Matt Tumbleson is the founder and CEO of Teckst – a New York based startup that's transforming customer service by directly connecting consumers with businesses via 2-way text messaging. His own frustrations with lengthy hold times and incompetent customer service representatives are why he decided to launch Teckst. Prior to jumping into entrepreneurship, Matt worked as the Creative and Marketing director of Seamless (now Grubhub), and worked as a graphics journalist at The Miami Herald.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Delivering Happiness
What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
Favorite online tool? — WorkFlowy

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Stick to one thing long enough to see it through”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:37 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show
02:31 – What Matt does and how they make money
- 03:09 – Selling ROI
- 03:15 – Created software in a house in NY
- 03:33 – They have monthly subscription plan
03:50 – Currently have 5 clients
04:10 – How a client used Matt’s product
- 05:37 – Created encrypted SMS
- 06:40 – Works with Memebox
05:22 – How does Betterment use you?
- 06:40 – 65% gross margins on labor
06:55 – Matt put his own equity for the company
07:30 – How old were you when you launched this and did you feel comfortable leaving your job?
- 07:40 – Started in his late 20s
- 08:20 – 6 months deal
- 08:51 – Reason Matt left his job
- 09:13 – Launched Teckst in 2012 but officially launched in 2013
10:06 – First year revenue
10:45 – Total funding raised
11:40 – Enterprise client pay per month
- 11:50 – Thousands or tens of thousands monthly
12:05 – Number of team members
13:12 – Acquisition costs and churning
- 13:35 – Lost a client once
- 14:15 – Did Google Adwords
14:50 – Matt’s lifestyle
15:50 – Average the customer have to pay to get them on board
18:39 – Upside on quarterly business review
19:13 – MRR last month
21:17 – Connect with Matt on his LinkedIn and twitter @teckstco
23:53 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Think 10x. That’s how you should think regarding business.
Even if you’re the CEO, you still need to learn and grow.
If we can do everything right, we can hit all the numbers.

Resources Mentioned:

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 quality of Toptal developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
LinkedIn – Matt’s LinkedIn account
@teckstco – Matt’s Twitter handle
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 424: SaaS Teckst Passes 65 Enterprise Customers, $2.5M Raised with CEO Matt Tumbleson

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders