Before Yaro Starak launched InboxDone in 2017, he was a business coach who profited from his own blog, podcast, and courses. He was making multiple six figures, and attributes some of his success to outsourcing one of entrepreneurs’ largest time sucks: his inbox.
“Breaking free from email … was the biggest productivity hack I’ve ever experienced,” he told Latka in an interview. “So it was natural that I thought, ‘This has got to be something other people want to do.’”
InboxDone operates on a subscription basis and allows entrepreneurs to hand their email inbox over to an American-educated, English-speaking virtual assistant to look after. Its standard (and most popular) plan runs at $1,495 per month, and InboxDone currently serves 15 customers.
So far, InboxDone has been entirely bootstrapped by Starak and his co-founder, Claire Giovino, and at the time of this interview, the company is breaking even. After paying out its team of eight inbox managers — making a 30% to 40% profit margin for its service — InboxDone reinvests any profits back into the company.
Source: GetLatka
In the three years since InboxDone’s launch, the key to the company’s growth has been niching down. InboxDone offers only email management — rather than a swath of other virtual assistant services — and Starak has zeroed in on InboxDone’s target users: startup founders and venture capitalists.
“I feel it’s a bit of a sweet spot for our service,” Starak says. “They’re not huge companies — they’re usually more boutique, with just a couple of founders. And they have a lot of email: a lot of inbound email, a lot of communication flow.”
Knowing InboxDone’s target customer, Starak is now prepared to scale and expand the company’s marketing. Instead of relying solely on his podcast and existing coaching audience to get the word out — as he used to — he’s now learning to use Twitter ads to target founders, venture capitalists, and similar audiences (including real estate agents). And he’s not in any hurry as he tweaks his approach to growth.
“I’m really slowing down to enjoy that process,” he says. “Playing with ads now, and learning about that… that’s what’s really satisfying [about building a business].”
What is InboxDone’s annual revenue?
In 2020, InboxDone was on track to generate $180,000 in ARR.
What is InboxDone’s monthly revenue?
In 2020, InboxDone generated $15,000 in MRR.
Who is the CEO of InboxDone?
Yaro Starak, age 41, is the CEO of InboxDone.
Transcript Excerpts
Balancing fluctuating profit margins as a subscription service
“Some clients are going to go through peaks and troughs. They’re going to have maybe one week where they’re doing a product launch, or something happens in their life that’s huge, and we almost will breakeven. And then the next week, their email drops and we’re back to a normal profit margin. We have some clients who are happy to give us a 50% to 60% profit margin just to keep that off their plate and never to go into their inbox again. But it varies on the client. So far, the margins are holding, but I don’t know what it’s going to look like over time.”
Running a human-powered service
“I’ve certainly thought about AI-assisted email management, and there’s a few tools that have come out that I’ve had my eye on that can simply just reduce the cost of delivering the service. But it just wasn’t cost-effective for us to apply something like that at this point. In the future, if it gets better, with more scale, possibly.”
Launch quickly, iterate as needed
“[When launching], we said, ‘Let’s just test it. Let’s find one or two basic beta test clients, see if it worked for them, see if we can make a profit. Does the system that works for my inbox apply to someone doing completely different industries, niches, and so on?’ And the test worked. It took about three to six months to really feel out a process that we could apply to other people.”
