Website-Agentur, 20 Mio. Umsatz: Macht KI mich überflüssig?

0:00We do uh we're WAS, uh so website as a service um based company. So, we build websites, do digital marketing services, that kind of stuff. Uh we cater to small medium businesses, small businesses. >> Uh average revenue per customer is 450 bucks a month. Okay. It's subscription-based company. Yeah. And uh we're at Yeah, we're at 20 million uh bucks in revenue. Yeah. And >> Notice. Example. Right price. Really small, you price it super low and it works. Okay. Go ahead.

0:27>> And uh we want to get to 80 80 million bucks in revenue in about 3 years. Okay. So, uh the question we're asking ourselves is we're in an industry where AI is very disruptive. Um every day that goes by, you know, it's constantly degrading and decaying our product. Uh and at the same [snorts] time, we have kind of this one channel uh risk that we're that that we're living with. All of our sales, 100% of our growth has been done through outbound cold calling.

0:54Love it. Yeah, it's great. Um but again, cold calling is becoming harder and harder in the industry as it's decaying. So, we're we're constantly we're trying to figure out >> is decaying. What do you mean by that? Churn is going up? Churn is slightly ticking up, but um at the end of the day, you know, AI is making it easier and easier for our customers to be able to build their own websites. >> Yeah. Well, yeah, I know. With the type of customer we deal with, they're not usually super sophisticated.

1:21So, it We do have time. >> out about ChatGPT. So, >> [laughter] >> Yeah, exactly. So, we have time, but >> guys still fax. So, I think you got time. Yeah. But this is the question, right? So, we do we double down on on on marketing and create like an inbound channel and really invest hard into that? Or do we do um do we try to innovate on the product and figure out what else they need and like build a revenue engine? Uh right now, we're kind of we're doing we're trying to do both, but it's obviously limiting.

1:50So, this is this is really really good. I love that you asked this. So, um I went on this long rant the other day about this particular topic, which is solving problems that don't exist. Okay. So, unless cuz like you have a narrative, you have a story around AI is decaying the business, but all I hear is that you have customers and your job just got way easier. Explain. >> [snorts]

2:15>> So, you know what I mean? Like if you were like, "Our churn is escalating by 10% per month." I'd be like, "We have a problem. We need to change something." But if it's not really showing up in any meaningful way in terms of the business itself, I think there's plenty of people who will just be super laggards on this and are not going to be Replit vibe coding. They never bought your [ __ ] to begin with. Yeah. Like the person who is super into AI right now wasn't hiring WAS anyways. They built their own website. Mhm. Before AI made it code easy, all right? [laughter] Like it cuz I mean, to be fair, website building software not that complicated.

2:48No. [snorts] Right? Um so, you said there's two paths. So, one is, you know, change the product around. My opinion, I wouldn't That's probably wouldn't be where I'm focused unless I had some business metric that was way off that that I'm not seeing. Um I would be doubling down on the acquisition side. What's your LT What's your number of months average stick? Uh so, it's a 29 months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the game. It's It's usually a Yeah, it's 30 to 40. It's That's the the highest I've seen uh uh was 38 Mhm. for this type of business. So, like you're right. You're right in the in the sweet spot there.

3:23You're a little higher priced. I think they were 299. It's like Yeah. it all works out in the same, you know, um same thing. So, yeah, I think you just double down on inbound. So, paid ads. Paid ads, yeah. Yeah, and I would just see if you get them to prepay for the quarter so you can offset CAC. Mhm. Okay. Um on that subject, if you don't mind, uh in terms of prepaying for the quarter, >> [snorts] >> you know, again, our customers are pretty price sensitive. There's people that are cheaper than us, obviously, as you've seen before.

3:51Um my fear is the amount of churn that will generate some, you know, we we bill 90% of our customers on credit cards, and we hold on to 10% that pay us through like PayPal and through checks and that kind of [ __ ] It's all It's awful, but Um you know, we're going to experience churn if we're like, "Hey, you need to pre uh you know, pre prepay us up up front." You'd still lose them. >> just close fewer, right? Um close fewer, absolutely, and I think customers that are with us would leave us. Why would the people who are with you leave you for how you treat new customers? Sorry?

4:22People that are with us would leave us. >> you change your billing process for existing customers. Got you. >> I'm saying if you're doubling down on inbound, what will go up is CAC because you'll have media spend in addition to the sales commission. And so, to offset that from a cash flow or How cash flow positive are you right now? Uh so, we did 3.6 in EBITDA last year. Generated about >> Interesting. That's lowish. It's lowish, yeah. Yeah, I'm curious what you have on people. Hm?

4:46We're heavy on people. Dude, AI. I know. I know. >> [laughter] >> Big thing. I know. It's like you're worried about them doing it, you're not even doing it. Correct. Right? >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, like um okay, so this is what I would actually do. I would probably spend the next 6 months reorganizing the workflow, probably reduce head count by 50% using AI workflows in order to actually do the same thing, increase the margin from 3.6 to like seven um or more. With the ash added cash flow, you wouldn't have to change the price on the front end. You'd be willing to go negative for a quarter in the acquisition knowing you're going to get 29 on the back.

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