Louis Jonckheere. He’s one of the co-founders of Showpad which is the second company that he’s founded. He and his co-founders founded the mobile development agency, In The Pocket, in 2010 where he still is on the board. Prior to In The Pocket, he was a strategic project manager at NetLog where he first met one of his co-founders. He also holds a masters degree in law and business and he’s currently the Chief Product Officer at Showpad.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk
Favorite online tool? — Google Apps
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5-6
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That you should’ve sold your first company sooner”
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:21 – Nathan introduces Louis to the show
02:05 – Louis is the one responsible for product design and engineering, and he’s also in charge of the product marketing team
02:36 – Louis collaborates with their sales team
02:50 – Louis asks their sales team about the improvements they could make to the product depending on customer feedback
03:13 – Showpad is a sales enablement platform
03:22 – Showpad creates a content management system for their clients
03:47 – The marketing team uses Showpad to reach salespeople
04:14 – The salespeople are in the same company
04:27 – 90% of what marketing creates never gets used
04:47 – Showpad is used internally in businesses
05:36 – Showpad is a SaaS business
05:51 – Average contract value is $50-60K per land deal
06:46 – A customer that signed-up can grow up to an average of 140% in 12 months
07:04 – The upsell happens gradually
07:43 – Showpad uses Stripe for credit card payments
07:58 – Showpad also uses Salesforce, NetSuite and HubSpot
08:12 – Showpad currently has 997 customers
08:30 – ARR is a bit over $20M
08:35 – Showpad has a big group of SMB customers
09:05 – Showpad only has annual contracts so they’re not focused on MRR
09:15 – ARR goal this year is around $25-28M
09:48 – Team size is 220 with 30 sales people
10:00 – Showpad was launched in 2012
10:11 – Showpad was bootstrapped for 2 years
10:35 – The “bootstrapping mentality doesn’t get you to scale”
10:45 – Paid advertising spend was around $60-70K in a month
10:58 – Consists mostly of AdWords and LinkedIn ads with some Facebook ads
11:25 – Total money raised is $61M and the last round was a series C
12:15 – Showpad has been very lucky with their investors
12:58 – Showpad will be Louis’ first financial win
13:07 – In The Pocket is a profitable mobile agency
13:51 – Gross annual churn in 2016 was 6%
14:15 – As a platform matures, churn risk increases
14:42 – Net churn is around 30-35% in revenue
15:03 – Showpad has lost around 1-2 customers since they started
15:33 – CAC for the key cohort
15:42 – The golden rule for SaaS is for every dollar spent, you should get a quarter in return within 12 months
16:00 – Showpad currently has a 12-month payback
17:02 – LTV is around 5 years
17:28 – LTV in dollars is around $250K over 5 years
17:52 – Showpad is always aggressive with their targets
18:50 – Showpad has been adding dynamic mind maps to their product
19:33 – Most enterprise customers have been spending money on agencies to build a custom navigation presentation
19:48 – This is already a part of what Showpad offers
20:14 – The best marketing strategy for Showpad is events sponsorships
20:40 – Showpad has rented party buses for their customers in Europe
21:12 – Gross margin is 85%
21:25 – Revenue target by the end of 2017 is $28M to 30M
22:30 – 2016 revenue was $16.5M
24:21 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Marketing teams should coordinate with sales teams to find how they can make that successful deal.
Don’t discount a marketing strategy that may seem unconventional; it could be the very strategy that works.
Reach for the best—set an aggressive target for your company.
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 books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
