EP 424: SaaS Teckst Passes 65 Enterprise Customers, $2.5M Raised with CEO Matt Tumbleson

Matt Tumbleson is the founder and CEO of Teckst – a New York based startup that's transforming customer service by directly connecting consumers with businesses via 2-way text messaging. His own frustrations with lengthy hold times and incompetent customer service representatives are why he decided to launch Teckst. Prior to jumping into entrepreneurship, Matt worked as the Creative and Marketing director of Seamless (now Grubhub), and worked as a graphics journalist at The Miami Herald.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Delivering Happiness
• What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff
• Favorite online tool? — WorkFlowy

• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Stick to one thing long enough to see it through”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:37 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show
• 02:31 – What Matt does and how they make money
• • 03:09 – Selling ROI
  • 03:15 – Created software in a house in NY
  • 03:33 – They have monthly subscription plan
• 03:50 – Currently have 5 clients
• 04:10 – How a client used Matt’s product
• • 05:37 – Created encrypted SMS
  • 06:40 – Works with Memebox
• 05:22 – How does Betterment use you?
• • 06:40 – 65% gross margins on labor
• 06:55 – Matt put his own equity for the company
• 07:30 – How old were you when you launched this and did you feel comfortable leaving your job?
• • 07:40 – Started in his late 20s
  • 08:20 – 6 months deal
  • 08:51 – Reason Matt left his job
  • 09:13 – Launched Teckst in 2012 but officially launched in 2013
• 10:06 – First year revenue
• 10:45 – Total funding raised
• 11:40 – Enterprise client pay per month
• • 11:50 – Thousands or tens of thousands monthly
• 12:05 – Number of team members
• 13:12 – Acquisition costs and churning
• • 13:35 – Lost a client once
  • 14:15 – Did Google Adwords
• 14:50 – Matt’s lifestyle
• 15:50 – Average the customer have to pay to get them on board
• 18:39 – Upside on quarterly business review
• 19:13 – MRR last month
• 21:17 – Connect with Matt on his LinkedIn and twitter @teckstco
• 23:53 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Think 10x. That’s how you should think regarding business.
• Even if you’re the CEO, you still need to learn and grow.
• If we can do everything right, we can hit all the numbers.

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 – Matt’s LinkedIn account
• @teckstco – Matt’s Twitter handle
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives