823: SaaS: Pre Rev SF Based with $3.3m Raised Aiming to Help SMB's Build Mobile Apps, Will People Pay?

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

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

4.6 • 683 Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2017

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Arun Saigal. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Thunkable, a Ycombinator-backed startup in San Francisco. Thunkable is a platform that allows anyone to build their own mobile app without needing to know how to code. Prior to Thunkable, Arun was the lead android developer at Quizlet. He also worked at Khan Academy, Aspiring Minds and Google. He holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – High Output Management
What CEO do you follow? – Shantanu Narayen
Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7-7.5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Investing in others is one of the best ways to invest in yourself”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:26 – Nathan introduces Arun to the show
02:13 – Thunkable is a drag-and-drop tool to make a mobile app
02:23 – The space is quite crowded
03:08 – Thunkable is simple but powerful enough for non-coders to have a powerful app
03:20 – Thunkable is currently free
03:34 – Thunkable has raised $3.3M to date
03:59 – Arun shares why they’ve raised first before implementing a paywall
- 04:07 – They wanted to hire the team and have the platform that they needed with the money raised
- 04:30 – They’ll start charging in a few months
04:48 – Thunkable was launched in 2016
04:53 – Team size is 10
05:16 – Thunkable has turned on their revenue for a small stream
- 05:35 – The charge is a high 5-figures and is an annual contract
06:16 – Long-term model: charge for a premium product
06:36 – When they turn-on their features, that’s when Thunkable will charge
07:25 – Arun saw problems they didn’t know existed from those who were building an app for Thunkable
08:30 – Arun wants to help people who really need an app for free to solve their problems
09:00 – The conversations they’ll have with people who will use Thunkable for profit
09:24 – Target price is $20 a month
09:40 – Arun believes they can maintain profitability
- 10:14 – Arun believes that SMBs need Thunkable more than the enterprise businesses
11:03 – Thunkable’s goal is to capture most of the apps from the app store
12:38 – December 2017 MRR goal is $10K
14:16 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Assist those who need help in any way that you can.
Choose your timing wisely when it comes to putting up your paywall.
You learn and grow by investing in other people.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
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
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In late 2015, early 2016, gotten to Y Combinator has since raised 3.3 million bucks,
0:04.5	team of 10 in San Francisco, helping millions of folks across their platform quickly build
0:10.1	mobile applications.
0:11.5	About to turn on a paywall, we will see what happens.
0:13.9	This is the top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their
0:19.7	industry in terms of revenue or customer base.
0:23.3	You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many
0:28.1	customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per talk. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global
0:34.3	domination. We just broke our 100,000 unit sole mark.
0:37.9	And I'm your host, Nathan Latka.
0:41.1	Many of you listening right now don't have time to listen to every B-to-B SaaS CEO that
0:45.4	I've interviewed.
0:46.3	If you want to get access to the database I've created with year-over-year growth rates,
0:49.8	customer accounts, margins, and many, many other data metrics and data points, you can go to
0:54.4	G-E-T-L-A-T-K-A.com.
0:57.3	Here's the thing, though, this database, I keep it to myself.
1:00.7	It's so freaking valuable.
1:02.4	And to preserve the quality of the data and make sure that the people that have access to it
1:06.4	have a true advantage, I'm only letting 10 companies on each month. So we're full this month,
1:11.5	but you can go to get Latka.com to get on the waiting list for next month. And look,
1:15.1	there's big people on the waiting list. I mean, the biggest VCs you've ever heard of,
1:18.6	you've probably heard of them. They're big, private equity, billions and billions under
	...

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