the first year of the product and oh yeah then

08:37yeah yeah yeah oh wow like like so as i mentioned the first year was like first first year was

08:43beta and then we um we we launched it properly last year we've like been like a year a year

08:49and a bit like running it as a paid product and that's amazing so just just to repeat that back

08:53to you so 2019 was all free you launched paid in 2020 and hit a 1.4 million dollar run rate

Growth projections and 3x target

Nathan Latka

08:58by the end of 2020. yeah what do you think you can hit by the end of this year look

David Okuniev

09:05i mean video is just exploding um and and i think we have a really unique product uh in the

Nathan Latka

09:13marketplace and we're seeing interest from all all sorts of tears uh you know even like strangely enough like we're

David Okuniev

09:21getting a lot of interest from enterprise as well uh which like you seen this is an innovative solution so

09:28yeah i think we can 3x or more by the end of the year that's great and when you look

Nathan Latka

09:33at the 1.4 million that video ask added to just type form as a whole parrot company i'm just using

09:38my growth i was going to say what's still aggressive well okay so it is a granite stand i was

David Okuniev

09:43going to ask what percent of the total growth in 2020 came from video ask revenue what's the well i

09:51i just said overall in terms of like ar i mean obviously maybe calculation but you know like time form

09:58is is like in the order of like 40 something times times bigger at the moment but you know it's

Nathan Latka

10:04type form and it's been operation for a long time and you know but how fast does typeform grow yeah

David Okuniev

10:11and how did what should typeform grow on a percentage over the past 12 months the whole company uh around

10:19around six fifty percent i believe fifty percent okay guys how i mean are you happy with that yeah i

10:26mean at this stage like it's it's good i mean we've actually accelerated in last year like we had a

10:32big management change like two years ago actually i stepped down i was a ceo and the company's been performing

Nathan Latka

10:39like like really really well and i think you know the momentum is really there then that is robert i

10:44just don't know because i only know you as robert roberts stepped down um robert stepped down like a little

10:50bit of time after we both stepped down the ceos he's still active active on in the company at the

David's hands-on operating role

Nathan Latka

10:57board so you're way more active than he is in terms of operations yeah i mean i'm totally in the

David Okuniev

11:04weeds i mean i'm just i'm product designing product managing and and even coding now so yeah totally back back

11:11to square one and loving it this is great okay this is very interesting do you see i mean it'd

11:15be very interesting that internally to see if the video asked product can eventually overtake the type form product in

VideoAsk churn rates

Nathan Latka

11:20terms of total weight yeah i always typically say so yeah that's just to create that sense of like you

11:26know a competition talk to me about about churn so when someone installs video ask i assume you want to

11:31get them to send like two videos and at least 10 minutes to like drastically increase that they stick around

11:35what does like churn look like today yeah i mean it's kind of similar to typhoon in terms of like

11:41you know people will pick it up you'll see like some users like picking up the month and churning then

David Okuniev

11:47coming back and reactivating um i think we'll be able to tackle sharon probably better than we can in tight

11:54form because there is quite a lot of like we we have like a strong kind of usage based player

12:01plans which are based on minutes of video processing so we're typically seeing people buying more and more and more

12:07so that's like indicating more more usage plus like strong kind of like higher smb enterprise means that like in

Nathan Latka

12:16terms of mrr churn i think we will perform we will probably outperform our main product what is it in

David Okuniev

12:22terms of local what's it at today do you know what it's at today the what the yeah yeah yeah

12:28i think uh i think it's around three percent three to four percent that's actually not that is actually not

12:34horrible for this price point no no no no i mean it's higher it's higher on time but it's just

12:39typical of this of this kind of business you see the same thing with like a monkey and all yeah

12:44it's just that people use these types of tools like periodically do like campaigns and then they come back and

12:50so forth are you in any talks to be acquired by no but you know we didn't have those conversations

12:59not i have met with the server monkey uh ceo a couple of times just casual conversation but that was

13:07way in the uh just just for fun but no no nothing nothing happening there i can assure you all

13:14right well look there's a relationship there so we will uh we'll see what happens now your guys's last round

13:20of funding was win a while a while ago now yeah last series b with um general atlantic 2017 i

13:29thought great yeah yeah i guess so any i mean any plans to raise or are you guys profitable we've

13:38we've been profitable um we're now kind of like just just happy to just stay around that if we wanted

13:44to be be profitable more profitable we could just slow down more investment growth but yeah we have that well

13:51yeah i mean you're you're i don't know if you know this you probably do but you're in a very

13:54rare club right where people that whether they have scale and their the ratio of funding to arr is about

14:00one to one you know most people at your scale it's like i can tell you we have we we've

14:05pretty much got the same amount in uh that we raised in capital just sitting right sitting in the bank

14:11yeah yeah just yeah what do you do with that i mean do so if you've got like 40 50

14:16million sitting in the bank i mean what the hell do you do with that you just let it sit

14:19there no sorry we've got what we raised in the last oh yeah but it's still the same same same

14:25question don't think it doesn't generalize what the hell are you guys doing why is the cash sitting in the

14:29bank you're gonna invest it yeah yeah i think yeah i think you know you gotta spend it wisely i

14:38i think we you know it's definitely like on the cards to think about like how we can like you

14:43know open up some more opportunities who knows there may be like room for for another funding round around soon

14:51i mean it's a good environment to to raise capital in and the company is performing really well so what

Valuation projection of $800M

David Okuniev

14:57would you do this obviously isn't you know official but using your gut i mean what would you value the

15:02company at what would i find in the company yeah what would you value it i would say in the

Nathan Latka

15:10next 56 months we wish like based on yeah based on a multiple about 15 like you know 800 i

15:20would say yep i mean and if the video has thing takes off and does well i mean you could

15:24be passing well that's obviously another good reason for an investor if we were raising capital to pay ahead as

15:30well because there's obviously some new things that you know we can prove have some traction and we can say

15:37we can repeat this model again so yeah yeah the future's looking right and when you raise the 35 million

15:46a couple years ago what valuation was that at much less was it i think it was around 300 or

15:56something yeah fascinating story and this is really interesting because i can tell you're like a pro you're someone that

16:01can really do anything at the company it sounds like you write code you design you talk to users you're

16:05probably talking to investors too uh it's it's just what i really enjoy but i i just you know i'm

16:12you know i've come to learn them i'm actually a and stuff and the further away i get from that

16:19the the less i feel kind of motivated or yeah i just like being close to and and solving problems

Famous five and wrap-up

Nathan Latka

16:27i guess well david we love that about you let's wrap up here with the famous five number one favorite

16:31business book i don't read business books anybody any book i read favorite book uh let's see he's pulling from

16:41his bookshelf what's he going to do from anything from bill bill bryson all right number two is there a

David Okuniev

16:46founder you're following or number three besides your own what's your favorite online tool for building video asking type form

16:58sigma and studio code to work in react number four how many hours of sleep to eat every last night

17:07four nice very good four how you can't survive on four hours of sleep no no i don't think just

17:12last night was it was a bit of a um but uh you know generally like six something like that

17:20what happened last night why was it a show uh we had a problem with lavender it's really boring with

17:27lambda functions timing out and some of our video pipeline got affected during the night so i was actually there

17:34just with an engineer training well i wasn't doing the engineering but just just kind of supporting and copying around

17:41solution yeah all right and what's your situation married single kids i have i'm married and uh three kids wow

17:49busy guy how old are you that's what are you sure 44.

Nathan Latka

17:53david take us home here what's something you wish you knew when you were 20.

17:58uh everything's gonna be cool guys type form founded back in 2011 they've now scaled over a 40 million dollar

18:06run rate they launched their video ask product a new product back in 2019 in beta they did 1.4 million

18:11in terms of run rate in 2020 hoping to 3x that here in 2021 as they look to scale they

David Okuniev

18:16did a 30 minute five million dollar round of financing back in 2017 i called a 300 million evaluation david

18:21says you know it feels like 800 million is very doable right now at the growth rate we will see

18:24what happens but no current plans to raise healthy economics and very profitable david thanks for taking us to the

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