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Felix Van de Maele. He\\u2019s the CEO and one of the co-founders of Collibra which he took the idea of funding to more than years of record growth and industry leadership. He\\u2019s responsible for the company\\u2019s global business strategy. Prior to Collibra, Felix served as a researcher at the Semantics of Technology and Applications Research Laboratory at a university in Brussels where he focused on the technology crawlers on the semantic web and semantic data integration. He holds a masters in computer science and software engineering from that university and masters of general management from Vlerick Business School.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 Crossing the Chasm
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 n/a
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Evernote
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 6-8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cI won\\u2019t change much\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:39 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Felix to the show
• 01:33 \\u2013 Collibra is a SaaS company helping larger organizations to better find, understand and control their data
• 01:47 \\u2013 Collibra started in financial services
  • 01:53 \\u2013 Every bank needs data governance, which is what Collibra does
  • 01:58 \\u2013 Data governance is needed for regulatory compliance
• 02:16 \\u2013 Collibra now covers different industries
• 02:25 \\u2013 Collibra was launched in 2008
• 02:31 \\u2013 Collibra raised capital
  • 02:40 \\u2013 Collibra raised a seed round of \\u20ac800K as Felix\\u2019s first company
  • 02:48 \\u2013 They bootstrapped after their profitability tripled every year
  • 00:57 \\u2013 They\\u2019ve raised their first bigger round which is a series B of $20M in 2014
  • 03:14 \\u2013 In December 2016, they did a $50M series C round
• 03:27 \\u2013 Felix is now 32 and has been focusing on Collibra for almost a decade now
• 04:00 \\u2013 Felix uses the analogy of the library and the index card that is used in a library to elaborate data governance
  • 04:09 \\u2013 A library card with all its information is similar to an organization with all its data
  • 04:27 \\u2013 Collibra wants to get to the Amazon of the notifications of data
• 04:46 \\u2013 Collibra is similar to a search engine for data sets
  • 04:59 \\u2013 Now everybody does data and it\\u2019s chaos
• 05:14 \\u2013 Collibra has close to 200 customers
• 05:25 \\u2013 RPU is $200-250K annually
• 05:41 \\u2013 Average customer pay per month is 20K
• 05:46 \\u2013 Collibra has annual plans with cash upfront
• 06:13 \\u2013 Collibra started with a perpetual model which is a licensing fee upfront, then they have the software
  • 06:29 \\u2013 There\\u2019s an annual maintenance fee which is 20% of the initial fee
• 06:46 \\u2013 ARR is $10-30M
• 07:00 \\u2013 The idea of Collibra
  • 07:13 \\u2013 Felix had 4 options after graduation
  • 07:23 \\u2013 Felix was inspired by a book he read and thought that he could start his own business
• 07:57 \\u2013 Collibra has 4 founders
  • 08:25 \\u2013 The equity is just 25%
• 08:55 \\u2013 The founders split the shareholders from their management
  • 09:06 \\u2013 \\u201cWe try to separate the 2 as much as possible\\u201d
• 09:40 \\u2013 The investors own a different range in Collibra
• 09:55 \\u2013 The percentage of the company that they give away during the series C depends on the trajectory and how much money is raised
• 10:12 \\u2013 The biggest round for Collibra is the series B
• 10:39 \\u2013 Collibra\\u2019s trajectory is to have $100M ARR as quickly as possible
• 10:59 \\u2013 The picking of investors is mostly because of the valuation, but there are other factors involved
• 11:27 \\u2013 Collibra picked Matthew of Iconic because he clicked well
• 12:00 \\u2013 Customer churn is 3-4%
• 12:30 \\u2013 Net revenue expansion
• 12:52 \\u2013 CAC
  • 13:30 \\u2013 Some of Collibra\\u2019s customers have been with them for several years
• 14:08 \\u2013 Collibra looks at their sales efficiency and their marketing efficiency
  • 04:13 \\u2013 The marketing dominance they\\u2019re spending to generate $1 of ARR is around 0.8-0.9
  • 14:30 \\u2013 It costs $1 in sales and marketing to generate $1 in ARR
  • 14:42 \\u2013 Payback time is around 12 months
• 14:54 \\u2013 Team size is 210
  • 15:00 \\u2013 Biggest team is in New York, engineering team is in Brussels and sales and marketing in London
  • 15:30 \\u2013 The HQ transferred to New York because most of the customers are in USA
• 16:25 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. There are so many data sources available and it\\u2019s difficult to know which one has the most accurate data.
2. You need to find a way to govern the data that you have\\u2014this helps in regulatory compliance.
3. Sometimes, ignorance IS bliss\\u2014it can cause you to take more risks.

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Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox \\u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Hotjar \\u2013 Gives Nathan a recording of what is happening on a website or where are people clicking and scrolling on the website
• Organifi \\u2013 The juice was Nathan\\u2019s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks \\u2013 Nathan doesn\\u2019t 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