Hey - Marc here.

Happy Saturday morning, motivated B2B SaaS Founders!

Here's at least one tip to keep in mind as you grow your B2B SaaS company:

Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read.

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In today's issue, I share some key takeaways from a recent interview between Nathan Latka, the host of Daily Interviews with SaaS Founders, and Nochum Rabin, the CEO, and co-founder of STR Brain. They discussed how he invests $340k of his savings to launch the new Airbnb data tool.

Nochum Rabin has a strong background in real estate and this was where he originated the concept. Launched during the pandemic when real estate was selling rapidly, he sold a great deal of single-family homes and a $32m property in Indiana.

About STR Brain

STR (Short-Term Rental) Brain allows you to access underwriting with real-time data nationwide without a subscription and help you become a better short-term rental investor. They wrote their first line of code at the beginning of 2022 and as of a month ago, they’re off the ground and got their first paying customers.

What most people don’t know about Airbnb is that there are other fees and costs. What STR Brain does is give you all that in one spot – unlock your projected income, expenses, average daily rental, and all other expenses incurred with running an Airbnb.

They help calculate your potential returns and give a five-page PDF with the property summary, computations, comparables, your whole expense sheet, or whatever you added in or took out. A lot of their subscribers pay about $250 a month on average and get 25 reports for $7.

P.S. Their total revenue last month was close to $2.5k and looking at about $10k this month as they wait on a few brokerages to finish up their contracts. Of their occurring revenue, 40% is from lenders and brokerage, 20% is from individual reports, and the remaining part is from their subscriptions.

Challenges

Getting property data is time-consuming and not “on the go.”

He had a client that came to him and said, “I want to buy an Airbnb. How much is this property gonna make?” The market was moving fast and he couldn't figure out how much it was going to make because he didn't have fast enough underwriting even with AirDNA and other software out there.

Advice to Other Founders

Invest with a good attitude and approach.

He thinks he took a gamble but is positive about his product and sees its growth potential. Only at 24, Nochum invested $340k of his savings to launch STR Brain. He realized that if this product isn’t good and doesn't end up going anywhere, he would still have a great product that he’ll always use.

Make the most out of a helpless situation.

The pandemic has been a blessing in disguise. He started this idea in the heat of COVID-19 when properties were flying off the shelf. He and his partner came up with ideas to streamline a model. From there, it grew, and now he buys a report and sends it to clients in a laid-out PDF, and that's how it came about.

Build relationships.

Currently, they're working with one paying lender, one brokerage of 60 agents, and 10 monthly subscribers. Take the time to set up meetings and build relationships. Be proactive in engaging with your partners and customers and make sure that they are getting the best service from you.

Bonus

Nochum’s favorite book is “Sell Or Be Sold” by Grant Cardone.
Follows his brother, Lenny Raven, a very cool CEO and co-founder of BrownBoots.
24, married, and his wife is pregnant with their first kid.
He wishes he knew in his 20s to believe in himself more and take the leap of faith.

TL;DR

STR Brain helps you understand when you buy or when you want to buy a short-term rental, what you can pay for it, and what the returns could look like. He's put $340k of his own money into this business and spent $160k so far building the MVP. He now has 12 customers, doing about $2k a month in revenue, bootstrapped. Team of three, him, his partner, and then a developer they've got in Italy hoping to ramp up from 12 customers to 2,000 with paid ads and some other tactics.

P.S. Here is a link to the full interview if you are interested in listening to the full episode: 24-year-old invests $340k of his savings to launch a new Airbnb data tool.

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See you again next week.

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