EP 533: $1.5M Raised, $100k MRR Helping 800 Customers Manage and Track Documents with CEO Tim Samulet

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Tim Saumet. He is the CTO of the company called Tilkee – a SaaS solution software for business proposals, follow ups, and sales process tracking. It is a super hot space. Before that, he was involved with OXFOC Technologies as the CEO. He is also a Manager of General Services in another company and a Project Manager at Travel Due.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? –100 Conseils Pratiques Pour Couler sa Boite
• What CEO do you follow? – Bruno Bonnell and Elon Musk

• Favorite online tool? — Zapier
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “Yes” for Kate and “No” for Tim
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Tim would have focused more on personal development

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 – Nathan introduces Tim to the show
• 02:13 – Kate is developing the European market
• 02:30 – Tim used to be a salesman and it was difficult for him
• 03:03 – Tilkee is a simple SaaS software to analyze a prospect’s behavior
• 03:30 – Tilkee works with any kind of document
• 03:50 – Tilkee started as a side project 3 and a half years ago
• 05:00 – First year revenue was $20K
• 05:15 – Tilkee is currently serving 800 customers
• 05:41 – Average customer pay per month
• 06:20 – December 2015 MRR
• 07:30 – Tim started with small companies, then progressed to enterprise companies
• 08:05 – Tim pivoted the product and customer base
• 08:12 – Tim raised, 2 years ago, a million and a half dollars
• 08:34 – Tim is thinking of raising more next year
• • 09:08 – Tim won’t go to a typical Series A round
  • 09:35 – Employees have a part of the equity
• 10:15 – Tim wants a raise, but would still want more than 50% of the company
• 10:37 – Typical valuation in Europe
• 11:15 – Gross monthly customer churn
• 12:00 – Kate shares how they find their enterprise deals
• 13:22 – Tilkee is not doing an e-signature but a u-sign from the European market
• 14:14 – A customer lifetime value
• 14:45 – Average CAC
• 15:45 – Tilkee has an advertisement in one of the biggest French radio stations
• 16:20 – Current team size is 20 and 15 from them are salespeople
• 16:42 – Tim shares the stack they have built Tilkee on
• 17:15 – Kate is currently using Pipedrive to drive Sales
• 18:35 – Find Tilkee on Twitter and Facebook
• 20:19 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• You CAN solve your own problems—you just need to do the work of finding solutions.
• Raising capital is always an option to take that next step forward for your business.
• Meditation is a great avenue for personal development.

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan kept his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it at the airplane’s back seat pocket
• @TilkeeUs – Tilkee’s Twitter handle
• Facebook – Tilkee’s Facebook account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives