Gavin Wheeldon. With over 15 years of experience working in technology led or enabled businesses, Gavin has a deep understanding of the impact of technology on the bottom line of an organization. He sold his last business, Applied Language Solutions, a global language technology and service business, and has used some of the earnings to set up a new company, Purple WiFi.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Who Moved My Cheese What CEO do you follow? – Jack Welch Favorite online tool? — InsightSquared How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I’d rather read more of finance”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:24 – Nathan introduces Gavin to the show 02:29 – Gavin travels a lot and is frequently reliant on public WiFi—that’s where the idea for Purple WiFi came from 03:02 – Gavin sold his last company for over $60M 03:20 – His last company was in the translation and interpretation industry 03:23 – They used machine learning to translate languages with incredible accuracy 03:43 – Theirs is also a human editing in between so the translation is perfect 03:59 – Gavin was 36 when he sold it 04:02 – It was completely bootstrapped 04:44 – There’s no particular single owner of the space 04:54 – Fon does domestic hotspot and other traditional utility wifi 05:38 – Purple Wifi is the next generation of wifi 06:03 - Purple WiFi is SaaS business, charging annually depending on the number of wifi points 06:14 – For a single venue, the price is $13 a month 06:22 – Purple WiFi also caters to stadiums and airports 06:45 – An airport can average a hundred access points 07:10 - Purple WiFi currently has 17K installations 07:15 – It ranges from restaurants up to a whole city 07:53 – They now have around 80K access points 08:03 – Average MRR is close to a million 08:25 – Purple WiFi offers discount for bigger venues 09:00 – Sales cycle varies every hour 09:19 – A physical venue owner is usually clueless about what is happening in the venue 09:50 - Purple WiFi is channel-based and sells through partners 09:55 – Some of the partners are Telstra and Singtel and other national carriers 10:23 – Team size is over 100 10:30 – 45 are focused on sales and partnerships 10:46 – Telcos are usually built with partners 11:09 – They can build their own access points but it takes years and a huge investment 11:40 – Purple WiFi partners with half of the service providers in the USA 12:37 – Purple WiFi partners with Cisco and Ruckus for the access points 13:06 - Purple WiFi does post visit reviews which prompt the user to review the coffee shop or hotel 13:19 – There was around 500 increase in TripAdvisor reviews 13:21 – 600-700% increase in CRM generation 13:28 – The value of Purple Wifi can be seen from day 1 13:43 - Purple WiFi was launched in 2013 13:48 – First year revenue was $200K 13:59 – 2014 revenue was around $600K 14:13 - Purple WiFi consistently grows over 100% year over year 14:34 – 2017 target revenue 14:48 – Gross margin is 80% 14:59 – One of the challenges is the location and the huge number of data 15:35 - Purple WiFi is processing around 500K data from all of their access points in a day 15:50 – Purple WiFi has net negative churn and gross customer churn is 12% yearly 17:00 – LTV is around 10 years 17:10 – Most enterprise customers are signing 3-5 years with an upfront payment 17:33 - Purple WiFi has raised $13M 17:51 – The costs usually go to engineering and sales 18:07 - Purple WiFi spends on event sponsorship too 18:24 – They track the events prior to sponsorship 18:50 – Payback period is around 12 months 19:25 – Average CAC 19:39 - Purple WiFi is headquartered in Manchester, UK and US office is in Austin, Texas 20:26 - Purple WiFi is tremendously valuable for conferences 23:04 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Public wifi solutions are becoming more and more of a necessity especially for establishments and events. Having your own wifi solution allows you to gather data more than you could otherwise. Study your business before starting your business.
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 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 booksShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
