Elie Khoury, co-founder and CEO of Woopra – a customer intelligence platform that helps businesses essentialize customer engagement across all channels. He studied Computer Science in Lebanese American University where he booked the first generation of Woopra in 2007. In addition to Woopra, he co-founded YallaStartup, a non-government organization establish to proper entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — Google Calendar
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I won’t change a thing”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:32 – Nathan introduces to Elie the show
02:09 – Woopra is designed for businesses to help them consolidate their customer activities across channels
02:22 – Woopra is a SaaS model and has monthly subscription
02:34 – Woopra is self-funded but they raised an Angel round few years ago
- 02:43 – Raised about a million dollars in the Angel round
- 02:48 – It was an equity round
02:58 – There are 12 people in the team
- 03:08 – All are based in SF
03:18 – Woopra mainly focused on SaaS businesses but they cater to wide-range of businesses
03:39 – Woopra has around 1000 customers at the moment
03:50 – Woopra has 100,000 active projects and 1000 of that are paying customers
04:10 – Average RPU is around $30,000 a year for enterprise and $ 3000 a year for SMB
04:30 – Woopra introduced their enterprise edition a couple of years ago
05:05 – Average MRR
05:27 – Gross customers monthly churn is lower on enterprise than SMB
06:15 – CAC is $ 1-2,000 on enterprise
06:35 – Lifetime value
- 07:39 – Average monthly lifetime value
07:53 – Woopra has a sales team that engages with enterprise customers
08:08 – Woopra was launched in 2008
- 08:25 – Woopra has 15,000 active projects that are running for free
09:25 – 2015 total revenue around $ 1.5 million
09:50 – Woopra is in a good place at the moment
10:02 – “Raising funding is always an option. We are just waiting for the right fit and the right time”
10:13 – Woopra has to scale in a faster pace and identify the perfect marketing tool
10:44 – Connect with Elie through their blog and his email
12:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Raising fund is always an option. Just wait for the right fit and the right time.
There is time to polish things out. Take things slowly.
Embrace your ignorance.

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.
Elie@Woopra.com – Elie’s email address
Woopra.com/Blog – Elie’s business blog
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 497: Woopra $1M Raised, $1.6M 2015 Revenue, $300k MRR To Help Businesses Get Smarter with CEO Elie Khoury

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders