Irv Shapiro. He’s responsible for the overall business strategy and corporate leadership as the CEO of DialogTech. DialogTech provides the industry a leading, actionable, marketing analytics platform for businesses that value inbound sales calls. The company was named an Inc 500 company in servicing close to 5000 businesses worldwide—ranging from emerging companies to the world’s largest enterprises.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Purple Cow
What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
Favorite online tool? —The Top Inbox
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6.5
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I should have stayed in architecture school”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:04 – Nathan introduces Irv to the show
02:51 – DialogTech is Irv’s third rodeo in the industry
03:10 – Metamor Technologies is a system information business that built large office systems
- 03:35 – It scaled to 500 people and was sold to Corestaff
- 03:51 – It was sold in 1997 for $38M
04:11 – After Metamor, Irv started Edventions which was in the early days of the internet when schools were concerned about internet safety and its environment
04:40 – Edventions provided a safe internet environment
- 04:51 – In 2000, everything crashed and it was sold to Edison Schools
05:17 – DialogTech’s team size is 150
05:20 – Current revenue is at $40M
05:25 – 2016 revenue was $35M
05:30 – DialogTech raised a total of $60M
05:45 – DialogTech did their A round in July of 2007
06:15 – DialogTech helps companies who receive inbound calls to become more effective, efficient and close more sales
06:37 – DialogTech does four things technology-wise:
- 06:59 – It tells the customer’s behavior on your website
- 07:04 – The data then can be used by the marketing team
  - 07:33 – An example of this is a life insurance call
- 08:18 – Tracking is by a unique phone number
- 09:38 – When a website is visited, a unique phone number is shown
10:14 – DialogTech is a SaaS model, but is in essence a cloud model
10:32 – Charges vary if the calls are in a batch or if it is an unlimited plan
10:37 – Customers pay between $150K a month to over $100K a month
10:55 – DialogTech has almost 5K customers
11:19 – Irv shares a growth tactic they tried that didn’t work
- 12:36 – They sent burner phones to over 200 marketing executives that have videos on them that will play after opening the phone
- 12:55 – They’ve spent over $20K for the campaign but they were not able to get a single sale
13:20 – Annual logo churn is around 8-9%
13:35 – Monthly revenue churn on the enterprise side is around .4%
13:47 – DialogTech has around 98% revenue retention
14:59 – 3K of their 5K customers are legacy customers who are at a lower price point
15:09 – Irv believes that they will reach $40M in revenue by end of 2017
15:30 – The volume of calls that DialogTech processes requires a technology that needs funds
15:55 – Gross margin is around 65%
16:38 – CAC depends on segment
16:43 – Gross margin payback is 18-24 months
- 16:59 – Irv explains how they compute it
17:45 – LTV is 5-7 years for enterprise customers
18:13 – DialogTech has around 40 engineers, 50 in sales overall, 12-15 customer support, and the rest in back end
19:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Target goals can be reached with a consistent model and growth tactics in play.
We learn from our mistakes, so don’t be afraid to make them.
Weigh the pros and cons of raising capital; if there is a need, then go for it.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
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

797: SaaS: How He Did $30m 2016 Revenue And Will Hit $40m This Year

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders