1424 He Launched CRM in 2003, Bootstrapped, now $3.5m in ARR

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

Ceo, Entrepreneurs, Founders, Software, Business, Entrepreneurship, Saas, Startups

4.6 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2019

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Craig is the founder and CEO of SalesNexus (https://salesnexus.com/)

🕒 Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:00 – Nathan's introduction to today's show

0:40 – Why he transitioned to SaaS

1:00 – How SalesNexus has grown to scale by bootstrapping

1:15 – Why the average customer pays them $150-$200 each month

1:30 – How he launched the company back in 2003 as a side-hustle

2:30 – Why they have grown to serve 5,000 total customers today

3:00 – How they manage implementation in-house to drive customer success

3:50 – Why SalesNexus is doing $3.5M in ARR

5:20 – How they added marketing automation features to increase pricing

5:55 – Why they have scaled from $3.25M in ARR 12 months ago

6:20 – How the average customer stays with them for 5 years

7:35 – Why driving customization leads to stickiness for SalesNexus

8:20 – How they are landing new customers via online advertising

9:15 – Why they are spending $300 in CAC right now

10:20 – How their team has grown to 20 full-time employees in Houston

11:10 – Why they are cash flow positive today

11:30 – How Craig still seems room for growth today

13:50 – The Famous Five

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you guys love the podcast, you want to get the audible version of my new book,
0:05.6	How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital at Capitalistbook.com.
0:10.4	A user named just Jay on Amazon said this in a review, a four-hour workweek for 2019.
0:16.9	He goes on to say, I bought this book because I read somewhere that it was like a four-hour work
0:20.5	week of 2019 and it absolutely delivered.
0:23.1	The book delivered on both big ideas and has specific actionable templates, including unredacted and minimally redacted emails.
0:30.2	This book is not chalk full of self-promotion or useless platitudes, but has broken down into four key rules explained in solid detail and with specific and often amusing
0:38.3	anecdotes. Reading this really got my wheels and my head turning of how to be resourceful,
0:42.7	which many say is the ultimate trait of a successful entrepreneur. My favorite of the four
0:47.1	rules is blank. You have to go read the review to find out. But guys, thanks for supporting me
0:51.4	on the podcast. I hope you go grab the book on Audible today at Capitalistbook.com.
0:57.0	Start sooner coming from a guy that launched in the CRM space pretty early.
0:59.8	He was pretty soon for his industry in 2003, helped usher in that era.
1:03.8	Today has 5,000 paying customers doing about $3.5 million in terms of AR run rate.
1:08.6	That's up about, call it, 2010% from about a year ago when he was doing about 3.2 in terms of AR run rate. That's up about call it 20, 10% from about a year ago when
1:11.7	he was doing about 3.2 in terms of AAR, but bootstrapped, which I love, cash flow positive,
1:16.2	2% logo turn per month. So healthy lifetime value pays on average 300 bucks to acquire a customer.
1:20.7	So it gets paid back in less than call it five, six months. Team of 20 based in Houston and
1:25.3	other remote locations. This is the top entrepreneurs podcast where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn.
1:38.4	Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news
1:46.6	headlines. We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to two point seven million.
1:51.1	I had no money when I started the company. It was $160 million, which is the size of any IPOs.
	...

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