Ruben Naverette, Founder of Empowerpoints, talks about how they have grown their employee engagement tool to $3MN ARR with major customers like Starbucks.
But I do see an exit.
Ruben Naverette:Probably the team.
Ruben Naverette:I mean, we've been doing this a long time and I think the honeymoon is, is over.
Ruben Naverette:It's been over for a long time.
Ruben Naverette:Um, but I think that our goal is to, um, you know, we already had
Ruben Naverette:three organizations approach us this year for an acquisition mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, um, cuz they're looking to, to, you know, get, move into this space and
Ruben Naverette:we're an, we're an established player.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:And we've turned those down, but we're not gonna be turning
Ruben Naverette:them down in two or three years.
Upendra Varma:Hello everyone.
Upendra Varma:Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast.
Upendra Varma:I'm your host, . Today we have Ruben Nav with us.
Upendra Varma:Ruben here runs a company called Empower Points.
Upendra Varma:Hey, Ruben, welcome to the show.
Ruben Naverette:Thank you for having me.
Ruben Naverette:I'm pleased to be here.
Upendra Varma:Absolutely, Ruben.
Upendra Varma:So let's, let's get started and let's try to understand what your company does and
Upendra Varma:you know, why do customers pay you money?
Ruben Naverette:Sure.
Ruben Naverette:Well, and PowerPoints is all about employee engagement and one of the
Ruben Naverette:things that we do, really our core, you know, competency is that we
Ruben Naverette:help employees create a system where they can recognize reward, um, and,
Ruben Naverette:you know, take surveys with their employees just to keep them engaged.
Ruben Naverette:Alright.
Ruben Naverette:Uh,
Upendra Varma:makes sense.
Upendra Varma:And who are you primarily selling this to?
Ruben Naverette:That's a great question.
Ruben Naverette:You know, and PowerPoints is so broad because it really applies
Ruben Naverette:to anybody who has employees.
Ruben Naverette:That said, we find ourselves mostly in insurance logistics
Ruben Naverette:and in the service industry.
Upendra Varma:Got it.
Upendra Varma:Got it.
Upendra Varma:And, uh, so, uh, just help me sort of, uh, complete the
Upendra Varma:conversation on the product, right?
Upendra Varma:So I want you to pick any of your, you know, uh, most ideal customer
Upendra Varma:and just sort of walk us through, you know, how they sort of use your
Upendra Varma:product and how they derive value from
Ruben Naverette:your product.
Ruben Naverette:Sure, yeah.
Ruben Naverette:You know, our most, uh, you know, ideal customer is somebody, you know, a business
Ruben Naverette:or an organization or a leadership to, um, you know, for that matter who
Ruben Naverette:really values their employees and wants to help make their experience better.
Ruben Naverette:And so it's all about elevating, you know, a, a good culture within the organization.
Ruben Naverette:And so our ideal customers really have an eye toward that, and not just, not
Ruben Naverette:just in a lip service way, but in a way where they really, genuinely want to.
Ruben Naverette:You know, their, you know, just their environment, their culture.
Ruben Naverette:And so they will, um, reach out to us and we will help them on, on many
Ruben Naverette:different levels, uh, with their culture.
Upendra Varma:All right.
Upendra Varma:Uh, so let's talk about the pricing model and your business model here, right?
Upendra Varma:Is it just the software that you're selling, right, which includes a bunch
Upendra Varma:of features, or do you do anything apart?
Ruben Naverette:We do do other things apart from that, but
Ruben Naverette:everything is included in the price.
Ruben Naverette:So when you are, uh, in a PowerPoints customer, you'll pay a fee based
Ruben Naverette:on the feature set that you employ.
Ruben Naverette:So, you know, you have your basic, you know, recognition piece, and then if you
Ruben Naverette:want to add surveys and customer surveys and a wellness, You know, feature, of
Ruben Naverette:course that costs a little bit more.
Ruben Naverette:However, we do do a lot of consulting with our customers and we do a lot
Ruben Naverette:of advisory type of activities.
Ruben Naverette:We spend a lot of time with them going over their analytics and taking a look at
Ruben Naverette:their culture, and none of that is extra.
Ruben Naverette:All of that is included in their monthly price.
Ruben Naverette:Okay.
Upendra Varma:Okay.
Upendra Varma:Uh, got it.
Upendra Varma:So let's, let's talk about, you know, let's try to understand a
Upendra Varma:bit about your customers and, you know, uh, customer base of it.
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:So how many customers do you have on your platform as of today?
Upendra Varma:Approximate numbers Totally work, by
Ruben Naverette:the way.
Ruben Naverette:Oh, wow.
Ruben Naverette:It would be, you know, we have some, you know, we probably have about 12
Ruben Naverette:really good core customers, and all of those are, you know, high employees.
Ruben Naverette:So we have thousands and thousands of users.
Ruben Naverette:. Um, and that really resides within, you know, a small pool of
Ruben Naverette:customers that we really focus on.
Ruben Naverette:You know, we include some of our customers include Starbucks and
Ruben Naverette:Chick-fil-A stores, uh, you know, on that service industry end.
Ruben Naverette:And then we have everything from select health to large logistic firms
Ruben Naverette:who employ then thousands of people.
Ruben Naverette:All over.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:So let's,
Upendra Varma:let's qu I, I got the sense, so let's quantify, like how many
Upendra Varma:users do you have on your platform?
Upendra Varma:I mean, total employees approximately?
Ruben Naverette:We probably have about, um, And I, you know, last
Ruben Naverette:I've looked probably about 68,000.
Upendra Varma:68,000.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:, that's around 5,000 approximately.
Upendra Varma:And an average per customer.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:Exactly.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:, that's pretty, uh, awesome.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So, and in terms of revenue, I mean, you can choose not to disclose it
Upendra Varma:if you're not comfortable with, and just wanna get a sense of where
Upendra Varma:you are as a company as of today.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:You know, as a company, um, we are, You know, growing, of course we do about,
Ruben Naverette:um, just shy of 3 million a year.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. Um, so that is, um, I dunno what that breaks down to be about a month.
Ruben Naverette:And then per user, you know, we have our, um, you know, we have our, our
Ruben Naverette:card price and then we have different prices that we've negotiated with our
Ruben Naverette:various customers, depending upon mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:what types of, um, you know, what type of.
Ruben Naverette:You know, staff that they need or what type of of services they need.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:And
Upendra Varma:okay, so I just, I just wanna understand
Upendra Varma:your growth as well, right?
Upendra Varma:So 12 months before, right.
Upendra Varma:So where were you in terms of your revenue approximately?
Ruben Naverette:Um, we were probably, maybe, you know, we
Ruben Naverette:didn't grow a whole lot this year.
Ruben Naverette:That's a really good question.
Ruben Naverette:We thought we were gonna grow a lot.
Ruben Naverette:Out of Covid, but that didn't really materialize and primarily just because the
Ruben Naverette:sales cycle in SA is so long as you know.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And so we, um, you know, coming outta Covid, we felt like there was gonna
Ruben Naverette:be a real, um, A real thirst and a hunger for employee engagement.
Ruben Naverette:And there is, but it just takes a long time for that to
Ruben Naverette:really hit your bottom line.
Ruben Naverette:And so I wouldn't say that we've grown, we've grown maybe 10% this year.
Ruben Naverette:Got it.
Upendra Varma:Alright.
Upendra Varma:So there are a lot of things here to understand, right?
Upendra Varma:So let's, let's sort of, uh, deep dive into your go-to market, you know,
Upendra Varma:strategy and your journey so far.
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:I just wanna start at the top of funnel, right?
Upendra Varma:So you've got around 12 customers, so you absolutely know where they
Upendra Varma:come, where they came from, you know, what was that first touchpoint?
Upendra Varma:So just walk us through, you know, that first, first couple of customers, right?
Upendra Varma:So how did they sort of ended up, you know, becoming your customers?
Upendra Varma:How did you know them?
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:What was the process like?
Upendra Varma:So the, during those first 0 2 1
Ruben Naverette:journey.
Ruben Naverette:Okay.
Ruben Naverette:That's a great question.
Ruben Naverette:Well, our first customer came, um, as a result of the fact that
Ruben Naverette:we weren't even in PowerPoints.
Ruben Naverette:You know, we had a small software development firm and we were developing
Ruben Naverette:software for, for the banking industry.
Ruben Naverette:And, um, one of our large customers, which was at that time, MetLife came
Ruben Naverette:to us and said, we have a problem with, um, employee engagement in our, in our
Ruben Naverette:loan division, our home loan division.
Ruben Naverette:Um, and we were wondering if you could help us develop a small tool that we
Ruben Naverette:could pilot within one of our branche.
Ruben Naverette:and help us, you know, kind of understand why the employee environment was so toxic.
Ruben Naverette:And so we just started with that.
Ruben Naverette:And then when we built that tool, we, we retained ownership of a course.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. Um, and it was really successful and it really grew rapidly
Ruben Naverette:within that organization.
Ruben Naverette:And then we really focused on making that product work well in that organization.
Ruben Naverette:And then we slowly started branching out to similar organizations like.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And you know, it, it is with any place, you know, employees, they'll work a place
Ruben Naverette:somewhere and then they'll go to another place and then they'll recommend us.
Ruben Naverette:So most of our stuff has come word of mouth.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. In fact, one of our large customers, uh, they just had an acquisition
Ruben Naverette:that's just taking place right now and we'll be bringing on 17 new
Ruben Naverette:companies, almost doubling our, you.
Ruben Naverette:Because of that word of mouth.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:And, and so, you know, primarily that's where we found most of
Ruben Naverette:it's, we've met people, you know, at conferences, at workshops, and
Ruben Naverette:it's that personal relationship and connection that's helped us close deals.
Ruben Naverette:And so anything, any advice that I could give to people who are.
Ruben Naverette:In the SAS field is you really have to get out there mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:and, um, I mean, it's great to depend on, maybe it's Google Ads or some
Ruben Naverette:other approach that you're gonna take to, you know, bring people
Ruben Naverette:into the top end of your funnel.
Ruben Naverette:But we have found that the most effective way is to build
Ruben Naverette:relationships with the people, the customers that you see out there.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:the type of customers that you feel are important to you.
Ruben Naverette:And, and that is, I mean, I have to say, those relationships are
Ruben Naverette:the most important customers.
Ruben Naverette:Like I have a.
Ruben Naverette:Who, um, lives just, you know, across the way, and him and I talk all the time.
Ruben Naverette:He's a CEO of a, of a large credit union in our state.
Ruben Naverette:And, you know, they're coming on board as a customer, but
Ruben Naverette:it's about that relationship.
Ruben Naverette:So if you can be going to, if you can go to different mixers, uh, CEO events,
Ruben Naverette:um, events where your ideal customers are, attend those events and talk to.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So, so you mentioned something right, that, you know, MetLife came to you
Upendra Varma:to, so sort of solve their problem.
Upendra Varma:Like who exactly was, was that you, right.
Upendra Varma:So were you a firm, like what were you doing back then?
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, I had a little, you know, it was just me at that time and
Ruben Naverette:I had a little software development firm that I had, and this was a while back.
Ruben Naverette:This is back, back, back in like 2000.
Ruben Naverette:It's been some time now,
Upendra Varma:so it's been 13 years approximately since,
Upendra Varma:since you got that first deal.
Upendra Varma:Okay.
Upendra Varma:Got sure.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:But you know what, we had an exclusive deal with them for quite some, for a
Ruben Naverette:number of years because they were our first customer and because, um, we had
Ruben Naverette:developed the product for them, um, and I just had a small little, uh, software
Ruben Naverette:development firm and I had, you know, developers working for me that I was
Ruben Naverette:outsourcing to, and I was developing small little communications tools in the.
Ruben Naverette:Area didn't even see this coming, so,
Upendra Varma:so you were essentially building software and selling it
Upendra Varma:to, you know, these banks, right.
Upendra Varma:So essentially sort of outsourcing their development needs, something like that,
Ruben Naverette:sort of, yeah.
Ruben Naverette:They were at, you know, they were our customer.
Ruben Naverette:They were kind of our only customer and we were only developing software for them.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. Okay.
Ruben Naverette:So we were just u we, they were just using us as their shop to
Upendra Varma:develop.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:It only made sense naturally.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So from that journey, you know, transitioning.
Upendra Varma:So they naturally would come to you to sort of ask to build that product.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So that made sense.
Upendra Varma:Exactly.
Ruben Naverette:Cause all of our, all the tools that we were developing for
Ruben Naverette:them were all based around communications.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, um, but they were, you know, tactile communications.
Ruben Naverette:Um, and, and so we.
Ruben Naverette:Then they just wanted to take it a little step further because they had a
Ruben Naverette:communication problem that was employee engagement and, and how communi, um,
Ruben Naverette:employees were engaging with one another.
Ruben Naverette:So we built a small peer-to-peer platform for them where p peers could recognize
Ruben Naverette:each other, and that's where it started.
Upendra Varma:Got it.
Upendra Varma:Alright, so 2009, you got that first customer, right?
Upendra Varma:So now you essentially built, you, you took that product.
Upendra Varma:Now you got a nice product out there, right?
Upendra Varma:So what happened after that?
Upendra Varma:I know you mentioned networking and all of that stuff.
Upendra Varma:When was that next?
Upendra Varma:That you ended up listening?
Ruben Naverette:That's a really good question.
Ruben Naverette:Well, I think first, before we got the first customer, remember it was just me.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:and I realized I needed help on this.
Ruben Naverette:And so I brought on, um, a at that time he was a gonna be our coo, and then we
Ruben Naverette:brought in a ux UI guy and then we brought on a sales guy and I gave them equity.
Ruben Naverette:To partake, participate through the years.
Ruben Naverette:We eventually transitioned to where I took a backseat as the, the, um, chief
Ruben Naverette:Innovation Officer, and then our, who was firstly our coo, he became our c E O.
Ruben Naverette:So we swapped roles there a bit, just because I'm more on the
Ruben Naverette:creative end and he's more a leader.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. Um, which was a really good transition.
Ruben Naverette:Now in terms of our next customer came actually as a result of, I was on a.
Ruben Naverette:And there was a wine tasting on the cruise.
Ruben Naverette:And um, we were going around the table and people were asking, what do you do?
Ruben Naverette:And I said, oh, I have a little employee engagement customer, or an
Ruben Naverette:employee engagement, you know, company.
Ruben Naverette:Now granted at this time we only had one customer, so at that point then,
Ruben Naverette:The guy sitting next to me said, I have a logistics company and I need you,
Ruben Naverette:And we exchanged numbers and then he became a really good customer,
Ruben Naverette:still a customer to this day.
Ruben Naverette:So that was our second customer.
Ruben Naverette:And then we went into Google Ads.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. So we thought, how do we expand this?
Ruben Naverette:And so we started running Google ads and that's how we
Ruben Naverette:got Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A.
Upendra Varma:You got Starbucks from Google Ads.
Ruben Naverette:Yes we did.
Ruben Naverette:And we don't have like the big Starbucks, like the corporate Starbucks is.
Ruben Naverette:We started out with a couple of independently owned Starbucks, um,
Ruben Naverette:in Miami, Uhhuh . And then once we, once we got, had our foot in the
Ruben Naverette:door and that company that owned that Starbucks also owned Chick-fil-A
Ruben Naverette:and Einstein Brothers Bagels.
Ruben Naverette:And they had a few stores in the Miami area.
Ruben Naverette:And then we just, um, Took that seriously and then, you know, took that forward.
Upendra Varma:Got it.
Upendra Varma:So I wanna talk about the conversion funnel as well, right?
Upendra Varma:What happens after, you know, let discuss here, but I just want
Upendra Varma:to ask you one question, right?
Upendra Varma:So like, it's been almost 12, 13 years, and you're saying you got it on 12,
Upendra Varma:obviously very big customers, right?
Upendra Varma:So why is that number so low?
Upendra Varma:Was that strategic?
Upendra Varma:Or, you know, like, because you, you had all of these top of
Upendra Varma:funnel potential channels, right?
Upendra Varma:So why, why is that number looking so low for me?
Upendra Varma:Obviously the revenue is still higher.
Upendra Varma:Just wanna understand the backstory.
Ruben Naverette:It's looking so low because this is a very difficult process.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, like probably about, um, uh, to a magnitude of a hundred, you know,
Ruben Naverette:more difficult than we anticipated.
Ruben Naverette:Okay.
Ruben Naverette:We've, uh, we're kind of on our third salesperson, you know,
Ruben Naverette:our head of sales right now.
Ruben Naverette:The sales cycles are so tough.
Ruben Naverette:Um, you know, employee engagement is a want to have, not a need to have.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And so it's really important that customers see their pain points.
Ruben Naverette:It's an extra expenditure kind of, that they don't see as a necessity so much.
Ruben Naverette:It's, it's somewhat of a competitive marketplace right now, so we're
Ruben Naverette:competing often against going up against some really big players in
Ruben Naverette:the space who, who do things well.
Ruben Naverette:I mean, and we do everything well too, but, um, so that, I mean, there's
Ruben Naverette:just been a confluence of factors.
Ruben Naverette:We've tried a lot of things, you know, in.
Ruben Naverette:This year we tried a cold outreach program.
Ruben Naverette:We invested a lot of money into a big cold outreach system.
Ruben Naverette:We had, um, Salesforce, high velocity sales plugged in, ready to go, and, um, we
Ruben Naverette:had, we hired a firm to come out and do a cold outreach with phone calls and emails.
Ruben Naverette:We bought Zoom info so that we could get their intelligent, um, data.
Ruben Naverette:We did all that and didn't really make any traction with that.
Ruben Naverette:So what,
Upendra Varma:so why is it so, like, I just wanna understand it so you.
Upendra Varma:You send a bunch of cold emails to the relevant persons, right?
Upendra Varma:Something's gotta happen.
Upendra Varma:I know.
Upendra Varma:I mean, it might not be 10%, but you've gotta have some, some percentage of
Upendra Varma:them sort of expressing interest.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So what didn't work out there?
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:Well, what happened is, you know, because of our ideal customers,
Ruben Naverette:like a higher number of employees mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, it's not like, you know, um, a mom and pop place that has 20 employees
Ruben Naverette:where they can make quick decisions.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, what happens is you have large organizations and you're offering
Ruben Naverette:enterprise level software, and you have to jump through a million
Ruben Naverette:hoops in order to close those deals.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:Those deals are significantly harder to close than smaller deals.
Ruben Naverette:I'll tell you what, the deals that we did for Starbucks and Chick-fil-A because.
Ruben Naverette:Smaller organizations really on the ground in terms of we were doing
Ruben Naverette:store by store, were easier to close.
Ruben Naverette:, um, than some of these companies that you've never heard of.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, just because these companies operate, they have a lot of, you know, when you operate
Ruben Naverette:on the security, on the, um, enterprise level, you have a lot of security, you
Ruben Naverette:know, hoops that we have to jump through.
Ruben Naverette:A lot of vetting that has to happen and there's just, it's just brutal.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:And you know, that's probably
Upendra Varma:one question.
Upendra Varma:Is it a project thing that you really.
Upendra Varma:Don't wanna sell to, you know, uh, customers of, you know, smaller number
Upendra Varma:of employees, customer, or is, is it really producting that your product
Upendra Varma:only makes sense for companies?
Upendra Varma:There's a lot of employees.
Upendra Varma:It
Ruben Naverette:really, we found that it only makes sense for large
Ruben Naverette:organizations who really can execute a system and a program of this type.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. Um, simply it does work in smaller organizations.
Ruben Naverette:It, it needs synergy.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:This kind of thing needs synergy and for there to be a lot of people on board.
Ruben Naverette:And so we've been o you know, marginally successful, you know, in smaller
Ruben Naverette:organizations, but we found that our churn is much higher in smaller organizations
Ruben Naverette:than it is in our larger organizations.
Ruben Naverette:Our larger organizations.
Ruben Naverette:Those relationships last years.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:and at some point, you know, we're getting to decades now.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:Whereas some of those smaller ones, they don't make as much money.
Ruben Naverette:The churn is higher, they're more maintenance, more customization for
Ruben Naverette:fewer people and for fewer dollars.
Ruben Naverette:So, so it's really, you know, our sweet spot really is
Ruben Naverette:actually, is kind of between, you know, 300 employees and 2,500.
Ruben Naverette:And that's really a sweet spot for us.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, I mean, we're just, we're bringing on our organization of
Ruben Naverette:4,000 here pretty soon, but, you know, which will be a challenge, but
Upendra Varma:yeah.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:So, so talk about the sales cycle, right?
Upendra Varma:So you mentioned it's really, really tough to sort of close those deals, right?
Upendra Varma:So, so how does the sales cycle look like as a pretty, how much time does it take?
Upendra Varma:for that, you know, lead to get converted to a customer, for example.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, good question.
Ruben Naverette:Well, usually the sales cycle starts out with some kind of a cold outreach
Ruben Naverette:or some kind of inquiry that comes in.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And then what we'll do is we'll immediately go into what we call,
Ruben Naverette:uh, our initial discovery, and that's where we have a conversation with
Ruben Naverette:the customer, the potential customer, and find out what are their needs.
Ruben Naverette:Because our product is really broad and it, we can customize
Ruben Naverette:it down pretty narrowly.
Ruben Naverette:So it's really important that we understand what.
Ruben Naverette:So once we get an understanding of that, once we have that discovery meeting,
Ruben Naverette:then we usually schedule another meeting.
Ruben Naverette:If, if it's a good fit with, you know, more stakeholders within the organization.
Ruben Naverette:And it's at that point that we'll do an en entire custom build.
Ruben Naverette:It's like a demo.
Ruben Naverette:Build that with their colors, their theme, and then we'll take them through that.
Ruben Naverette:Now, that usually takes around, you know, sometimes.
Ruben Naverette:Two or three or four, uh, different demos that we'll have to do as different
Ruben Naverette:people within the organization take a look at the organiz, uh, after to think.
Ruben Naverette:Then we'll get to the quoting phase, and then we negotiate that.
Ruben Naverette:Then we have to get a con, you know, a contract in place, and then it
Ruben Naverette:has to go through a legal process.
Ruben Naverette:And then once that, you know, once that's all been done and everyone's
Ruben Naverette:signed on the dollar line, then we can begin with our implementation.
Ruben Naverette:And
Upendra Varma:approximately how much time does this take on
Upendra Varma:average from that initial point?
Ruben Naverette:Okay, that's, uh, on average it's probably
Ruben Naverette:about four to six months for us.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:got
Upendra Varma:it.
Upendra Varma:It's not fast.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:Obviously it makes sense.
Upendra Varma:It makes a lot of sense.
Upendra Varma:So, so I wanna understand your deal win rate.
Upendra Varma:For example, tomorrow if I bring in, bring in, let's say a hundred, you know, cus
Upendra Varma:a hundred sort of leads to you, right?
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:. So how does the CU deal win rate look like?
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:How many of them actually do you end up converting to, uh, paid?
Ruben Naverette:Um, I would say like, you know, we are conversion rate.
Ruben Naverette:Um, that's a really tough one.
Ruben Naverette:I'm just trying to think of what it was this year.
Ruben Naverette:So, so yeah, go ahead.
Ruben Naverette:Go ahead.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:So yeah, I would say that, you know, two outta 10 maybe.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. Upendra Varma: Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:So, yeah.
Ruben Naverette:So my next question naturally is like, if I pour in more leads in into
Ruben Naverette:that funnel, can you, can you still maintain that 20% conversion rate?
Ruben Naverette:I think we would actually probably improve on that
Ruben Naverette:just because as you go, you learn.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, you know, as you have more at bat, you do, you know, you do learn better.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And so I think that we would, um, I, I think, I think so.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:I think we, yeah.
Upendra Varma:So, so if, if that is true.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:My next question obviously is basically you've got a bunch of companies,
Upendra Varma:obviously I think you must have that big a network that you can just even
Upendra Varma:handpick these customers, right?
Upendra Varma:So tomorrow you could just pick these 50 odd customers, right?
Upendra Varma:Is the path from 12 customers, so let's say 20 or 50.
Upendra Varma:Is it, is it an easy one?
Upendra Varma:Is it as simple as saying, okay, let's, let's just pour them
Upendra Varma:into the funnel and we'll end up converting them, or is it not?
Upendra Varma:Well, I
Ruben Naverette:wish we could do that.
Ruben Naverette:I wish we could just go out and grab people and put 'em in the funnel.
Ruben Naverette:And
Upendra Varma:what's stopping that?
Upendra Varma:What's, what's, what's really the hurdle there?
Upendra Varma:, Ruben Naverette: what's stopping
Upendra Varma:those people to put in the funnel.
Upendra Varma:Once we get 'em in the funnel, then we're good.
Upendra Varma:But finding, you know, organizations that are number one, open
Upendra Varma:to what you have to present.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:have the budget for it, have the appetite for it.
Upendra Varma:Have also the philosophy behind, um, the whole idea as employee engagement
Upendra Varma:and paying money to help workers work harder when you're already
Upendra Varma:paying them money and then giving.
Upendra Varma:Like gift cards and things like that and spending that extra money, that's
Upendra Varma:a real hard sell in today's business, especially with the recession.
Upendra Varma:And so finding those people who are like willing to take a meeting.
Upendra Varma:and who are like in that space, you know?
Upendra Varma:And also, here's another real interesting point.
Upendra Varma:We start often with HR departments.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:. And that's kind of where a lot of this begins.
Upendra Varma:And that's a real hard place to start because they're so busy, they're
Upendra Varma:so overwhelmed, they're slammed.
Upendra Varma:Especially this time of year with open enrollment and things like
Upendra Varma:that, you can't even get a meeting.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:. Um, so it's a real challenge.
Upendra Varma:And so we've.
Upendra Varma:All kinds of different things.
Upendra Varma:And this next year we're doing an affiliate program, um, and
Upendra Varma:we're doing an ambassador program.
Upendra Varma:So we're in, we're gonna invest in, um, some new ways and some new things.
Upendra Varma:We're always looking at new things to do, and one of the things we're
Upendra Varma:also thinking about doing is some, um, what they call, um, Was it user
Upendra Varma:generated content where some of our users we're gonna, you know, offer them
Upendra Varma:a really significant commission to, you know, put content out there for us.
Upendra Varma:So we've got a couple creative things up our sleeves that we're gonna try cuz
Upendra Varma:we just haven't Ha we've not had much luck with the cold outreach and we've
Upendra Varma:had good luck with, um, Google ads and so we're gonna start, we're gonna put
Upendra Varma:an some new money into that this next.
Upendra Varma:we put all of our money into cold outreach this year and we're, we're,
Upendra Varma:we're stepping away from that.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:. And we might keep a little bit on that cuz that, you know, does path marginally,
Upendra Varma:but we have to try other things.
Upendra Varma:So what does your gut say?
Upendra Varma:You, right.
Upendra Varma:So which of these investments that you're gonna make, right, which of
Upendra Varma:them are actually going to take you from let's say 3 million to 10 million?
Ruben Naverette:I don't think it's Google Ads.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, I'll say that.
Ruben Naverette:But I think that what's gonna take us there is going to be, um,
Ruben Naverette:some sort of affiliate program.
Ruben Naverette:Where we pay a really high commission.
Ruben Naverette:And then we also, um, you know, get some influences out there who love
Ruben Naverette:our product and who promote it with some kind of user generated content.
Ruben Naverette:that's what I think is gonna get us there.
Ruben Naverette:Just because I, I, I've noticed that that's really a, a direction people
Ruben Naverette:are going and a lot of people are looking for ways in which to earn money.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And so why not, you know,
Upendra Varma:put a, the, the whole point of affiliate marketing makes sense.
Upendra Varma:But the question is, does it apply really to you because you are targeting,
Upendra Varma:uh, Companies with 300, 500 employees.
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:So who exactly are you trying to convince here that your product
Upendra Varma:is going to make sense for you through, through your affiliates?
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:That, yeah, that's a great question.
Ruben Naverette:Well, are you familiar with Sensei, the candle maker?
Ruben Naverette:Uh, no.
Ruben Naverette:Um, they have an amazing affiliate program and what they, why that makes sense for
Ruben Naverette:us is because we are gonna associate our pro, our, our PowerPoints with
Ruben Naverette:the ability for, uh, uh, an individual person to, to make it their own.
Ruben Naverette:Sort of like being able to go, okay, I'm now in the business.
Ruben Naverette:You know, your mom could now be in the business of employee engagement.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, she could build a business on our platform.
Ruben Naverette:She could earn an income, she could have a career.
Ruben Naverette:You know, not, it's not just an affiliate program.
Ruben Naverette:And I said affiliate program, but really what I mean is our ambassador
Ruben Naverette:program where you could build your own business within PowerPoints you
Ruben Naverette:can be the representative you're
Upendra Varma:talking about white labeling it, essentially
Upendra Varma:changing the name of it.
Upendra Varma:Oh,
Ruben Naverette:a little bit.
Ruben Naverette:It's sort of like a little bit of a hybrid in, in terms of white labeling it.
Ruben Naverette:And yes, they do have that ability to do.
Ruben Naverette:, um, we're really gonna focus more on them being part of the PowerPoints
Ruben Naverette:family and empowering them to build their own business in that direction.
Ruben Naverette:I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of people who are looking for non
Ruben Naverette:unconventional ways to make money, and PowerPoints is such that, you know,
Ruben Naverette:we've bootstrapped it the whole way.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:so we don't have any debt.
Ruben Naverette:and we don't have any DC money.
Ruben Naverette:Um, and so it's all paid for it.
Upendra Varma:That's that's awesome.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:. Ruben Naverette: Yeah.
Upendra Varma:So, I mean, and the product is built and it's been, you know,
Upendra Varma:running for the last 10 years.
Upendra Varma:So it's been, it's it's battle worn.
Upendra Varma:Um, it's not going away.
Upendra Varma:It's not fragile.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:it's not gonna break.
Upendra Varma:Um, so we've been through all of that.
Upendra Varma:So now we just have a product that we can sell.
Upendra Varma:And because there's high margins on it, we.
Upendra Varma:You know, leverage that with some kind of an ambassador program.
Upendra Varma:All
Upendra Varma:right, so Ruben, one last question.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So what's the future here?
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:So, I mean, you've both traveled it amazingly.
Upendra Varma:You, you've got, you reached up to that 3 million r mark, right?
Upendra Varma:So what's gonna happen in the next five, 10 years?
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:So what's, what's the vision here?
Ruben Naverette:I do think the vision is for, you know, we've had a really good
Ruben Naverette:time building the product and we believe in, in PowerPoints, and we believe in the
Ruben Naverette:mission of the organization as a whole.
Ruben Naverette:But I do see an exit.
Ruben Naverette:Probably the team.
Ruben Naverette:I mean, we've been doing this a long time and I think the honeymoon is, is over.
Ruben Naverette:It's been over for a long time.
Ruben Naverette:Um, but I think that our goal is to, um, you know, we already had
Ruben Naverette:three organizations approach us this year for an acquisition mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, um, cuz they're looking to, to, you know, get, move into this space and
Ruben Naverette:we're an, we're an established player.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:And we've turned those down, but we're not gonna be turning
Ruben Naverette:them down in two or three years.
Ruben Naverette:Don't say that.
Ruben Naverette:So, so
Upendra Varma:what, so again, this is, it's very interesting, right?
Upendra Varma:Why did you turn them right?
Upendra Varma:Is it, is it the valuation?
Ruben Naverette:Um, well, yeah, that's a great question because we
Ruben Naverette:really felt like there was still gas enough in our tank mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:that we could ride this out and make the company more valuable with more
Ruben Naverette:customers over a period of time.
Ruben Naverette:Whereas we felt like if we sold now, sure we would get a really
Ruben Naverette:good payout, but we didn't feel like it would be what it could.
Ruben Naverette:If we put a little more, a couple more years into it and really went hard.
Ruben Naverette:So
Upendra Varma:we really, yeah.
Upendra Varma:So were these, you know, acquirers were, uh, is, was that an, uh, was that
Upendra Varma:supposed to be a strategic acquisition?
Upendra Varma:Like they wanna take your product and then a good, they
Upendra Varma:wanna do something else with it?
Upendra Varma:Or are they just looking at you as a simple, you know, uh, high margin
Upendra Varma:business that they could just run and put it on our auto pilot something?
Upendra Varma:No, one
Ruben Naverette:of 'em was really looking to accentuate their
Ruben Naverette:existing tools because they had, they had a limited, they had you.
Ruben Naverette:A, a basic system and ours was mature.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And so they were looking to add a lot of features.
Ruben Naverette:Like some of the things that we do is we're integrated with
Ruben Naverette:Ticketmaster Best Buy, you know, Travelocity and stuff like that.
Ruben Naverette:So we have all these other things that are integrated in our system that
Ruben Naverette:just came over years through maturity.
Ruben Naverette:And it was a newer company and so they were looking at a ways to
Ruben Naverette:expand and add features quickly.
Ruben Naverette:Another organization had a lot of, had huge.
Ruben Naverette:With a, a aspect of our, our, our, um, our system that made them money.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And so they were not even in this space and they wanted to leverage that.
Ruben Naverette:They wanted to own our organization because they felt like, well,
Ruben Naverette:they had another thing going on.
Ruben Naverette:They were getting some big national customers and they knew
Ruben Naverette:that our, our tool, um, really made them money significantly.
Ruben Naverette:And so they wanted to acquire that cuz they wanted to make sure that
Ruben Naverette:the tool was always gonna be in.
Ruben Naverette:and they wouldn't lose.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:, um, when they expanded into those other customers.
Ruben Naverette:So there were weird reasons why.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:You know, makes sense.
Upendra Varma:Makes sense.
Upendra Varma:So in couple of years, right?
Upendra Varma:Is is it gonna be that, you know, what, what's the Northstar here?
Upendra Varma:So what are you aiming?
Upendra Varma:Is it that growth rate or is it, you know, increasing the
Upendra Varma:number of customers and revenue?
Upendra Varma:So what exactly are
Ruben Naverette:you looking at?
Ruben Naverette:It's increasing that revenue because that's going to
Ruben Naverette:give us the biggest payout.
Ruben Naverette:And we really feel like with where we are now and how we've grown
Ruben Naverette:over the last couple of years, and.
Ruben Naverette:The different things that we, what we're looking for really is we're
Ruben Naverette:looking for something that where we can scale in terms of, you know, growth.
Ruben Naverette:Mm-hmm.
Ruben Naverette:. And we really haven't found that yet.
Ruben Naverette:I mean, Google ads have been okay.
Ruben Naverette:Facebook ads, total fail content on LinkedIn, not so much.
Ruben Naverette:I mean, we've tried, I mean, you know, it's cold outreach, not so good.
Ruben Naverette:We're gonna try a few other things cuz if we find something that we can really
Ruben Naverette:scale growth, if we find something that we know is just like a, a.
Ruben Naverette:Machine that we can put things in and get stuff out and we can guarantee
Ruben Naverette:and we can do those numbers, then we can scale in such a fashion that in
Ruben Naverette:two years time, you know, we're we three or four times what we are now,
Ruben Naverette:that's the goal and we feel like it's out there and we haven't found it yet.
Upendra Varma:Got it.
Upendra Varma:Alright, Ruben, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.
Upendra Varma:I hope you're scaling PowerPoint.
Upendra Varma:Thank you so much.
Upendra Varma:Much greater heights.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, thank you so much.
Ruben Naverette:It was great talking to you.