EP 557: Appointlet Hits $35k MRR, Co-Founders Because of Reddit Helping 1100 Customers Schedule with Rami El Chamaa

Rami El Chamaa. He’s the CEO and founder of Appointlet. He started earlier as a digital marketing manager at Eastline Marketing where he led lead generation, SEO, email marketing, and content marketing. Before that, he was with Ernst & Young.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Lean Startup
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk
• Favorite online tool? — Intercom
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – N/A

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Rami to the show
• 02:03 – Appointlet is an appointment scheduling software
• 02:34 – Appointlet is a SaaS based business and makes money through subscriptions
• 02:40 – Appointlet has monthly and annually pricing depending on the team price
• 02:51 – Average monthly revenue per customer is $50
• 03:17 – Appointlet’s pricing has been set since 2012
• 04:18 – Rami’s co-founder was working for his previous company and saw the tedious process of appointment scheduling through different websites
• 05:17 – Rami saw his co-founder’s thread in Reddit regarding his webapp and Rami replied to him
• 05:31 – Rami is from Lebanon and met his co-founder through Reddit
• 05:45 – Rami is in charge of marketing growth and his co-founder is in charge of the coding
• 06:20 – The Reddit thread
• 07:05 – Rami and Jared don’t talk much about equity
• 07:30 – Rami didn’t have any idea about equity and just focused on marketing
• 08:05 – Rami now has 25% of the company
• 08:27 – Appointlet has 1100 paying customers
• 08:55 – Rami had been working with Appointlet for a year when he realized he needed to be compensated
• 09:16 – First year revenue
• 10:19 – Average RPU
• 10:35 – Rami focuses on listening to customers and creating a flow that lets the customer feel that they are being taken cared of
• 11:08 – Startups grow through support
• 12:08 – Rami has integrated branding techniques
• 13:00 – “The lifetime value of a customer usually drives the lifetime value of a new customer as well”
• 14:00 – Gross customer churn
• 14:10 – Appointlet is doing paid, targeted, marketing campaigns
• 14:40 – Appointlet spent $2-3K on a marketing campaign
• 15:07 – LTV
• 15:30 – Appointlet just hired their first customer support manager
• 15:58 – Appointlet is currently looking for software developers located in USA
• • 16:05 – Salary range
• 16:49 – Appointlet is bootstrapped
• 16:59 – Appointlet is not interested in raising funds until they need it
• 17:36 – Appointlet is currently cash flow positive
• 18:55 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Opportunities can now be found on the internet – just look for someone with whom you share the same passion.
• Working for free isn’t that bad as long as you make yourself indispensable.
• The lifetime value of a customer usually drives the lifetime value of a new customer as well.

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• 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 the quality of Toptal
• 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.
• 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
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives