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 Five

3 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 NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

682: Why Tech Companies Are Opening Salt Lake City Offices With CloudCherry CEO Vinod Muthukrishnan

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders