Vinod Muthukrishnan. He was first a sailor then a strategist and now an entrepreneur. He was fortunate and has worked in diverse and challenging environments starting with the Merchant Navy, a high energy mobile first financial technology startup where he had a strategy and global sales. Now, he currently serves as co-founder and CEO of a company called Cloudcherry, a tech startup based in Pleasanton, California with offices in Singapore, India and a new location Vinod will show.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – High Output Management
• What CEO do you follow? – Nick Mehta
• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4.5-5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Vinod wished he knew programming back then

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:46 – Nathan introduces to the show
• 01:22 – The new location is in Salt Lake City
• 01:36 – Cloudcherry has 74 people
  • 01:40 – They are based in India and Singapore
• 01:47 – Cloudcherry has raised $7M with a total of around $9.5M raised
• 01:56 – Cloudcherry is a custom platform for millennials
• 02:13 – Millennials have complicated journeys with the brands they work with
  • 02:21 – In 2017, if you want to understand your customers, you have to be in all the platforms
• 02:47 – Cloudcherry is a feedback platform on speed across all platforms
• 03:07 – Cloudcherry has an inspirational wall in their office where employees can post things they find inspirational
  • 03:18 – “You need to walk into your office every day and be inspired on what you believe in”
  • 03:40 – Whoever visits their office can put their names on the wall
• 03:50 – Cloudcherry has the 6 pillars of their culture: freedom, ownership, smart work, passion and some more
• 04:03 – Vinod introduced Nathan to some of the people in the office
• 04:40 – The office is 2000 sq. ft.
  • 05:05 – Vinod shows Nathan the view from the office
• 05:27 – Cloudcherry was launched in 2014
• 05:34 – Cloudcherry is a SaaS business
• 05:48 – Cloudcherry had their last fund raising September 2016
• 05:58 – Cloudcherry has close to 100 customers
  • 06:05 – “The massive push now is to grow the business in North America”
• 06:37 – The team in America targets mid-market and enterprise businesses
• 06:47 – Average customer pay per month is a couple of hundred from SMBs
  • 06:57 – Mid-market and enterprise average a thousand dollars a month
• 07:23 – Cloudcherry has a complex mix of customers
  • 07:58 – They are doing more than 88K per month
• 08:13 – Cloudcherry has almost zero customer churn with SMB at the moment
• 08:35 – Cloudcherry’s enterprise churn is higher than SMBs
• 09:00 – Most of Cloudcherry’s customers are with them for 18-20 months
• 09:33 – Cloudcherry ran out of the market in 2015
• 09:48 – SMBs are customers whose ARPU is south of 20K
• 10:18 – Cloudcherry currently has 35% of mid-market and enterprise customers and 65% of SMBs
• 11:10 – Cloudcherry ‘s time to recover CAC is around 12 months
  • 12:09 – Average CAC is $7K-12K
• 12:25 – LTV is around $36K
• 12:35 – “Some amount of the optimism needs to be weighed with intellectual honesty”
• 12:45 – The greatest predictor of LTV for Vinod is the churn
• 13:10 – Cloudcherry focuses on customer delight
  • 13:22 – Cloudcherry got feedback on how delighted their customers are
• 13:45 – If a customer stays with you, it will impact your churn and LTV
• 14:11 – Cloudcherry is still burning cash at the moment
  • 14:34 – “We have money to burn from growth”
• 14:47 – December 2017 goal MRR
• 15:32 – SaaS business should continuously grow in numbers
• 16:57 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Make your employees look forward to going to the office every day.
2. When your customers are satisfied with your business, the numbers will just follow.
3. SaaS businesses should constantly track their numbers.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Hotjar – Gives Nathan a recording of what is happening on a website or where are people clicking and scrolling on the website
• Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives