Podcast Summary: SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Episode: How I Built It: $6M/Year Email AI Platform (Bootstrapped)
Host: Nathan Latka
Guest: Alan D’ Souza (Founder, Reachbox AI)
Date: June 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Nathan Latka interviews Alan D’ Souza, founder of Reachbox AI, an AI-powered cold email outreach SaaS that scaled from zero revenue to $6M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in just 18 months—all bootstrapped. Alan shares the growth playbook, details on how cold outreach and a robust affiliate engine fueled their rise, and the crucial lessons learned along the way. The conversation provides tactical insights for SaaS founders operating in competitive markets.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Differentiating in a Crowded Market

[01:06]

• Alan: Reachbox AI was born out of Alan’s own pain: a lack of genuinely effective, hyper-personalized email automation tools.
• Unique Angle: Deep AI-driven personalization, using recipient activity and preferences to tailor email messaging far beyond what competitors like Lemlist, Instantly, or Clay.com currently offer.
• Quote:

  "We wanted to craft emails that were extremely relevant to the target audience and also kind of resonated with what they're looking to solve for their business." — Alan [01:16]

2. Hyper-Growth Metrics

[02:15–02:57]

• Launched in December 2023, went live in June 2024.
• Hit $6M ARR in May 2025 (less than a year of actually selling subscriptions), growing at 25% MoM.
• Average revenue per user: $110/month.
• 4,500 paying customers.
• Monthly churn: 7–7.5% (logo churn).

3. Product and Monetization Model

[03:04–03:45]

• Add-ons: Users can enrich leads, buy additional AI credits, and manage cold email infrastructure from within the core platform.
• User Behavior: Average user uploads 10,000–15,000 leads, purchases various enrichments and warm-up services.

4. Getting the First 100 Customers

[03:54–05:30]

• Method: Using their own product for cold outreach directly to SaaS founders—dogfooding.
• Email Strategy: Emails always included:
  • Three tactical tips personalized to the recipient’s business.
  • A Loom-style personalized demo video.
• Alan:

  "Adding more value than expecting them to come and sign up… If you just go and send out an email saying, okay, listen, why don't you try a demo? People are not going to do that." [04:50]

5. Listening to Customers at Scale

[05:57–06:38]

• User Research:
  • Proactive support handled by the core team.
  • 8–10 customer calls per day with Pro plan users.
  • Feedback collected from Intercom, Loom, and emails—over 1,500 high-touch interactions.
• Insights: Many customers were new to cold outreach and needed major hand-holding around technical setup (DNS, email infra, list enrichment, etc.).

6. Onboarding and Churn

[07:55–08:33]

• Focused on simplifying onboarding—making cold outreach easier for SMBs and non-technical founders.
• Maintains single-digit logo churn:

  “We are around 7 to 7.5% churn rate right now.” — Alan [08:17]

7. The Affiliate Engine

[08:44–09:40]

• Affiliates drive 30–35% of all customers.
• 280+ active affiliates (out of thousands signed up), each with at least one customer referral.
• Affiliates earn lifetime 20% commission on any customer referred, paid monthly.
• Payouts: Roughly $40,000–50,000/month paid out to affiliates as of May 2025.
• Secret Sauce:

  "When you have a product which solves your need, and you see you can get a month-on-month, lifetime commission, people go out there and speak about it." — Alan [09:53]

8. Lean Team and Revenue Efficiency

[10:40–11:05]

• Team: 27 full-time employees.
• Revenue per employee: ca. $230k.
• Growing team ahead of new product launches in the GTM (go-to-market) automation space.

9. Multi-Product and Technical Stack

[12:05–12:32]

• Parent company owns both Reach Inbox AI and Zapmail (the latter focused on cold email infrastructure, available to non-Reachbox users).

10. The Future: AI, LLMs, and Human-in-the-Loop

[12:46–13:25]

• Alan predicts further automation of GTM tasks, with AI agents handling most email campaign setup, lead finding, and enrichment—but with continued need for humans in the loop:

  "AI is going to set up most of your campaigns... but it's still going to be human-assisted. There would be human moderation needed." [12:55]

11. Early Growth Tactics: Lifetime Deal on AppSumo

[13:45–15:19]

• Ran a lifetime deal via AppSumo: 800+ customers at $200 each.
• AppSumo took a 50–60% cut, but this still helped with cash flow and provided invaluable, motivated early adopters and feedback.
• Lifetime deal customers also became a core group of brand ambassadors and affiliates.
• Quote:

  "...more than the money, it's about the feedback you're getting. It's about users who are coming in and who are being patient enough to see while you're growing." — Alan [15:27]

12. Growth Recap and Closing

[15:43–16:21]

• From zero to $6M ARR in under 18 months.
• Affiliate program and dogfooding cold email were key engines.
• Team poised for expansion into broader GTM automation and AI-powered tools.
• Alan remains accessible via LinkedIn (primary) and Twitter.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We wanted to craft emails that were extremely relevant... instead of just sending a blank email to everyone." — Alan [01:16]
• "Most initial customers came from us sending out our own emails using our own tool." — Alan [07:55]
• "[Affiliates] get a month-on-month, lifetime commission... there's nothing better than your users speaking about [your product]." — Alan [09:50]
• "We maintain a single digit churn rate... around 7 to 7.5%." — Alan [08:17]
• "We did get a lot of support from our lifetime users... some of our earliest affiliates as well." — Alan [14:19]

Key Timestamps

• 01:06 — What sets Reachbox apart from other email SaaS tools
• 02:15 — Growth milestones and ARR trajectory
• 03:54 — Getting to the first 100 customers via cold outreach
• 05:57 — Customer feedback loops and product iteration
• 08:17 — Churn rate specifics
• 08:44 — Affiliate program breakdown
• 10:40 — Team size and efficiency
• 12:46 — AI’s future in GTM: automation and human moderation
• 13:45 — Lifetime AppSumo deal: lessons, risks, and rewards

For Listeners

If you’re in SaaS and looking to crack the code on rapid ARR growth, especially in a “crowded” market, this episode is a tactical case study illustrating the power of customer-centric product development, affiliate-driven growth, and disciplined early bootstrapping.

Connect with Alan: Find him on LinkedIn (most active) and Twitter for follow-up questions or to test Reachbox AI.