Vinod Muthukrishnan. He was first a sailor then a strategist and now an entrepreneur. He was fortunate and has worked in diverse and challenging environments starting with the Merchant Navy, a high energy mobile first financial technology startup where he had a strategy and global sales. Now, he currently serves as co-founder and CEO of a company called Cloudcherry, a tech startup based in Pleasanton, California with offices in Singapore, India and a new location Vinod will show.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – High Output Management What CEO do you follow? – Nick Mehta Favorite online tool? — Trello How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4.5-5 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Vinod wished he knew programming back then
Time Stamped Show Notes:
00:46 – Nathan introduces to the show 01:22 – The new location is in Salt Lake City 01:36 – Cloudcherry has 74 people 01:40 – They are based in India and Singapore 01:47 – Cloudcherry has raised $7M with a total of around $9.5M raised 01:56 – Cloudcherry is a custom platform for millennials 02:13 – Millennials have complicated journeys with the brands they work with 02:21 – In 2017, if you want to understand your customers, you have to be in all the platforms 02:47 – Cloudcherry is a feedback platform on speed across all platforms 03:07 – Cloudcherry has an inspirational wall in their office where employees can post things they find inspirational 03:18 – “You need to walk into your office every day and be inspired on what you believe in” 03:40 – Whoever visits their office can put their names on the wall 03:50 – Cloudcherry has the 6 pillars of their culture: freedom, ownership, smart work, passion and some more 04:03 – Vinod introduced Nathan to some of the people in the office 04:40 – The office is 2000 sq. ft. 05:05 – Vinod shows Nathan the view from the office 05:27 – Cloudcherry was launched in 2014 05:34 – Cloudcherry is a SaaS business 05:48 – Cloudcherry had their last fund raising September 2016 05:58 – Cloudcherry has close to 100 customers 06:05 – “The massive push now is to grow the business in North America” 06:37 – The team in America targets mid-market and enterprise businesses 06:47 – Average customer pay per month is a couple of hundred from SMBs 06:57 – Mid-market and enterprise average a thousand dollars a month 07:23 – Cloudcherry has a complex mix of customers 07:58 – They are doing more than 88K per month 08:13 – Cloudcherry has almost zero customer churn with SMB at the moment 08:35 – Cloudcherry’s enterprise churn is higher than SMBs 09:00 – Most of Cloudcherry’s customers are with them for 18-20 months 09:33 – Cloudcherry ran out of the market in 2015 09:48 – SMBs are customers whose ARPU is south of 20K 10:18 – Cloudcherry currently has 35% of mid-market and enterprise customers and 65% of SMBs 11:10 – Cloudcherry ‘s time to recover CAC is around 12 months 12:09 – Average CAC is $7K-12K 12:25 – LTV is around $36K 12:35 – “Some amount of the optimism needs to be weighed with intellectual honesty” 12:45 – The greatest predictor of LTV for Vinod is the churn 13:10 – Cloudcherry focuses on customer delight 13:22 – Cloudcherry got feedback on how delighted their customers are 13:45 – If a customer stays with you, it will impact your churn and LTV 14:11 – Cloudcherry is still burning cash at the moment 14:34 – “We have money to burn from growth” 14:47 – December 2017 goal MRR 15:32 – SaaS business should continuously grow in numbers 16:57 – The Famous Five3 Key Points:
Make your employees look forward to going to the office every day. When your customers are satisfied with your business, the numbers will just follow. SaaS businesses should constantly track their numbers.
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 Hotjar – Gives Nathan a recording of what is happening on a website or where are people clicking and scrolling on the website 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
