How Latergram.me Grew to $50k/mo, 500,000 users, $1.2m Raised in Episode 190 with Matt Smith

Published: March 6, 2016, 6:14 p.m.

b'

Ep 190 Matt Smith, the founder of Latergramme and Thinkific. Listen as Nathan and Matt talk about how the latter left a 10K MRR business to work on a marketing platform for Instagram.

\\n


Bio
Matt previously started 2 profitable self-funded startups. Most recently he co-founded Latergramme, a visual content marketing platform that makes visual marketing a snap. The app one to aggregate, curate, schedule and optimize visual marketing campaigns across all visual social media networks.

\\n


Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:00 \\u2013 Nathan\\u2019s introduction to today\\u2019s show
01:29 \\u2013 Matt joins the show.
02:30 \\u2013 Thinkific is a platform that allows one to create, market, and sell online courses.
03:53 \\u2013 Matt created Latergramme at a hackathon while he was also work on Thinkific.
04:20 \\u2013 Latergramme allows one to create a publishing schedule for Instagram that automates marketing.
05:17 \\u2013 Matt was making about 10K MRR (monthly recurring revenue) when he left Thinkific for Latergramme. His brother is still CEO.
07:00 \\u2013 Matt believes his company Latergramme is well on its way to over 100K MRR by the end of 2016.
07:35 \\u2013 The app was created in 2013, but wasn\\u2019t launched until May 2014. They did a beta list launch.
08:40 \\u2013 Leading up to the May release, Matt built an audience of 20K through bloggers, article writers, and other online influencers.
09:30 \\u2013 Matt built a VIP program as a marketing tactic and spent most of his evenings up to the release writing to potential users personally.
10:54 \\u2013 Latergramme is currently free, but the business has 50K MRR soon to be 88K MRR. (1 million ARR).
11:30 \\u2013 The business is focusing on expanding user-base as its priority right now.
11:56 \\u2013 The government covers a huge portion of salary for the people working at Latergramme. There are grants for SAAS based businesses in Vancouver.
12:37 \\u2013 Latergramme has about 40K active users.
13:25 \\u2013 5% churn.
14:16 \\u2013 Latergramme does no paid acquisition. Maybe in the future.
15:31 \\u2013 25-30% month over month growth goal for 2016.
16:42 - Rocketship.vc is an investment group that\\u2019s been giving Latergramme a hand.
18:42 \\u2013 As the founder of the company, Matt pays himself south of 100K.
21:25 \\u2013 Find out what Nathan\\u2019s doing after selling his business Heyo at nathanlatka.com/whatsnext on February 4th.
22:08 \\u2013 Famous Five

\\n


Famous 5
Favorite Book? \\u2013 Thinking Fast and Slow
What CEO do you follow?\\u2014 Hiton Shah
What is your favorite online tool?\\u2014 Fitbit
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\\u2014 Trying to
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?\\u2014 You don\\u2019t need a job.

\\n


3 Key Points:
The government grants money to SAAS based businesses in the city of Vancouver.
Latergramme does no paid acquisition but nevertheless projects to grow 25-30% per month. Matt hyped up the business by writing emails to influencers in the field who would write articles about the service.
A convertible note is a short-term debt that converts into equity. Read more about it at Tech Crunch.

\\n


Resources Mentioned:
Edgar \\u2013 Nathan uses Edgar instead of other scheduling tools\\xa0for Twitter because Edgar cycles through content over and over (buffer/others you have to re-input content over and over \\u2013 time consuming). In the last several months, Edgar has driven Nathan over 3728 clicks that he didn\\u2019t have to work or pay for.
@symana \\u2013 Matt\\u2019s Twitter
LinkedIn \\u2013 Matt\\u2019s LinkedIn
Latergramme \\u2013 Matt\\u2019s business
Thinkific \\u2013 Create, market, sell online courses
Thinking Fast and Slow \\u2013 Matt\\u2019s favorite book
Fitbit \\u2013 Online tool Matt uses
RocketshipVC \\u2013 Venture capital group backing Matt
Convertible Note \\u2013 What is it?

\\n


Credits
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

\\n

\\xa0

\\n

Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews! Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop

\\n

The Top is FOR YOU if you are:

\\n

A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)

\\n

STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)

\\n

An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)

\\n

The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).

\\n

Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.

\\n

\\xa0

\\n

Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that\'s like an audio version of Pat Flynn\'s monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop

'