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Gavin Wheeldon. With over 15 years of experience working in technology led or enabled businesses, Gavin has a deep understanding of the impact of technology on the bottom line of an organization. He sold his last business, Applied Language Solutions, a global language technology and service business, and has used some of the earnings to set up a new company, Purple WiFi.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 Who Moved My Cheese
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Jack Welch
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 InsightSquared
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 7
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cI\\u2019d rather read more of finance\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:24 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Gavin to the show
• 02:29 \\u2013 Gavin travels a lot and is frequently reliant on public WiFi\\u2014that\\u2019s where the idea for Purple WiFi came from
• 03:02 \\u2013 Gavin sold his last company for over $60M
  • 03:20 \\u2013 His last company was in the translation and interpretation industry
  • 03:23 \\u2013 They used machine learning to translate languages with incredible accuracy
  • 03:43 \\u2013 Theirs is also a human editing in between so the translation is perfect
  • 03:59 \\u2013 Gavin was 36 when he sold it
  • 04:02 \\u2013 It was completely bootstrapped
• 04:44 \\u2013 There\\u2019s no particular single owner of the space
  • 04:54 \\u2013 Fon does domestic hotspot and other traditional utility wifi
• 05:38 \\u2013 Purple Wifi is the next generation of wifi
• 06:03 - Purple WiFi is SaaS business, charging annually depending on the number of wifi points
  • 06:14 \\u2013 For a single venue, the price is $13 a month
  • 06:22 \\u2013 Purple WiFi also caters to stadiums and airports
  • 06:45 \\u2013 An airport can average a hundred access points
• 07:10 - Purple WiFi currently has 17K installations
  • 07:15 \\u2013 It ranges from restaurants up to a whole city
  • 07:53 \\u2013 They now have around 80K access points
• 08:03 \\u2013 Average MRR is close to a million
• 08:25 \\u2013 Purple WiFi offers discount for bigger venues
• 09:00 \\u2013 Sales cycle varies every hour
• 09:19 \\u2013 A physical venue owner is usually clueless about what is happening in the venue
• 09:50 - Purple WiFi is channel-based and sells through partners
  • 09:55 \\u2013 Some of the partners are Telstra and Singtel and other national carriers
• 10:23 \\u2013 Team size is over 100
  • 10:30 \\u2013 45 are focused on sales and partnerships
• 10:46 \\u2013 Telcos are usually built with partners
  • 11:09 \\u2013 They can build their own access points but it takes years and a huge investment
• 11:40 \\u2013 Purple WiFi partners with half of the service providers in the USA
• 12:37 \\u2013 Purple WiFi partners with Cisco and Ruckus for the access points
• 13:06 - Purple WiFi does post visit reviews which prompt the user to review the coffee shop or hotel
  • 13:19 \\u2013 There was around 500 increase in TripAdvisor reviews
  • 13:21 \\u2013 600-700% increase in CRM generation
  • 13:28 \\u2013 The value of Purple Wifi can be seen from day 1
• 13:43 - Purple WiFi was launched in 2013
• 13:48 \\u2013 First year revenue was $200K
• 13:59 \\u2013 2014 revenue was around $600K
• 14:13 - Purple WiFi consistently grows over 100% year over year
• 14:34 \\u2013 2017 target revenue
• 14:48 \\u2013 Gross margin is 80%
  • 14:59 \\u2013 One of the challenges is the location and the huge number of data
• 15:35 - Purple WiFi is processing around 500K data from all of their access points in a day
• 15:50 \\u2013 Purple WiFi has net negative churn and gross customer churn is 12% yearly
• 17:00 \\u2013 LTV is around 10 years
  • 17:10 \\u2013 Most enterprise customers are signing 3-5 years with an upfront payment
• 17:33 - Purple WiFi has raised $13M
  • 17:51 \\u2013 The costs usually go to engineering and sales
  • 18:07 - Purple WiFi spends on event sponsorship too
  • 18:24 \\u2013 They track the events prior to sponsorship
  • 18:50 \\u2013 Payback period is around 12 months
  • 19:25 \\u2013 Average CAC
• 19:39 - Purple WiFi is headquartered in Manchester, UK and US office is in Austin, Texas
• 20:26 - Purple WiFi is tremendously valuable for conferences
• 23:04 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. Public wifi solutions are becoming more and more of a necessity especially for establishments and events.
2. Having your own wifi solution allows you to gather data more than you could otherwise.
3. Study your business before starting your business.

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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
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar \\u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\\u2019re 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 \\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

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives