806: SaaS: Recruiting Tool w/ $60m Raised, 2000 Customers, Unleashes CRM

Daniel Chait. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Greenhouse, which designs tools that help create and navigate a new world of work. Daniel has been a technology entrepreneur in New York for nearly 20 years. Before Greenhouse, he co-founded Lab49, a global firm providing technology consulting solutions for the world’s leading investment banks. He’s a proud graduate of the computer engineering program at the University of Michigan.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Nudge
• What CEO do you follow? – Kim Scott
• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “The dotcom crash”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:35 – Nathan introduces Daniel to the show
• 02:10 – Greenhouse sells recruiting software that corporations use to design and execute their hiring process
• 02:40 – Greenhouse is a SaaS company
• 02:50 – Average customer pay per year varies
  • 03:05 – The pricing model depends on the size of the company
• 03:40 – Greenhouse tends to price higher than their competitors’ because they offer a premium software solution
• 04:05 – Greenhouse is in the recruiting software space which is currently crowded
  • 04:15 – Daniel shares some of their competitors depending on the categories
  • 05:10 – The competition is extremely fragmented
  • 05:33 – Greenhouse falls into all the categories, from the smaller ones to enterprise
• 06:05 – Greenhouse offers three tiers
• 06:24 – Greenhouse was launched in 2012
• 06:32 – First year revenue was around $50
• 07:33 – Post product revenue is around $1M
• 08:25 – Greenhouse currently has 2000 customers
• 09:03 – Team size is 195, based in San Francisco and New York
• 09:30 – Greenhouse has raised $16M from their series C round
• 09:53 – Daniel enjoyed doing their fund raising and he believes in their investors
  • 10:13 – Every round is different
  • 10:40 – This was the first time that Daniel raised outside the investment
• 11:19 – Greenhouse has a world-class retention rate
  • 11:36 – 97% of their customers have renewed
• 11:55 – Most of the team is in inside sales
• 12:36 – Daniel shares where their expansion comes from
• 13:11 – Greenhouse’s newest product is Greenhouse CRM which is still in beta
• 14:10 – The inside sales team job is heat mapping the products used by a customer
  • 14:41 – The expansion is through additional growth
• 15:15 – LTV-CAC ratio
  • 15:48 – “We have a healthy ratio”
• 16:04 – Payback period
• 17:00 – The weirdest thing Daniel did to acquire new customers
  • 17:43 – They went from market research to marketing
• 17:57 – ARR
  • 18:07 – Daniel on hitting the $50M ARR mark by end of 2017
• 19:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Create something that will make you stand out in a competitive and crowded market.
2. Focus on how you can increase your customer retention rate—perhaps it’s by adding new products that will better serve them.
3. Raising a capital round can help you gain new customers.

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