Full Transcript Nathan Latka: Hello, everyone. My guest today is Yaro Starak. He is the creator of a company called inboxdone.com, your email done for you. It’s a management service that helps busy professionals and founders get down to inbox zero everyday by managing and replying to all of their email. Nathan Latka: Yaro, are you ready to take us to the top? Yaro Starak: Let’s do it. Nathan Latka: All right. How do you manage and reply to everyone’s email with no context? Yaro Starak: Well, you get into someone’s inbox and you create the context. You learn about it. Obviously, it’s not me. I’m not the one doing it, we have a team. But it’s based on how someone came in and took over my inbox. And basically check the sent folder, learn about the company, learn about the person. Then you practice; you start writing drafts, you check it. And then eventually, you can almost become that other person. Nathan Latka: So what have you grown in revenue [inaudible 00:00:46]? And let’s get the backstory. Yaro Starak: Yeah. So we’re about 15K a month at the moment. We just took on two more clients though. So I’d have to double check what we’re at for the last 30 days. But the short version of the story is, it was something that I wanted to do forever, because I broke free from email way, way back when I had an online essay editing company. And then I got into blogging and podcasting and selling online courses, and during that time, I had someone do my email the entire time. And for me, it was the biggest productivity hack I’ve ever experienced, breaking free from email. So it was natural that I thought, “This has got to be something other people want to do.” But to be honest, I just had it on the back burner. I was too busy growing a coaching business to focus on it. Yaro Starak: So 2017, I decided to work with a co-founder, her name is Claire. She was my inbox manager at the time for my coaching business. And we said, “Let’s just test it. Let’s find one or two basic beta test clients, see if it worked for them, see if we can make a profit. Does the system that works for my inbox apply to someone doing completely different industries, niches and so on?” And the test worked. It took about three to six months to really feel out a process that we could apply for other people. Claire was the one doing it. [crosstalk 00:02:03]
Nathan Latka: So how many customers have you scaled to today? Yaro Starak: We have about 16, I think, at the moment. Like I said, there’s a couple more came on board in the last few weeks, so [crosstalk 00:02:11]
Nathan Latka: So this is an expensive product then. I mean, these customers are paying a grand or two per month. Yaro Starak: Yeah. It’s definitely not like your $5 a month sort of virtual assistant from overseas. Nathan Latka: Yeah, this isn’t SaneBox. Yaro Starak: In pricing, it depends. What’s the value of breaking free from email, you know? But no, we are definitely going after a type of person who is kind of like me. I had a business doing multiple six figures, but we had a lot of customer support queries, I had people asking me for podcasts interviews. [crosstalk 00:02:35]
Nathan Latka: But my point is, though, sorry, this isn’t … SaneBox is a technical tool that helps you get to inbox zero, sort of like Unroll.me. This is not a technical piece of software. You’re hiring people, essentially. Yaro Starak: Yeah, no, of course. Yeah. It’s not a SaaS. I know you have the SaaS. No, it’s all human powered. We do use some tools; Yesware; obviously some plugins; Gmail for outlook, and all that. But no, it is a human being. It’s an American educated, English as a first language. So very hands-on, very boutique. We’re not [crosstalk 00:03:05]. Nathan Latka: Can you make money doing this? Is it profitable? Yaro Starak: So far, so good. Obviously, we haven’t scaled to hundreds and thousands of customers. So that’s a different question to answer at that point. But at this point, with myself, my co-founder, we’ve got about a team of eight at the moment, or inbox managers … One inbox manager for our own company. So yeah, it’s scaling well, but we’re pouring all the profits back into growth at the moment. Nathan Latka: So breakeven today. Yaro Starak: I mean, my co-founder takes a salary, but yes, breakeven today. Nathan Latka: Yeah. Well, you got to pay yourselves. You want to include that in costs. Nathan Latka: So breakeven today. Nathan Latka: So what do the margins looks like? I mean, what does it cost you to pay an inbox manager? And then what do you mark that? I mean, essentially, you have to mark that time up to make a profit on that customer, right? Yaro Starak: Yeah. I mean, this has been a learning experience, for sure. I can safely say it’s 30%, 40% in profit margin. It depends on the client. You know, some clients, they’re going to go through peaks and troughs, so they’re going to have maybe a week where they’re doing a product launch or something happens in their life that’s huge, and we almost will breakeven. And then the next week, their email