On this episode I talk with Jordan Gal from carthook.com based out of Portland Oregon (that has the best donuts in the world) who runs a successful SaaS business in the ecommerce space.
We talk about what we are trying to achieve financially through online business and what life looks like at different levels of success.
Jordan loves the process of building a SaaS but would love to do it from a different perspective – to run a studio that runs different online businesses without having to be all in and grind all the time.
For example, he doesn’t want to be the one creating a course but would love to put together a talented team to make it happen.
Jordan Motivation
We discuss what was Jordan’s motivation for moving into SaaS after building and selling a profitable ecommerce store. Hint: Monthly Recurring Revenue!
It’s the same reason I prefer to promote software products where I continue to get paid for years or the lifetime of the customer rather than having to create new revenue every month.
Jordan considered whitelabelling a software solution, partnering, being the sale front for another software company – it was about the business model rather than the product.
Shoutout to Proof by Dave Rogenmoser in terms of relatively simple product that becomes a great marketing play, however Jordan warns that software demands software and technical expertise to the point where it’s about building the best product which sells itself. The market dictates what you build.
With carthook.com Jordan has chosen the top end of the shopify market with a $300/m price point where there is a much better customer and a lot less noise. Shoutout to Ezra Firestone’s One Click Upsell app.
Jordan has investors so that sets the bar for acceptable acquisition offers as investors will need to make at least 5x but you have options; if you take millions from venture capitalists you no longer have optionality!
We discuss how revenue and expenses track upwards together when scaling a SaaS until you become very large and can take profit (as 90% of expenses goes towards labor), or you can choose to not be in an insane growth mode and take profit earlier.
When we recorded Carthook wasn’t doing facebook ads but having seen them show up in all my social feeds I can confirm they now are 🙂
Connect with Jordan on twitter @jordangal or at carthook.com or the great Bootstrapped Web Podcast