Tim Sae Koo. He’s a 26-year old, LA-based native residing currently in San Francisco, California. He’s dreamed to become the first Asian American president of the United States to solve impactful problems with a purpose. He found his legacy rules to be inefficient. He studied entrepreneurship at University of Southern California and graduated early to naively start a company and fulfill his original life mission. His company is TINT.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Delivering Happiness
What CEO do you follow? – Mark Cuban
Favorite online tool? — Wunderlist
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “It’s okay to make mistakes because that’s how you’re going to learn”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:53 – Nathan introduces Tim to the show
02:26 – TINT is a marketing software platform that works with B2C brands
- 02:37 – They help source the best customer content on social media
03:11 – TINT is SaaS based
03:19 – ACV is from $1K to 5K a month or $12K to $60K a year
03:31 – The variations in price depend on different options including the number of hashtags to track
- 03:58 – They have a high base price
04:14 – The moderation feature can also be included using manual moderation or machine-learning
04:41 – TINT was launched in 2013
04:48 – TINT is completely bootstrapped
05:00 – Tim raised $370K for the previous company before pivoting to TINT
05:18 – The initial product was a consumer application and the market was quite saturated—this led to the pivot to TINT
05:55 – The initial company was getting zero revenue with 5K users and 3 team members
- 06:35 – Tim and the founders were paying themselves $36K a year
- 06:54 – Tim worked while he was still in college
- 07:35 – Keep your expenses low
07:44 – TINT’s team size is around 30
07:52 – TINT currently has 700 customers
08:23 – Average MRR is around $700K
08:50 – 2017 goal is to get around $7.5M in revenue
09:15 – 2016 ARR is around $5M and cash basis is around $6M
10:08 – Current ARR is around $5.5M
10:30 – Tim hasn’t raised capital yet because he thinks he won’t be a good CEO if he does that
10:36 – Tim identifies himself more as a founder than a CEO
11:32 – TINT has always been profitable
12:16 – CAC is around $2K
- 13:00 – TINT is still figuring out the best channel for them to invest more
- 13:38 – Paid ads is $10-15K a month
14:10 – In the beginning, Tim used to acquire more customers by offering to draw any animal
- 15:20 – The main idea is to make something that can bring a smile to someone’s face and that will help them remember Tim
15:35 – Team members are based in different states and other countries like Dubai, Brazil and London
- 15:50 – There’s now a big push for a technology investment in Dubai
16:23 – Tim is now paying himself something modest, but nothing too grand
16:39 – Tim has two co-founders and half of the company is owned by the team; the other half for investors
17:35 – Tim shared how he started entrepreneurship and his plans for the future
18:20 – Tim might consider a $30M acquisition at the moment
20:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The most successful in the entrepreneurial world are not the ones who know how to expand their revenue; they are the ones who know how to reduce their expenses.
Think about how you can make people happy—this will make you memorable.
Be the leader, not the boss.

Resources Mentioned:

Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
The Top Inbox – 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 – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re 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 – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

833: SaaS: Almost Broke, Pivots 2013, Now $5m+ in ARR in Social Hashtag Tracking Space

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders