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Sravish Sridhar. He\\u2019s the VP and General Manager at Kinvey Progress and was previously the CEO and founder of Kinvey before it was acquired by Progress. He\\u2019s also an angel investor in multiple startups with successful exits.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 Crossing the Chasm
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Matt Barbey
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 If This Then That
• 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 would never become a movie actor\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Sravish to the show
• 02:18 \\u2013 Kinvey\\u2019s acquisition closed on June 1st and was announced on June 28th
• 02:30 \\u2013 Kinvey does \\u201cbackend as a service\\u201d, which is a term that they coined
• 02:58 \\u2013 Schneider Electric has a lot of apps that are used to interact with its hardware, employees and customers
  • 03:13 \\u2013 Kinvey is in charge of the backend features that an app needs
• 03:44 \\u2013 \\u201cWe make every frontend developer become a backend developer\\u201d
  • 03:55 \\u2013 Developers don\\u2019t have to learn the backend processes, they can simply drag and drop
• 04:07 \\u2013 Kinvey has three types of customers:
  • 04:10 \\u2013 First, those who are building apps as a hobby or trial and pay nothing up to $200 a month
  • 04:22 \\u2013 Second, business edition customers who pay an average of $24K a year per application
  • 04:44 \\u2013 Lastly, enterprise edition customers who pay around 6 figures a year
  • 05:03 \\u2013 ACV is around $80K to $90K
• 05:24 \\u2013 When Sravish came up with the idea for Kinvey, he knew it should be a venture-backed company
  • 05:46 \\u2013 Sravish funded the initial capital of $150K
  • 06:06 \\u2013 Kinvey has raised over $15M before the acquisition
• 06:30 \\u2013 It took Kinvey 15 month to launch their product
  • 06:43 \\u2013 In the second year, they started to build their revenue
  • 07:10 \\u2013 In 2013, they were doing high 6-figures in revenue
  • 07:24 \\u2013 They broke their million dollar mark in 2014
• 07:54 \\u2013 Sravish invested in startups to learn strategies and build his financial portfolio
• 09:20 \\u2013 Sravish has three things he looks for when investing in a startup:
  • 09:22 \\u2013 The team\\u2019s relationship with each other
  • 09:39 \\u2013 The space of the startup
  • 09:55 \\u2013 The potential he has to help the startup to grow
• 10:40 \\u2013 Kinvey has over 50 enterprise customers
• 12:54 \\u2013 The acquisition of Kinvey by Progress was for $50M
• 13:13 \\u2013 Sravish shares how the board and himself decided on the acquisition
• 14:40 \\u2013 Sravish\\u2019s discussion with Progress
• 15:43 \\u2013 Team size prior to acquisition was 44 and everyone stayed after the acquisition, current team size is 65-70
• 16:00 \\u2013 Kinvey had multiple offers and it took them 2-3 months to decide
• 16:40 \\u2013 Progress matched the best offer
• 17:00 \\u2013 Kinvey and Progress are both based in Boston
• 17:58 \\u2013 Kinvey had direct sales models and enterprise sales reps
• 18:10 \\u2013 CAC is $95K to $100K and LTV is $2.1-2.2M
• 18:33 \\u2013 Payback period is 13-14 months
• 19:04 \\u2013 Kinvey has 98% retention rate
• 20:40 \\u2013 Progress has been thoughtful with their employees\\u2019 restricted stock units (RSU)
• 23:40 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. Choose the deal that will be a great fit for the long-term.
2. Always consider the company and, most importantly, your team\\u2019s future when making decisions.
3. Investing isn\\u2019t just about the financial gains, it\\u2019s about your ability to believe in and help a company grow and succeed.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero \\u2013 The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• 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