EP 436: $4.5m on Ebay, Now SaaS Hits $25kMRR to Help Sellers Sell on Ebay with Crazylister CEO Victor Levitin
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders · Nathan Latka
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Show Notes
Victor Levitin, co-founder and CEO of CrazyLister. Prior to CrazyLister, Victor ran a retail business that he drove from $0 to $4.5M in revenue in just three years. In fact, it did so well it won an eBay award for highest conversion rate. Victor channels his eBay retail experiences through a blog called "eBay Sellers Journey to $100K a month" where he helps eBay sellers avoid mistakes and grow their business the right way.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Elon Musk Biography
- What CEO do you follow? – Alex Turnbull
- Favorite online tool? — Intercom
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— "About 7"
- If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – "Teach myself how to code and learn the balance"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:37 – Nathan introduces Victor to the show
- 02:08 – What is CrazyLister and how does it make money?
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- 02:16 – Created for sellers
- 02:50 – Similar with creating websites
- 03:28 – Built-in to eBay's API
- 03:40 – You have to know how to code to use CrazyLister
- 03:49 – Pricing scheme
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- 03:54 – Plans based on the number of listings
- 04:05 – Monthly RPU
- 04:20 – CrazyLister is founded in late 2013
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- 04:33 – Victor was 29 then
- 04:40 – Victor has always been an entrepreneur
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- 05:05 – He was a seller before
- 05:14 – Shifted to software because of the entrepreneurial bug
- 06:20 – Shared equity
- 06:40 – Number of paying customers
- 07:02 – Total revenue in 2015
- 07:15 – January 2016 – from premium to paid
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- 07:40 – 14-day free trial
- 07:55 – MRR
- 08:50 – Pricing on the website
- 09:15 – Actively doing customer development
- 09:41 – Metrics customers have to hit
- 09:58 – Growth churn per month
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- 10:08 – Typical monthly churn of SaaS companies
- 10:35 – First month with monthly churn
- 11:40 – Lifetime value
- 12:00 – What are you going to pay for a new customer?
- 12:28 – Team size and located in Tel Aviv, Israel
- 12:45 – Self-funded or crowd raising
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- 13:01 – Equity round
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- 13:22 - Valuation
- 13:33 – Victor feels they've exceeded the valuation
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- 14:20 – Will never sell
- 14:45 – Content marketing drives traffic to Victor's company
- 15:47 – August expenses
- 16:20 – Connect with Victor thru his LinkedIn or Facebook
- 18:40 - The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Know your priorities and maintain a balanced life.
- Keep moving—don't stay in your comfort zone, stagnation is death.
- Take care of your customers—know their needs and find out how you can help them.
Resources Mentioned:
- Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
- Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
- Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
- Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
- Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
- LinkedIn – Victor's LinkedIn account
- Facebook – Victor's personal Facebook account
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives