Arif Momin, CEO and co-founder of CStorePro technologies – the leading provider of mobile and cloud based operations management for retail businesses. He has an MBA from University of California. Berkley and BS in Computer Engineering from Michigan State University.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Innovator’s Dilemma
• What CEO do you follow? – Mark Zuckerberg

• Favorite online tool? — JIRA
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Move fast and willing to fail a little quicker. Don’t regret the old stuff”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 – Nathan introduces Arif to the show
• 02:05 – Arif used the network that his MBA provides
• 02:16 – What is CStorePro and how it generates revenue
• • 02:22 – CStorePro modernizes the operation of a single-operated store
  • 02:50 – Customers pay CStorePro $ 59 a month
• 03:02 – Arif was from a different company
• 03:40 – Raise under $ 1 million
• • 03:45 – All convertible note
• 03:48 – Number of unique customers as of September 2016 is 32,000
• • 04:09 – Number of paying customers is about 15,000
• 04:20 – MRR
• 04:30 – CStorePro was founded in 2011
• 04:44 – Arif’s first business turned into a lifestyle company
• 05:04 – Zero first year revenue
• 05:33 - $ 350,000 revenue in 2015
• 05:40 – Revenue goal in 2016
• 06:07 – CStorePro clients are store owners
• 06:17 – Gross monthly customer churn
• • 06:33 – Current churn is 5%
• 07:25 – Lifetime value
• • 07:41 – Calculated lifetime is 3 years
• 08:40 – Best number to quantify CStorePro’s data
• • 09:00 – Number in August is 13 million
• 09:10 – Team size and based in Houston
• 10:25 – Current customer acquisition cost
• • 10:31 - $ 180 to get a trial customer
  • 10:45 - $ 360 per paying customer
• 11:04 – Currently not in a capital raise
• 11:11 – Not raising funding and not selling
• • 11:25 – “We don’t need it and the time is not right”
  • 11:33 – There’s a huge opportunity in the business
• 11:50 – Total head count cost per month
• 12:24 – They’ve got access to financial resources
• 12:40 – Connect with Arif through CstorePro.com
• 14:40 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

• Give your business more time to grow.
• Tracking your churn has its advantages.
• Be prepared to fail – the earlier you fail, the earlier you learn.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal  for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal  developers.
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages  – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• CstorePro.com – Arif’s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives