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Just to throw another anecdote into the pile, a SaaS company I co-founded about a decade ago has about 50 customers with an average ARR per customer of $20k, bi
by zaroth 6y ago
Just to throw another anecdote into the pile, a SaaS company I co-founded about a decade ago has about 50 customers with an average ARR per customer of $20k, billed/paid quarterly, with the average customer on a 2 year contract. So each month they typically are billing ~12 customers, who will write a check within 30 days. Receivables 30 days past due are essentially $0 going back for years. Each quarter typically there are 6 contracts up for renewal.
As of March 1 they had maybe $20k of accounts receivable and had renewed 4 contracts YTD, and signed 4 new ones. Not a single customer paid in March. 90% of customers did not pay in April. By May 1 they were looking at about $160k in accounts receivable, and had not closed or renewed a single deal in the last two months. Business had essentially flatlined.
Of course they didn't turn anyone off, because the marginal cost of keeping a customer live is basically zero, and these weren't businesses that were bankrupt, just everyone managing the heck out of their cashflow.
Fast forward to today and 80% of those customers have paid or at least started paying. They closed their first new contract since February two weeks ago, and have made a couple renewals.
Without PPP the company would probably not exist today. I think they got just under $100k in funds. Management is paid almost entirely through distributions, of which there will be none this year. Overall rough guess is that they'll have gone from a +30% trajectory to -30% YoY for 2020.
- acwan93 6y agoThis sounds like where I’m trying to get my business to be at (I’m leading the on-premise to cloud strategy). PPP to us has also been a lifesaver since our on-premise sales have been nonexistent since March and our cloud offerings can’t sustain the business at all. If we were where your company is at now, we’d rest a lot easier. Like you said, our customers who are on our subscription model ended up paying eventually, but things got a little scary in March and April when PPP was still uncertain.
- jkob_ 6y agoNon-american here, so the goverment loan is supposed to cover all the missing payments, and then when the customers repay the missing payments the business pays the goverment back? Also, it's super weird how Americans still use checks, especially to pay a SaaS company. Invoicing is so much easier to work with.
- Armisael16 6y ago“Write a check” is almost certainly just a figure of speech here.
- viggity 6y agoas long as you don't lay anyone off the loan is forgivable.