Amarpreet Kalkat. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Frrole, an AI (artificial intelligence) startup that is redefining consumer intelligence. He loves building things, be it product, revenue streams, teams or organizations.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Travis Kalanick Favorite online tool? — Klout Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Amarpreet would tell himself to focus and prioritize
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:22 – Nathan introduces Amarpreet to the show 01:50 – Frrole provides consumer intelligence 01:53 – Frrole relies on public data to build insights about the consumers 02:07 – Frrole works with companies’ marketing teams 02:35 – eBay and Flipcut are some of Frrole’s customers 02:44 – It is crucial for marketing teams to understand their customers 02:57 – Frrole works with eBay’s shipping insides team 03:02 – eBay wants to understand their customer’s shipping experience 03:34 – Frrole has data partnerships with Twitter and Facebook 03:40 – Frrole has official access to data 04:11 – Frrole looks at the attributes and annotations as a guide for the data they need 04:30 – Frrole is SaaS business and customers pay them for the insights 05:00 – Average customer pay per month is around $32K per year 05:28 – “Personally, I don’t believe in locking customers in” 05:37 – Frrole has a 30-day walk out clause 05:46 – Most of Frrole’s customers pay quarterly 06:08 – Frrole started as a B2C in the news discovery product, in 2012 06:14 – In 2014, Frrole pivoted to a B2B model 06:46 – Frrole currently has 13 team members 06:52 – The team is in Bangalore and Amarpreet goes back and forth between Bangalore and San Francisco 07:11 – Amarpreet is currently in San Francisco looking for a sales guy 07:25 – Amarpreet ideally looks for a co-founder kind of role 07:39 – Amarpreet is willing to give 5-10% equity 07:49 – Frrole has raised a couple of small angel rounds 08:00 – Frrole has raised a total of $250K 08:05 – Frrole currently has 18 paying customers 08:23 – Average MRR 08:45 – Average customer churn 09:36 – Frrole has 1 sales guy in Bangalore 09:50 – CAC 10:15 – Frrole spends $500-1K a month for paid marketing 10:39 – Frrole is recently experimenting with LinkedIn for marketing 11:18 – Frrole sponsors an email list and a banner ad 11:28 – It worked out okay 12:00 – Frrole is currently breaking even 12:10 – Salaries in Bangalore are way less than in the USA 12:26 – The best web developer in India would cost around $30K 13:58 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
Customers will use your product if they see the value – locking in is not always necessary. Marketing people need to dig deeper to understand and serve their customers well. Know what your priorities are and focus in.
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 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 NOWShow Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