drops and we’re back to a normal profit margin. We have some clients who, they’re happy to give us even 50, 60% profit margin just to keep that off their plate, never to go into their inbox again. But it varies on the client. It really does. Nathan Latka: I guess my point is, though, if I’m paying you $1000 a month, you are paying someone to manage my inbox to the tune of $600 or $700 a month. The margin that is left for you and the businesses is $200 to $300 per customer. Yaro Starak: Yeah. I mean, most of our clients are more around the $1,500 mark. So $1000 to $1500. And then, yeah, we might keep anywhere from $800 to $900, depending on the client. Sometimes it’s all the way down to $500. But like I said, that’ll change throughout the month, depending on what’s going on. And they might bump up a plan higher. They might drop down a plan lower. But like I said, so far, the margins are holding, but I don’t know what it’s going to look like over time. Nathan Latka: I mean, how do you scale this business, though? I mean, those are pretty thin margins, right? If you’re doing $15,000 a month in revenue and you have 15 customers, that means the average one is paying you $1000 a month. You’re paying $800, $700 for the VA. So again, there’s only $200, $300 for all your other expenses for you to invest in growth and everything. Yaro Starak: Yeah. I mean, like I said, it can be as much as $600, $700 on a $1500 a month client. When we started, we were priced at $1000. We bumped up to $1500, just again, learning about pricing. But some of our clients are on less. And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t have an answer for that as we scale more. All I know is, at the moment, we can pay co-founders salary; it leaves some money for paying the team that’s [inaudible 00:05:40] inbox managers, like the hiring manager, a few ancillary staff; and then a couple thousand bucks to spend on marketing at the moment, which I’m enjoying spending and testing different marketing campaigns. Nathan Latka: Tell me about that. What are you testing? Yaro Starak: Well, for the early stages, it was all podcast marketing my own audience, that sort of thing. Then obviously, that kind of tapped out. At the moment, I’ve been playing with Twitter ads. We’ve been getting some traction with the VC kind of world. So Twitter is where a lot of VCs hang out, so we’ve been playing with that. [crosstalk 00:06:10]
Nathan Latka: What do you mean, VC world? Do you manage or [inaudible 00:06:12] your 15 customers as a VC? Yaro Starak: Yeah. We’ve got a couple of clients who come through, they’re either founders who are now doing investing or they’re actually VCs. And I feel it’s a bit of a sweet spot for our service. They’re not huge companies, they’re usually more boutique; a couple of founders. And they have a lot of email, a lot of inbound email, a lot of communication flow. So again, it’s a test. It’s way too early for me to say that’s a sweet spot. But VCs, real estate agents, that kind of a certain size company seems to work well. Nathan Latka: Interesting. Okay. Now, have you done this all bootstrap or have you raised? Yaro Starak: Bootstrap. Nathan Latka: Bootstrapped the company. Okay. And any engineers on the team? Yaro Starak: No, we don’t really need them. I mean, we’ve got some tech help for the website, but it’s not a tech heavy business. Nathan Latka: That’s what I’m saying, though. Is there a way that you can build and invest in developing code here to make the margins improve, so you can actually afford to bring the service to way more people? Yaro Starak: Yeah. Well, I’ve certainly thought about the AI assisted email management, and there’s a few tools that have come out that I’ve had my eye on, that can simply just reduce the cost of delivering the service. Nathan Latka: Which tools? Yaro Starak: There’s one called Talla, which I’ve had my eye on for a while. It hasn’t really surfaced as something we would apply, but we looked into it. It basically kind of creates an AI powered knowledge base for common emails, like common responses to emails. And the idea is your inbox manager is in there, they’ve got Talla looking at the emails, it’s building a knowledge base [crosstalk 00:07:33]
Nathan Latka: Is it T-A-L-L-A? Yaro Starak: Yeah, T-A-L-L-A, I think, is the right one, if you can find it there. Nathan Latka: Interesting. Yaro Starak: But it just wasn’t cost-effective for us to apply something like that at this point. In the future, if it gets better, with more scale, possibly. But yeah, I don’t have an answer. Nathan Latka: Has anyone started paying you and stopped? Yaro Starak: Oh yeah, for sure. We’ve had some people who are … It’s kind of funny. They can’t psychologically let go of the inbox. It’s a case where they’re like, “I need to see what’s going into my inbox. I can’t let go of that.” So we’ve had a couple people who haven’t made it through the handover process. And just a couple of small businesses who, they had a down period and that was one of the things they cut. But then we’ve had the flip side. Some people are with us from the beginning. Three years, non-stop. Nathan Latka: And to get these folks in the first place, do you know what you’re spending on a fully weighted CAC basis to get a new $1000 a month customer? Yaro Starak: Well, as I said, I only just started doing the paid advertising. So to get the actual CAC, it’s way too early for that. And everything before that has been very much a referral and my own networks. So the cost of acquisition has pretty much been zero, or my previous work, if you want to call it that. Nathan Latka: You mentioned, though, a couple of thousand dollars per month you’re spending on ads. I mean, it’s a significant portion if you’re only doing $15,000 a month in total revenue. So what do you aim- Yaro Starak: Oh, I’m not spending that yet. Nathan Latka: Oh, okay. Yaro Starak: I’ve basically spent $1000 in the last two weeks just playing with it myself. I haven’t [crosstalk 00:08:54]
Nathan Latka: So how many leads did you get? Yaro Starak: Sorry? Nathan Latka: How many leads came from that? Yaro Starak: Well, none. I mean, that’s what I’m saying. It’s literally week one. We’ve had a couple of hundred clicks. I’m still refining the targeting, the keywords, the ad groups, doing the split testing. And even seeing, is LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or Google Search the best platform for this? So a little too early to say. Nathan Latka: Interesting. Very cool. Nathan Latka: Well, let’s wrap up here, Yaro, with the Famous Five. Number one: favorite business book. Yaro Starak: Ah, so many. You know, I’m a big fan of … I’m going to say … Man, there’s too many I’ve listened to recently. I guess if I’m going to go back to the original, The Richest Man in Babylon would probably be one of my favorite. More of a money book than a business book. But that was really what got me started. Nathan Latka: Number two: is there a CEO you’re following or studying? Yaro Starak: I mean, I want to say Elon Musk, but everyone says Elon Musk, right? Certainly following him. I do a bit of angel investing. So I follow a lot of the CEOs and some companies there that I find interesting, like Fitbod. There’s a few there, but nothing too serious. Nathan Latka: Number three: what’s your favorite online tool for building your company? Yaro Starak: I think Slack would have to always take that. It’s how I stay in touch with everyone. We’re completely digital. It’s just fun to use it, because you see progress there. Nathan Latka: Yep. Number four: how many hours of sleep do you get every night? Yaro Starak: Well, I’m a big sleeper. I’m like an eight, nine, even 10 hours sometimes. Nathan Latka: That’s great. And what’s your situation? Married? Single? Kiddos? Yaro Starak: Girlfriend in the other room. No kids at the moment. Nathan Latka: Okay. No kids. And how old are you? Yaro Starak: Just turned 41. Nathan Latka: Yaro Starak: Sorry, what do I … ? Nathan Latka: What’s something you wish you knew when you were 20? Yaro Starak: Wish I knew when I was 20? Probably more so to not focus so much on the financial end goal as much as what I was enjoying doing at the time. Because a lot of stuff that I really did do early on, purely for money. And I made money, and then I looked back and realized it wasn’t the making of the money was as much fun as building of the business. So I think really slowing down to enjoy that process, like I’m doing now. It’s that playing with ads now, learning about that. That’s what’s really satisfying. Nathan Latka: Inboxdone.com, 15 customers, $15,000 a month in revenue, launched in 2017. He’s bootstrapped the company. Again, helping you be able to forget about your inbox, if it’s something you want to do, so you can go on and enjoy your life. Again, scaling nicely. Team of eight. Again, totally bootstrapped, as he looks to continue to figure out how to both scale up his inbox managers and bring on more customers at the same time in the VC, real estate world. Nathan Latka: All right, Yaro. Thanks for taking this talk. Yaro Starak: Thanks, Nathan. Nathan Latka: One more thing before you go; we have a brand new show every Thursday at 1:00 PM Central. It’s called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it Deal or Bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers. They try and do a deal live. And the founder shares backend dashboards; their expenses, their revenue, ARPU, CAC, LTV. You name it, they share it. And the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch. Every Thursday, 1:00 PM Central. Nathan Latka: Additionally, remember, these recorded founder interviews go live, we release them here on YouTube, every day at 2:00 PM Central. So make sure you don’t miss any of that. 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And if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We’ve got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them, and know that I appreciate your guys’ support. Nathan Latka: All right, I’ll be in the comments. See ya.