Bootstraps First to $5M ARR, Raises $10M Later: Toucan Toco CEO Charles Miglietti (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Once you hit this limit and you realized that you had to do something else, what did you do?

Charles Miglietti: We looked at our customer base. We identified the pattern in terms of persona and use case. We kept only the good ones – the ones that were repeatable.

Sramana Mitra: What did you decide to focus on at this point?

Charles Miglietti: We decided to focus on retail. We decided to focus on SaaS companies, and HR.

Sramana Mitra: Why did you make that choice?

Charles Miglietti: We looked at our customer base and looked at all the data.

Sramana Mitra: In your customer base that you had accumulated up to this point, there were enough HR applications to give you the indication that this is a good use case.

Charles Miglietti: 20% of our case is HR. 

Sramana Mitra: What within HR was the use case that you were getting success in?

Charles Miglietti: HR is one of the four persona that we target.

Sramana Mitra: Of the four use cases, which one had the maximum traction in your existing customer base?

Charles Miglietti: Retail. We are very strong in retail. Retail can be pure physical retail but can also be e-retail.

Sramana Mitra: Today, what percentage of your customer base comes from retail?

Charles Miglietti: More than 30%.

Sramana Mitra: How do you price your solution today?

Charles Miglietti: It’s per end user. It’s a base monthly cost. On top, you add licenses. This is a subscription model based on the number of users. It’s annual.

Sramana Mitra: What is the end result? In your intervention in the retail use case, what do you empower the customers to do that they were not able to do without you in the middle?

Charles Miglietti: We allow them to communicate very easily to data for operations. We allow them to give a very simple application that allows the retail operator to fully understand what’s important. This is what we provide.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about go-to market strategy. When you decided to focus on these four different use cases, did you do anything different in how you went to market? If so, what was that?

Charles Miglietti: We didn’t change the way we went to market. It was still direct sales force with outbound sales development, and some inbound. 

Sramana Mitra: What is the average deal size?

Charles Miglietti: It’s $50,000 ARR.

Sramana Mitra: Do you do multi-year deals?

Charles Miglietti: Yes, we do multi-year deals.

Sramana Mitra: It’s very difficult to make a business work if you have to do direct in-person selling by feet on the street at the deal size you’re talking about. Typically, those kinds of businesses need to have deals that close through phone or online to scale.

Charles Miglietti: I understand. In France, the unit economics is different. You can sell with field sales even at this low price point. In the US, it’s too costly.

Sramana Mitra: You are profitably selling at that price point because you have a different cost structure in France.

Charles Miglietti: Yes, exactly. 

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstraps First to $5M ARR, Raises $10M Later: Toucan Toco CEO Charles Miglietti
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