The Epic Journey: Poker World Champion Builds $3M ARR SaaS from Scratch!

Hello everyone.

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Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast.

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I'm your host Bhupendra Verma and

today we have David Dhanushkar with us.

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David here is the co founder and

CEO of a company called Bipi.

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Hey David, welcome to the show.

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David Daneshgar: Hi, thanks.

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Thanks for having me.

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Excited to be here.

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Upendra Varma: Yeah.

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All right, David.

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So let's try to understand

what Bipi does, right?

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So can you just explain a bit about that?

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David Daneshgar: Yeah.

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Whippy is an automation platform.

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It uses a lot of automation AI

for people in the real world or

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old school world, as I call it.

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So like, you know, there's a lot of

automation AI for e commerce, for

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example, but for, for a staffing company

or a pharmacist or a lawyer, a lot of

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people are doing a lot of manual work.

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And what we do is we sit down

and understand, like, especially

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on communication, like what are

things we can shore up and we see.

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Like a classic example we see is like

when, when an HR company, someone applies

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for a position, person goes, looks at

the resume, shoots them a call, a text,

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an email, tries to get information

from them, puts it into their CRM.

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And a lot of that stuff can be automated.

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Um, and so the platform uses text.

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Email and soon voice to help triage

those situations, whether it's customer

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support, whether it's um, whether

it's sales, whether it's marketing.

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And right now the motion has

been mainly like SMB, but we've

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created a very robust A P I.

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So even a large company that wants this,

and that would be a more of an enterprise

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motion can use our API to build it.

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Sorry to buy rather than have to

build all of this themselves off

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of Twilio or something like that.

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Upendra Varma: So it sounds

a bit interesting, right?

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So is, is the product, you know, built

to support a lot of use cases by default.

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Like, I look at, you know, emails

and there's sequences, campaigns,

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and then there were, you know, calls.

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Looks like a whole bunch of them, right?

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So that could cater to

anybody and everybody, right?

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So like, just help us understand,

like, what's the vision or

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thought process here, right?

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So like, how are you

positioning this product?

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David Daneshgar: Yeah, I think it's,

it's, it's a little bit of a challenge,

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right, because most people say to focus,

like, focus on a specific niche, a

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specific product, and I think my last

company that I was at called Bloom Nation,

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we did e commerce for local florists.

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So the messaging was very clear, the

positioning was very clear, I mean,

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the only thing is what we ran into

was the addressable market, right?

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You're a TAM in SASC.

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You were very good.

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You were like an industry

leader, but it was fixed.

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When we started WIPI, we thought, let's

look at problems that people have.

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And let's see if we can solve

those problems to a solution.

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And so it was very hard to start WIPI

because we didn't know who we were.

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And what's happened is in each

case, what we've done is we've

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solved the real problem for a

specific niche in a vertical.

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And then we've really

created that use case study.

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We've created a testimonial.

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We've productized it and

create templates around it.

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And then we go to market in that

industry, but it is much more difficult.

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To come really wide and then have to

narrow down your focus, which is what

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we've done, but it is great for at this

stage in our company, because now we

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have someone focused in this vertical.

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It's almost like companies

within a company.

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Upendra Varma: Uh, so just help us

understand your customer base, right?

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So how many paying customers

are paying businesses?

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Do you have on your platform today?

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David Daneshgar: I think last I checked

somewhere in the neighborhood of six

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to 700 paid accounts right now, I think

the majority are, are more S and B.

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So it's like, let's say five to 10.

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Okay.

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A or R.

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So.

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Somewhere in the three, three plus

million, uh, ARR, uh, kind of as a

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company, but what's happening recently

is we're starting to see, like, we're

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trying to push up market, as I mentioned,

and we've now have some deals that we've

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either closed a couple that we've closed.

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We're in the conversation.

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They're like a hundred K plus error.

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And that picture is a

little bit different.

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It's not like going to an SMB and

just being like, when you do this.

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You pay someone, I don't know, let's

say you pay someone 40 grand to do

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that, and this software will do that,

and you know, if we charge you 10 or

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15 percent of that value, it's like

6K, or in the enterprise motion, it is,

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you want to build this off of existing

tools, you need several developers,

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it's going to take you a year or two.

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That's developer resources.

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So that's a lot of maintenance.

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Um, also communications like a messy

space like things go down or AT&

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T or T Mobile and you have to deal

with that that issue with Twilio.

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A lot of people just want to offload

that, especially at the enterprise level.

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Upendra Varma: So just help

us understand these six, 700

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accounts that you have, right?

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So do they belong to a particular,

you know, vertical niche or

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industry, or, or are they using

primarily for a certain use case?

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Or like, is it just spread

across the spectrum?

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David Daneshgar: It's it's spread across.

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What happened?

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Upendra Varma: and how does your

go to market motion, you know,

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you know, like how, what's,

what's the GTM motion here, right?

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So if it's spread, spread

across so well, right.

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How are you sort of driving

all of these leads to your.

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And then just,

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David Daneshgar: Yeah, our go to market

right now is actually no inbound.

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It's all it's 90 percent outbound.

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So it's a lot of cold, cold, cold email.

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So there's two ways to go at it.

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If you want to spread it wide.

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You might want to go at competitors.

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But, um, you know, you want to see

what you can drive someone value.

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You want to see where someone pays.

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I think what you start to do is

like, if you go after these verticals

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and you find niche A and, you know,

they're willing to pay more because

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you're driving them more value.

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Like what you actually end up doing,

this is like a more of a focus go

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to market is you're like, cool.

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I'm actually want to see if

I can create a case that can

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we get testimonials from you?

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Is there a trade show you go to,

is there a group you're a part of?

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And then they start to help you.

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And then you go from one to 10,

cause you've already validated.

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Wow.

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This is someone.

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And I think we validated based on,

on like, is it a daily use case?

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Is it usage?

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You want people where like, if

Whippy was to go down for one minute,

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like they can't run their business.

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So in our case for communication, we

want people that use this operationally.

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They use this as a daily use case.

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So when you find someone who's

willing to pay for that, then you like

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get a rep and you really focus and

those cold calls are very different.

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It's like, Hey David, who you might

know does X, Y, and Z with us.

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And it's resulted in this, do

you have time for a meeting?

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And you really then scale sales that way.

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So sometimes you go broad

to like catch some fish.

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But when you figure out, Oh,

this is actually something really

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meaningful, you really focus on that.

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And then you have a rep

really drive that vertical or

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Upendra Varma: give us a few

sort of cohorts, cohorts, right?

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So where you've been doing this,

maybe lawyers or whatever those

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segments that you really doubled

down on, just some examples.

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David Daneshgar: Yeah.

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Let's just take lawyers, for

example, since you mentioned it.

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So like,

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Upendra Varma: So I want to hear from your

data, like who those primarily are, like,

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David Daneshgar: Yeah.

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So let's take lawyers.

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So I think one good example of

lawyers is like there's many lawyers.

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There's family law.

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There's divorce law.

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There's personal injury.

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And I think of those, the personal

injury ones have been better

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because what ends up happening is

each case can be worth a million.

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So you also want someone where like the

wind can be a high ticket because then the

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time to realize ROI is quicker, correct?

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Um, you also want someone in a

competitive landscape because

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if you give them automation AI,

especially on a sales call, Okay.

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Like they won't care about the money.

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They want a competitive advantage

and you want a clear use case.

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So for them, for example, I know when

someone, you know, fills out a form

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on their website, if you can have a

voice or SMS AI bot come in and like

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quickly say, I want to triage this and

get you the right person, like that's

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the difference between like getting

or losing a million dollar case.

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So in that case, that's an example of,

you know, finding people on lawn and

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specifically focusing on the niche.

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And then when you do that in that example.

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We had a really good lawyer by the name

of Bob Simon, who has a lot of pull,

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who is really close in the industry and

became an ambassador for us as well.

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Mauro Fiori Jr., a big, big

lawyer here in Los Angeles.

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So that would be an example of really

going broad and then like really focusing.

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Upendra Varma: uh, makes sense, right?

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So, and like, how, how does

the sales cycle look, right?

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In your case, like how long does it take

to, you know, maybe close a typical deal?

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David Daneshgar: I think so.

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In our case, the sales cycle

in general, it depends on like

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those two different motions.

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I think in the enterprise world,

the reason so on the S and B world

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generally can be pretty quick.

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I mean, can be like, let's

just say 60 to 90 days.

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Let's say 60 days on average.

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But in the enterprise world,

the enterprise world that we're

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going after, it's generally

longer for one of two reasons.

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One a.

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m.

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They like to get in sandbox, test

stuff, test it with a location.

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So there's generally that, that motion.

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And then the second thing is they're

using a platform now in the enterprise.

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Well, they're generally like a

one or two year locked contract.

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So you're kind of doing things in a

microcosm until they get out of that.

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So I would say for the enterprise,

well, that we're living in, that's

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more like a one year sales cycle.

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Upendra Varma: Right.

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So, and, uh, and like, what's,

what's, what's the vision here?

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So how do you intend to grow?

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Like what's, what's the GT motion gonna

be for the next one or two years here?

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Is it still gonna be primarily outbound,

or are you working on any other,

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David Daneshgar: Yeah.

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Upendra Varma: more traffic?

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David Daneshgar: Other channels.

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I think that's the main thing this year.

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So the outbound was great.

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It's something that, like, I was the

only wrap and start in the beginning.

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Now we have three SDRs.

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But I think if you look at, like,

B2B channels, there are many of them.

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I think I'm proud of doing outbound first

because sometimes that's the hardest.

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It's also the most scalable.

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People do the others first,

like inbound or referrals.

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That's how most SaaS companies start.

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And I think that's difficult.

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So I like to do the difficult thing first.

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But no, I think now

there are other channels.

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So one obviously would be, like, inbound.

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Like, you know, doing more content,

um, for example, referrals,

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affiliates, channel partners, trade

shows, um, integration partnerships.

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So I think those are all things,

even the enterprise is a new motion.

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So I think those are new channels

that we're really pushing after.

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Um, we're, we're like right now looking

to hire like a, a marketing lead to help.

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Get some of those, I guess, organic

channels kind of started and they help

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by the way, I think one of the things

that they didn't think of them enough.

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And I think now I think of more is by

doing that stuff, it makes sales outbound

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easier because if you have good, and

we've created this, but the case studies,

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good marketing, a better website.

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More brand it makes

that call better, right?

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It makes even that sales

reps outbound process.

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So they work together.

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And I think that is the

big goal for this year.

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Upendra Varma: Talk about

the team here, David.

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Right?

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So how many engineers you've got on your

team and like, whatever, the rest of them

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David Daneshgar: So our team is

around, uh, it's probably in terms

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of engineers, there's 10 engineers.

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There's our partner, Jack Kennedy

work with me at bloom nation before

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phenomenal, phenomenal gentleman,

who's really just owned kind of product

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development and, and, and just really

taken us, I think, to the next level.

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I believe right now he has eight,

uh, potentially nine engineers.

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So I would say that's just

consider it for easy ratios.

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Just imagine that to be somewhere

around 40 to 50 percent of the company.

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And then on the other side, the

main places that you have are on,

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on sales and customer success.

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Those would be the other sides,

basically obviously bringing it

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on implementation, onboarding.

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And then that's, that's a big thing

I think we're pushing on as well.

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Is like, like, you know,

negative net retention.

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So in the B2B world, you have

like logo retention, which is just

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like, I have a hundred customers,

it's, it's, it's inevitable.

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Some are going to leave.

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You just got to take

that and learn from that.

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So let's say I go to 90 customers,

that's like a 90%, you know, uh, logo

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retention, but those 90 customers don't

pay me a dollar each, they pay me 2 each.

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So my a hundred dollars is now worth 180.

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Upendra Varma: And what's the NRR today?

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Uh, so what's your NRR network

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David Daneshgar: Yeah, I think

we're we're targeting actually,

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believe it or not, that was our

target, but was like 1 percent a

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month, negative 1 percent a month.

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So you're so, which is pretty big.

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So that may be too lofty.

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But I think kind of what we're

looking at is You know, I think

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we want to get to like a hundred

and we have some things coming up.

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So all the, all the net retention

upgrades, I've been purely usage based.

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So we're a usage based platform.

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So I would say probably for every a

hundred dollars that we brought in,

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we're trying to get a year later,

at least right now to let's say 120.

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That's kind of where we're at, but,

but I think that's just on usage.

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Now what's going to happen is we're

bringing other channels and those

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could be product upsells and that

could dramatically change that as well.

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But right now our kind of goal

is to target 1 percent a month.

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Upendra Varma: and like,

how long has it been, David,

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since you started the company?

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Like what's, what's the journey like?

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What's the backstory here?

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David Daneshgar: Yeah.

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So I would say, uh, bloom nation,

which was the last company.

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We scaled it to around a hundred people.

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I think the sales org was

around 40 and I think.

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AR was in that, you know, 10 to 20 million

range now here about three years ago

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with my partner, Jack Kennedy, a little

bit more, we didn't start with Whippy.

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We actually started like just getting back

into it and like consulting, like building

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websites, looking at problems and getting

on the inside of these local businesses.

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And I think that's where we saw

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Upendra Varma: So, so what happened

with the previous, previous business?

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Did you manage to sell it or

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David Daneshgar: No, it's still there.

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I'm still on the cap table.

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It's still, it's still, I think,

you know, actually, after I

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left, they'd raised more capital.

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So I think when I left, they'd raised

another, I don't know, 10 or 15 million.

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So, you know, it's I sit on the cap table.

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I kind of view it as I view it as like,

you know, uh, monopoly money until, you

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know, there's some type of material exit.

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Um, but that, I think that's helped

because where a lot of people

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Upendra Varma: why did you get

into, you know, typical consulting

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or helping out these people, like

where, where did that come from?

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Right.

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So why did you just go on

starting consulting business?

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Like what was the story there?

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David Daneshgar: well, I never want to

start a consulting business, but what

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I thought is, what we both thought

is, let's start to start, like, uh, my

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partner was helping to build just some

basic infrastructure for companies.

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I think we started with like

dentists and different stuff.

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I think the best thing to do is

like partner with them, build

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stuff and see their problems and

honestly see what they'll pay for.

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I think the one thing I've mentioned

on other podcasts that I've done is

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then the classic mistake of B2B founder

does is he goes to his friend and

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says, how much will you pay for this?

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Do you like this?

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Or sorry, do you, would you buy this?

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And they say, yes, everyone's going to

say yes, but when with these customers, we

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would say, Hey, we'll build you something.

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Here's our stripe link.

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Go ahead and purchase.

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And then we knew, okay,

they have a pain there.

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So, and then when we're inside, we're

like, what are your other pains?

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And we realized like a lot of

it was on the, on the messaging

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and communication front.

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Uh, and we'd go and sit at their

office and see people and like, and

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then the dad's example, I would call

them and like, say, Hey, actually,

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I want to book an appointment.

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Oh, actually, can you give me

a call later and no one would

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follow up or stuff like that.

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So I think we just saw gaps.

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And the only way to see that is.

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To almost act as a consultant for

the time being to really understand

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pains that people will pay for.

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I,

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Upendra Varma: And then when

did you actually move from that?

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You know, primarily started

focusing on enterprise fields.

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David Daneshgar: well, I think,

I think that wasn't even whippy.

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I mean that his name was Whippy, but that

was more like we were doing web builds and

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different stuff when we started moving to

the world now, which was messaging, you

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know, and our software does, you know, uh,

you know, a me mess, like team messaging.

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It does mass messaging, it

does automated messaging.

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Um, there's a bunch of integrations like.

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We probably started moving in that

direction a little more than two years

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ago, and that's when we really started

to see accounts go and we hit a couple

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of accounts that really helped us,

uh, supercharge error, uh, which were

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by the way.

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So the only way we could build

things is if people paid.

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Upendra Varma: And you've grown it to

grow past a million dollars, right?

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So in terms of PR.

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David Daneshgar: Yeah, we're at we're

above three now and where our goal is

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probably to be a 10 in the next 18 to

24 months is where we're trying to go.

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And I think that goes back

to the other question.

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I think outbound is a great channel,

but I think to do that in an economic

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climate like this, right, and still

stay bootstrap and lean, you do

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need to hit those other channels.

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Upendra Varma: And then, like,

where's this money going to come from?

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Is it from enterprise deals or is it

going to come, is it primarily from SMBs?

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David Daneshgar: No, I think

that's a good question too.

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So like when I started this year, we

created a, when we'd had our team meeting,

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rather than say, Hey, we're going to

bring in this revenue, each channel

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that someone is associated with had

an amount, even the customer success.

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I said, we expect to bring this much net

retention, like rent retention in the

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enterprise rep, this much revenue from

the SMB rep, this much revenue on like

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my end, which is like the partnerships.

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And like, let's just say like the trade

show or outside sales, this amount.

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So I think it's from all, and I think

we kind of put our estimates there and

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we kind of revisit them, but to get

there, I think a simple way to say that

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is like probably, I mean, outbound SMB

outbound has to be a little bit larger.

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Enterprise is something that

will get larger than that as we

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start to build more products.

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Enterprise really is, I

think, follow the leader.

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So in the enterprise world, it really is

important to have a couple people that

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will go to back to you, and like their

competitors, like, I want that too.

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So I think to build those, those

things which we're doing now,

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you'll see a lag, a little bit of

a lag, and then you'll see a boost.

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Upendra Varma: So when did you invest

in, you know, getting all of this

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compliance certifications, right?

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I see SOC2, HIPAA, all of it, right?

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And I see them as being add ons, right?

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So it looks like you've been planning all

of this enterprise solution for a while.

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So where did you invest in?

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What was the journey like?

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Yeah.

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David Daneshgar: That's

a good question too.

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Yeah.

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So like, um, that was early on.

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So early on, um, my co founder,

uh, well, we were looking at some

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enterprise accounts early on.

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And so we realized, you know, we have

to go through all those accreditations.

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And I think for HIPAA, we just, like,

I mean, to be even simple, like one

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of the people that wanted to use

this software early was my parents.

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And we're like, they're a doctor.

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So we just knew if we want to, you

know, you know, be a big company.

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And it happens to be one of

the verticals that we're having

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success in does use HIPAA.

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So, um, HIPAA is important

and SOC 2, you're correct.

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It was, um, us having the confidence to

say that we are going to go up market

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and we want to get this, because that's

a, like, as you probably know, like,

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if you don't have those things, it's

just not a conversation to be had.

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Upendra Varma: Yeah.

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Like, and how much did your cost cost

you in terms of money and the first rate?

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So, I mean, a specific question,

but a lot of SAS founders are sort

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of trying to make that decision.

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They should be go for that or not.

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It's going to cost us 40, 50

grand and it's going to take a

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ton of developer time, right?

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So is it worth for a

10 percent team, right?

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So like, what, what, what's your

thoughts and like, what did, like,

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what did you do in your case?

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David Daneshgar: That was a

decision I have to give the

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onus to my, my co founder.

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Cause when we sat down, we

kind of talked about stuff.

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But I would say on a lot of the product

decision making, you know, I'm the CEO and

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he's, we, we are, we are partners there.

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And I think that's something that

he actually wanted to take on.

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And I think while we had the

time to do that, you're right.

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It was dev resources, but I have

a fanatical business partner

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who is like, I can still do the

things I'm doing and do that too.

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And so I was like, when do you sleep?

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And he's like, I'm not

looking to sleep right now.

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Like I'm looking to get

all this stuff done.

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So if you have someone that is that

motivated, like, what do you tell them?

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Do you tell them?

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No, let's wait.

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No, no.

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You, you go with the, you go

with the power, go with the

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Upendra Varma: David, yeah.

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One last question.

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Right.

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So do you, are you going to stay

bootstrapped or do you plan to

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raise on any external funding?

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David Daneshgar: No, I think

we, we plan to stay bootstrap.

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I think, I think it's given us the

power to make the right decisions.

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Like I think if we raise money, um, I've

just seen it where it's like, like, Oh,

427

this is not going well, the sales motion.

428

Oh, let's just wait.

429

You can't bleed money anymore.

430

I think if we were to ever take money, it

would be something that would be like a

431

liquidity event unless, unless like there

is a very clear reason to take money.

432

Like, Oh, there's this industry

and like the competitor, it's

433

going to take them one year to

catch up and there's 10 million

434

and they are there 5 million error.

435

The only way to grab that in the

next year is to like scale X.

436

That would be a good example, but

there has to be a high return on

437

investment because when you do that,

I do think you give up some of the

438

optionality that you have as a company.

439

Upendra Varma: Yeah, that

makes a lot of sense.

440

Thank you.

441

Thank you, David.

442

Thanks for taking the

time to talk to me, right?

443

Hope you scale PPP to

much, much greater heights.

444

David Daneshgar: Thank you.

445

Thank you.

446

Glad to be here.

447

Thank you.