Unlocking Hidden Profits with SaaS Magic

Full transcript

Welcome back to the podcast guys today we're joined by Preetham Michael. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Happy to be here. So Michael, do you mind giving us a bit about uh yourself and what are you currently building? So a little bit about me, I essentially spent about 20 years in the tech world, you know, in a variety of roles, started as a hardcore developer and grew into different kinds of roles, know, most recently ending, you know, doing sales. ah And pretty much all of it has been in the professional services essentially serving large scale enterprise customers. And one of the major issues that I realized while selling to these customers was, you we would go ahead and sell a project for, let's say, a million dollars. And we'd assume, you know, with an engagement gross margin of say 40%. By the time the project is done, the true gross margin was anywhere between 15 to 20%. So there was a lot of leakage and from a margin point of view. So as a result of which, the founder of FastClick, a very close friend of mine, name is Karthik, he built a SaaS product, which pretty much addresses this issue, it's called FastClick. And I am the chief revenue officer for FastClick. So in this role, I essentially... work with a lot of the professional services companies focused on technology, who essentially provide technology services. And we specifically address this issue. So our customers are typically, know, CEOs, CFOs, you we essentially work with their teams, you know, showcasing how they can add about 10 to 15 % to the gross margins without necessarily adding in more overhead. And that's what Fastly does in short.

Okay, and could you briefly explain how are you able to get them these kind of results? Like where does the 10 to 15 % inquiries happen? typically what happens is in any professional services engagement, you have a lot of margin leakage via things like change requests that are not captured, billable hours that are not captured. uh You forecast something, you forecast a number at beginning of the project, and you essentially don't necessarily track it on a regular basis. So fast click makes it easier to track. all of those changes. Just by doing this three or four things, you can essentially unlock all of this margin leakage. And that's how we save customers this, you know, this amount of percentage point of view. you know, and the existing tools in the market don't necessarily address this, right? So think of us as a poor managed version of an SAP or a NetSuite, but with a lot more flexibility. and not having the major implementation costs that come along with it. Okay, and I know that you are very active on LinkedIn. What are some trends that you're currently seeing in the space on LinkedIn right

now? think in all honesty, what I'm essentially seeing on LinkedIn as it to professional services companies, I think, you know, most CEOs and CFOs, don't know that something like this even exists. Right? So, I mean, I use LinkedIn more from an education point of view, right, to spread the word around so that I can educate them, saying that, hey, you don't have to be spending quarter million dollars with an SAP or a NetSuite implementation, so that... for you to essentially implement a very simple functionality that Fastly can do that comes in, built in. So it's AI powered. So for me, essentially to answer your question, I use LinkedIn more as an educational tool more than anything else. If you look at most of my posts, it's all educational. And the trending that I'm seeing is, and whenever I talk to CEOs and CFOs, and they are really, really shocked to see this. And once... they start using the tool, it takes about a week to essentially understand it. Once they start using the tool, they love it. They can't get up. I mean, it's self-serving. Because at the end of the day, the license cost, as it results with fast click, oh even a single half a million dollar project can essentially pay for it in itself, just from the savings.

Yeah, that's great. I heard this quote uh that goes like you don't know what you don't know and I think uh it's very true uh in a lot of cases. There are so many opportunities, so many ways to provide value to people and a lot of people don't know about it, about the ways that some companies can help. For example, like your your type of service. I've never heard about it before. So it's great that you are like educating people on it. regarding AI, how are you guys using it in your regeneration process? If you are actually using it. day out. I use AI every day. I think the way I use AI is to 10x myself. That is the way I essentially use AI, right? So if I can essentially repeat myself, right now, I've obviously not 10x myself, maybe oh two or three x, but the day is not too far off where I can 10x myself. So I use AI for... identifying opportunities, leads, scoring my leads, reaching out to them. So there's so many other things that I use from an AI for AI point of view. I essentially use Claude quite a bit, and Claude has understood the way I like to write, the way I like to, oh it's understood my personality so much. So I give it instructions on how I want a certain post, I give a rough draft of how I want to do it.

AI basically identifies it without losing the message. So this is one of the few ways that I use AI for. And what's been working best for you in terms of marketing and getting new clients in the door? I follow, I mean, I'm a big fan of Alex Hormozzi, right? uh So he makes a very, very good point, right? He basically says, use one channel and do 100 things on that one particular channel for 100 days. and see what is working for you or not, if it works for you. So for me, that is what I'm essentially doing. So I am focusing on LinkedIn DMs quite a bit. So my goal, uh I I'm not really 100. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to essentially do 100 LinkedIn DMs, but I do about 50 to 60 on a daily basis. So there is no single, there's no silver bullet over here. Yeah, I'm also a big fan of him, so... Great, great. It's a... Yeah, I think I've heard about

the thing that you just said. It's like the... Yeah, the rule of 100, the 100 actions in... Every day for 100 days. Yeah, nice. So, you are not only the CRO of FastClick, right? Could you tell me more about the other side? an advisory company called Albertic Capital, where I work with a lot of tech companies who are doing anywhere between five to $50 million annually, helping them get access to capital, non-diluted capital. Because what I've essentially realized is most of these tech companies, ah they are not educated well enough on how to get access to capital and they get into bad debt. And when you get into bad debt, what happens is it eliminates your profit for the next one to two years. So I typically engage with them when they are about a year to two years old in their journey and educate them. on how to get access to capital at a cheaper price. Because what happens is if you wait to get capital, uh you know, to the last minute, mean, the banks recognize that you're desperate. And when the banks recognize that you're desperate, their terms get bad. And when the terms get bad, the cost of capital becomes a lot more expensive. So my job is to educate them and say, hey, this is the time to essentially, if you want to essentially grow your company, This is the time to access capital. Instead of going to a VC and losing equity, I basically provide non-diluted capital. So, I work with them to essentially get them.

Interesting. did you get into this industry? in my past, when I was selling to enterprise customers, I've always realized that companies who are doing anywhere from say five to $20 million, $30 million annually, they would go and deliver a project and the customer says, we're going to take 90 days to pay you the SOW amount. Now, Obviously, as a business owner, you have to pay your employees every two weeks. So the business owner has to wait. I they can't necessarily wait for 90 days to essentially pay their employees. So I use a certain product, there are products available out there, uses invoices as collateral and give you the amount upfront. Of course, there's a small charge that goes to the bank. But many tech company CEOs don't know that a facility like this uh exists. That is one part of it. The second part of it is mergers and acquisitions. When you're trying to acquire a company, you don't necessarily want to use your working capital to acquire the company. You can fund the deal from the bank.

and use the cash flow from that new company to pay off your debt, whatever loan that you borrowed. So that is another way that I help companies out. But there several other products out there in the industry which many business owners don't necessarily understand how to access that capital because when you're in that range, 5 to 20, 30 million dollars, your focus is essentially building the company. Your focus is on sales, your focus is on customer retention, your focus is on getting the next big deal, right? You don't necessarily have time to think about capital. That is where I come and educate the customer. Yeah, awesome. So you are like a bridge between the capital. the bridge, but I like to call myself more as an advisor than advising these companies. Because there are a lot of people who essentially just focus on helping the customer with that one deal and then walking away. And my goal is to essentially build a long-term relationship with the customer because more often than not, you get a lot more referrals when you have a good relationship. and you help the customer, and more importantly, integrity is really, important. You help the customer out, they refer you to other customers. So it's a very small world. Good or bad, it gets spread very easily.

And so we've talked about the past and the present. What about the future? What's your vision for your company? as it relates to FastClick, of course, our focus is to get to the next 100 customers really quickly. ah Right now we have a small number of customers and people are loving it. And those customers are referring us to other customers. So my goal is to get to ah a good sizeable customer list by the end of 2026. As it relates to Albertic capital, my goal is to essentially fund about 20 to 30 or different companies by the end of this year, with a total funding of about 25 to 30 million dollars. That's my goal for the end of 2025. 2026, I keep forgetting that we're in 2026. 2027 is to go a lot more bigger than that. And probably right now I'm focusing on two industries. One of that is tech and the other one is healthcare. In 2027, I want to start adding a few more verticals to Albertic Capital. Okay, well, uh Michael, tell me where can people find

you and learn more? me on LinkedIn for sure, Preetham Michael. uh Two other places, one is www.fastclick.com. And the second place is albertic-capital.com or albertic.com. These are the two places they can find me. All my contact information is up there and they can connect with me on LinkedIn as well. Great, I will leave links for that below and thank you for joining Michael. all the best to you as well. Thank you for what you do. ah So wishing you all the best and good luck with your Legion company. Good talking to you. Cheers. Thank you.