How Google search drives 60% of our top-of-funnel leads

We have spent zero money of marketing.

Mm-hmm.

, we have done no digital ads and people are actually actively finding us on Google

and trying to solve this problem for them.

That's how painful it has been.

Um, case in point, um, uh, without having an inside sales team, we

actually have closed, uh, a contract of a million dollar value with

a, with a financial institution,

But, but, but for what we see the funnel coming to us, we see 60% coming from

Google and 30% coming from LinkedIn.

So, so yeah.

So that's what I, I, I honestly feel there's a lot of, um,

requirement for Notarizations

hello everyone.

Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast.

I'm your host of PRA Verma, and today we have Arco Ganguli with us.

Arco here is the co-founder of a company called Legend Defi.

Hey, Arco, welcome to the show.

Hey Pra, thank you for having me here.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Alright,

Arco, so let's, let's try to understand what your product

does, uh, and what by why your

customers pay your money.

so, so, uh, uh, we are, um, the world's first crosswater, notar,

notary, uh, remote or digital notary.

Um, we help, uh, people notarize documents, um, whenever

they need to notarize one.

So basically, if you don't know what notarizing documents means, there is,

um, that guy, you went to an office who's a notary, who stamped something,

and you don't know why you waited 15 minutes in that office, that guy.

So the use cases are varied.

It can be for banking services, it can be for employment, cross border.

So any kind of a cross border transaction where there are more than two different

legal systems in place, you would do need the, uh, notaries until prior to Covid 19.

This was a predominantly an in-person process in most countries, but

post the pandemic, uh, like related to EdTech, a significant group of

people started going to US digital.

Similarly, it happened with the world of notaries and the laws were updated

and solutions like gas came about.

So we are the first early move to the European and the em.

Alright, so, so, uh, before we get further into the

product, right, I wanna understand your customer basis of today, right?

Because I wanna get a sense of who you're selling it to and what primary use

cases you're dealing with as of today.

Can you talk about that?

Sure.

So, uh, the, the, our primary customer base is b2b, uh, primarily

focusing on B2B enterprise.

Um, so the specific use cases for us are varied.

For example, the first ones that we focus on right now is, um, A A M L

and K Y B use cases where you need to verify identities of corporate.

Structures across various jurisdictions, uh, which means it is

a TUS and UBO os and in that area.

So we help banks and financial institutions with, uh, certification

and as well as the document identification processes.

Currently, we are their, the, the primary partner of a revenue business to carry

out all their K YB processes in the eu.

Um, as, um, which may, which.

People work coming from outside the EU as well.

Another use case that we primarily focus on is international real estate.

Um, which means, um, where we work with companies like Fascist Perran,

uh, few people have been skewed.

Marky real estate companies like Sotheby's also started using a solution, uh,

predominantly because we help them with power of attorneys, um, for agents and,

and we, there's a lot of work there.

Um, when it comes to international real.

The third thing that we do help with, with companies that are expanding rapidly

for their, um, their operations across various jurisdictions space in point.

We do, we have done transactions, um, with deal.com, a payroll outsourcing

company that you must be aware of that's grown like an in amazing

space in, in, and we also working with, um, remote, um, um, like, like

we have not activated it yet, but.

Uh, gonna start working with them, a few other payroll companies as well.

So that's one of the primary use cases we are focusing on.

If you think about it, the number of use cases you have for notarizing

documents, it's crossing various industries and various use cases.

Um, so, so we have to focus on a few.

Alright, makes sense.

So, so let's, let's talk about, you know, product a bit more, right?

So in terms of the exact, you know, thing that you're selling, right?

Is it just software or do you have anything else on top of it?

So,

so.

Uh, so sorry.

Please go.

Please go ahead.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I think you got the question.

Yeah.

So basically what we are doing is, um, we are, uh, connecting you to the relevant

notary of the appropriate jurisdiction.

Who's competent to actually notarize the document for you.

So for example, you are based out of Panama and you want to get an.

Document notarized from Sweden, right.

Uh, you have two options.

Use a solution and notarize the document from a Swedish notary, or

take a flight from Panama to Sweden and meet the notary in person.

So we have a human element, uh, where licensed professionals who

are as from the government, who are notaries, uh, work, uh, and help

you get your documents not raised.

That's what we are doing right now going forward.

We have roadmap to pre give, uh, pure software value add on as well.

That no, that's what we.

And

just help me explain.

So is it sort of a marketplace that you're trying to build or do you sort of, uh, you

know, hire these government entities or whoever those, you know, notaries are so,

so legally speaking, you cannot hire the government, right?

Sure.

So, uh, but, but what we do do is we have a kind of a marketplace model

where there are notaries are who are the suppliers on one side and the

customers who are the, uh, the people who need the documents, on the other.

How, um, and, and that has its own set of network effects because not.

Once we see the, the efficiencies of the product itself, they are

extremely interested to bring their own customers into the solution.

Uh, and those customers have notarization needs, which are not

necessarily this notary's competence.

Yeah.

And vice versa, right?

So for example, when we work with revenue business, a significant part of our,

their market customers at their onboarding also have their own notarization

use cases, and we have independent relationships with them as well.

Um, so there is network effect, definit.

But, um, I wanna give a clarity on the challenge here.

Like, as, as, and Chan talks about the coldstar problem, the hard side of the

market is the notary, the customers.

You honestly wanted to notarize a document you'll prefer.

It's, it's, I don't need to sell it to you, you'll find me

and you'll get it done online.

The bigger concern is from the notary side, who are more traditional.

Um, and, and they have been working in a, in an industry that's predominantly

not been Aztec enabled as the rest.

Um, so.

So we primarily wanna focus on getting the quality rather

than the quantity of suppliers.

Uh, so that's fundamentally what we are focusing on, right?

So let's try

to quantify this, quantify this part of it, right?

So I wanna understand how many sort of.

Customers, do you have on your platform purely businesses who are

using these notarized services?

Yeah, so we have had more than 550 customers u use a

solution, um, where they have used the notarization at least once.

Um, and we have, uh, a very high rate of repeat customers as well.

Um, so, so, so we

are, so, uh, When you said repeat customers, and you're also

saying, we hired a bunch of customers.

Right.

So how does the model work?

Is, is it like once you onboard somebody, they're going to use you for forever,

for those, you know, notarized, no reservices, or is it a one-time thing

that they come to you use, sort of help them out and they just leave?

Yeah.

Sorry for that.

I think we need to need to clarify that.

So basically, um, we are currently on a, on a transaction basis or a PSU go.

Uh, but we do provide volume related discounts for significant amount of

volume commitments that we provide.

Um, also we have specific offers that we provide.

Like for example, we are an antler portfolio company, so we provide, uh,

specific offers to antler companies.

We are also, so basically there are various programs which

we have partnerships with.

We have startups.

And companies.

But yeah, fundamentally right now we have a transaction PS U model.

Um, but if you have, uh, specific commitment or volumes, we provide

you volume within this company.

That's not

my question.

I understand.

It's, it's a pays you go model, but my question is more around do

these, uh, customers of yours, right?

So do they have to sort of do, use your service again, time and

again or is it the typical one

time thing?

It depends.

It depends on the use case, right?

So for example, if, let's say you're relocating from one country

to the other and you need to get.

Notarized for an immigration process.

You won't do that every year.

However, if you're do opening a bank account and you are providing,

doing a K I V certification, you have to do it at least annually.

Um, if you are doing, if you're an accountant for firm and you are trying to

get international customers, uh, to work with you and they wanna give you part of

attorneys, you may need to do it 40 a day.

Right.

Uh, so it really depends on the use case.

Sure, sure.

Number for, um,

yeah, I got it.

So just, just help me sort of complete the stories, like how many notaries

do you have on the other side of.

. Arko Ganguli: So we have more, more than

Uh, but we are primarily focusing on quality right now.

So actually gonna go down going forward.

Um, and um, because in the EU it's kind of different from LA with the US.

In the US if you, the people pay their college tuition with their no free degree

in the EU need, need to be a minimum five year solicitor to be considered a notary.

So it's a much more.

Gated community, so you want to get the right quality notaries on board.

Um, we have notaries from three jurisdictions as of now, just Sweden,

Ireland, and England and Wales.

And, um, our, uh, under the Apostle convention, our documents are, can be

used um, in more than 101 countries.

And we have customers from more over 45 jurisdictions.

Got it.

Including India and the us.

Sure.

All right.

So, so how do

you.

You know, track revenue and growth for a company like yours.

I mean, I can't even ask you those questions because

it's really crazy, right?

I mean, customers using you for one, one reason, they're moving out, right?

So how do you even track revenue?

How do you track growth?

How do you predict churn?

All of these things.

Let's talk about the process you're using here.

Most definitely.

So basically what we have done with the ED use cases, because otherwise

it's this absolute nightmare to figure out what is right and what is not.

So we kind of use, if we have cohorted based on use cases.

Um, so if we have um, um, for example a financial institution, uh, uh, pushing

their use cases, um, uh, to us, um, we wanna see the number of leads that come

from that financial institution and how many of them are actually doing the

transaction, and how many are coming back based on the specific use case.

To do the same transaction.

Right.

So we have cohorted it.

Um, uh, churn is difficult, uh, to actually assess for our case because,

um, more often not, especially when it comes to SMEs and smaller businesses, they

don't need, they need it sporadically.

For us, it's more about building those enterprise partnerships.

Cause enterprises, especially companies that have more than one jurisdiction where

they have their entities, will always have an ongoing requirement for notar.

So for us it's more about an enterprise transaction model where, um, you want

to focus on relationships with bigger organizations and, you know, work with

different units across the world and help them get their documents certified

and not write and verified as opposed to figure under the churn rate on the SM

e sector so that, those, those metrics.

Sure.

So my, yeah, my question is more around like, do you even

consider this a subscription business?

So, so that's what we, we actually started building funny thing,

supporting first we substitution layer and then we decided, I don't know how

to use it because the question is, if I ask you as a business how many times

you have notarized the document, you're like, many times that I don't know.

Right?

So to actually package it into, um, um, substitution fee seems to be No, no, no.

So, so like you, you really don't have to have a subscription fee.

Right.

Just imagine something like this.

Exactly.

Let's just say you have a $0 subscription fee and you obviously.

I'm gonna charge them based on, you know, pay as you go model.

Right.

That's still okay.

My question is, for example, if you sort of managed to

acquire a customer today, right?

Do they stick with you, let's say, for the next couple of years

to solve, sort of, solve all of the notary use cases with you?

Is that is, is it something that's happening today?

As of now, we have not seen.

So its the only way you can, we can figure a churn is for us, our

case is basically because we, not a SA subs subscription model, right?

Mm-hmm.

. So basically they're not dropping off, they're not taking the card on file out.

Right?

Yeah.

Well, so it's very difficult to ask to get a churn rate, so to speak.

But what we do see is people who have been notarizing our documents, uh, are

coming back to the solution and Notarizing documents not, they're not active

competitors in the space right now, in the space that we are in, so, sure, sure.

We don't

see, yeah.

So, so I just wanna get a sense of, you know, I wanna quantify this.

For example, you mentioned you've had.

5, 5 50 customers.

Right.

So what was like, how many of them sort of used you in year two or

you know, how many of them used beyond that first use case that you

saw sort of solved?

So we, we basically, um, we we're actually quantifying that and we seen

more than 70% of the people have come back and actually use the solution again.

But then again, we'll be wrong assessment because the lesser 30% we're probably

notarizing a password of immigration.

Yeah, right.

They may have referred someone to use our solution.

So it's not a churn actually.

So it's very to assess of cases.

Alright, so let.

talk a bit about your top funnel, right?

We can come back to this later.

So like, where are you finding all of these customers and what, what

does it take to sort of onboard

customers?

We have spent zero money of marketing.

Mm-hmm.

, we have done no digital ads and people are actually actively finding us on Google

and trying to solve this problem for them.

That's how painful it has been.

Um, case in point, um, uh, without having an inside sales team, we

actually have closed, uh, a contract of a million dollar value with a,

with a financial institution, which I'm not, which, which I'm It's okay.

It's okay.

Doesn't matter.

Yeah.

So, um, so the fact of the matter is the plane is real.

That's the most

important thing.

So when, when you say people searching for you on Google, like what exactly

are they searching for and like, have you optimized your, and do you rank

on the top?

Are, we are not the top three socialists.

The other one will be brought with the, a government website.

Yeah.

And like

did you put, and was this a conscious decision?

Did you put, put any extra efforts in terms

of, you know, we did not do any seo.

Nothing.

Okay.

We just came up like, like that's how painful it is.

Like, and basically someone said like, how did you find us?

So this question like, oh we, I just Googled Notarization Europe and you.

Search result.

Oh, like, oh, really?

So, so that's how it has been like, actually, uh, we have not done

a lot of thought, but, but now that, um, we have research, uh, so

can, so can I, can I assume that

like a significant percent of these five 50 customers sort

of discovered you using Google search?

Is that how it is?

Um, so if you look at that, like Google search is the

primary constituent, the second bigger Constitu will LinkedIn searches.

Uh, so because predominantly is being used by professionals.

So first is Googles, uh, second is LinkedIn.

So what happens

on LinkedIn search people search for?

Why would anybody search for Notary on a LinkedIn search bar?

I mean, it's pretty

ba uh, I don't know.

So we have a, what what we see is a lot of Clickthroughs from a LinkedIn page to our

website, and we have $0 spent on LinkedIn.

So you are assuming it's, it's from organic LinkedIn discovery.

Is that you're assuming or is it true?

Is it?

So we have a clickthrough from a LinkedIn to our portal.

So we are tracking that and that constitutes significant

percent percentage of the funnel.

That's all we know.

Okay.

What we make up?

No, my

my, my question is who, who, what's driving your traffic

to that LinkedIn page of yours?

It may be Google.

That's what I'm saying.

Right?

Okay.

So it may be Google, it can be circular from Google, but, but there many people.

But, but if you.

Notarization Europe, our LinkedIn page doesn't show up.

Mm-hmm.

, but, you know, we, we have not assessed that.

But, but, but for what we see the funnel coming to us, we see 60% coming from

Google and 30% coming from LinkedIn.

So, so yeah.

So that's what I, I, I honestly feel there's a lot of, um, requirement

for Notarizations that people.

And there are a lot of organic conversations happening where,

how, how can I get this done?

Mm-hmm.

. And we, we've rang really high on that.

We also have a significant amount of PR on in the market.

We have been covered by Sifted, we have been covered by, um, by Silicon,

um, uh, Silicon Republic, uh, Duggans industry, these laptop, uh, startup,

um, journals all over Europe.

Um, we are also gonna be recently featured in another internationally

renowned, um, uh, startup journal.

So we have been got, getting a lot of good PR in our.

Our startup.

So that probably also drives up the traffic.

Got it.

So, uh, just help me explain, right, so in terms of, uh,

how you're pricing it, right?

For every dollar of, you know, every dollar that you charge your

customer, how much do you actually end up making for how much profit

do you end up making for yourself?

Because the, I'm asking this specifically because you, you've got a human

element in there.

Absolutely.

So, so as of now, um, and I would, I would say as of now, because we

are currently working on different pricing model because we are doing some

product, uh, changes, but as of now, the way it works is basically we have

a base fee of 35 euros, a convenience fee, uh, over and above the notary

fee that is fixed Chinese transaction.

Um, and, um, if the transac not fee is above 115 euros, we charge a flat 30%

convenience over and above the notary.

So in case you are, um, charging, if the not fee has aff fixed, if you have 200

Euros for your document, the, the, the, the platform will charge you 260 Euros.

We're pretty transparent about our pricing.

We know exactly what value we're bringing.

I think the 60 Euros will not hurt you as much as going

France, getting something not.

And can I

ask you how much the did you do last month?

I It's gonna be seasonal.

It's gonna vary a lot, but just

last month.

No, no.

So basically, uh, uh, we, we are on, on route, uh, on road to complete 175 K of,

uh, revenue, um, by the end of the year.

Um, so that's per year, right?

That's per year, yes.

So monthly tracking happens.

Sure, sure.

There's always a seasonal element, 10k, I don't wanna do that.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So

let's get a bit of backstory here, right?

So when did

you start the.

Uh, so, so it was a funny story really.

I am professionally a lawyer and I was a part of the Antler program in Stockholm,

and we are looking for my co-founder, one of 5, 3, 5 things I had on my bucket

list I wanted to change in the world.

Like I've always had an outlier profile when I was in school, I always

wondered why I'm studying trigonometry.

I still figured, haven't figured that out.

Um, so my, I met my co-founder there, uh, ADA, and she's more from

a professional finance background.

She lived most of her life in New York, and, uh, we met, um, and.

It was in all, all the wrong reasons.

There was no social distancing, no lockdowns there, so the entire

world did not let anyone leave it.

And we needed notarized a couple of documents.

I needed to notarized a document in the UK and I incidentally needed

to Notar document in Ireland and.

It just was like one of those random conversations that, look, people say you

idea together, have that eureka moment like arches and you solve the problem.

And we went backwards.

We had a problem and figured on just build a startup around it.

Yeah.

So that's how we startedi to solve our problem itself.

Basically we had to, um, open a bank account and we didn't

notarized some documents.

Right.

So, so we notarized it.

So basically we built a problem for our solution for ourselves, and then

we have been selling it to the public.

It's, it's been a couple of years, right?

It's been two years to years,

months.

Sure, sure.

And how many folks do you have on your team and have you

raised any external funding?

Oh, so we have lean team.

Right now we are a team of six.

Uh, and, um, we are growing.

Sure.

And have you raised

any external

funding?

. Yeah.

So, so, um, we are about to close, uh, a specific undisclosed amount Sure.

Which will probably come to do in the next couple of weeks, um, and beyond.

Before that, we have raised, uh, uh, just a north of $300,000.

Mm-hmm.

, but we have, we just closed our, I don't, I can't say.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, Alco, one last question.

Right.

So what's the vision for your company?

Right?

So, which direction are you gonna take?

Right.

What, what's your next big goal and how are you gonna reach there,

you know, in terms of revenue and.

So INS revenues, basically we have to, uh, reach, um, uh, a hundred

Krr, um, sorry, a million dollar, a million a r as as fast as possible.

My question

is, does a r r even apply to you?

As in that's what we, we are kind of changing a few

things about the pricing as well.

So

are you, are you gonna take that subscription route somehow?

Go there because now we have some sense on understanding of volumes.

Um, now that we're doing this for a while, um, that being said, uh, we,

we want to have, uh, uh, uh, we wanna move to one villa, um, within the next

12 months, uh, to raise our series A.

That's, that's the, that's the primary North star revenue metric when it comes

to the vision metric, which is said like, I don't know if it's a metric.

The vision is basically the fundamental reason we did this was, uh, we need

to, we wanted to live in a world.

Legal processes need not be archaic unnecessarily.

Um, and the most low hanging fruit was the importance of notarization.

And it's still kind of, I feel it can be done in a better way than

in what has been done presently.

Sure.

Uh, we are gonna move in that direction where we actually take specific

user journeys and legal processes of verification and validation.

And make it better.

But in the short term, short to the medium term, what we'll do is we

are gonna implement more features, make the process more cleaner.

We'll make notarization simpler, we'll build APIs, we'll integrate

with various user journeys and various enterprises and you know,

we'll strategically place ourselves in every step of the user journey.

So that users need not even think they're using electrify, they

just get documents notarized.

Alright,

Arco, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Hope your scale divide to much, much greater heights.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

It was a pleasure talking to you.