Top Founders with Nathan Latka · 2026-09-01
He Sells AI Door-to-Door. $3.5M ARR, 400% Growth, $0 Ads
Carl Turner (Swipe.by, AI marketing platform for independent restaurants) at ~$3.5M ARR growing ~400% YoY with $0 on ads, selling exclusively door-to-door with commission-heavy outside reps (6 locations/month quota, ~$6K ACV, 30-40% of year-one revenue). Gives websites/online ordering/loyalty away free and monetizes the AI agency layer; no free trials, mostly annual prepay. Took $450K from Founderpath (fixed payments) after Stripe's %-of-revenue loans got expensive; VC term sheets in hand, targeting $60-75M valuation.
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Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swipe.by | arr | USD 3.5M approximate | “we are right now at like 3.5 ARR, right? But it's growing at” |
| Swipe.by | growth rate Year-over-year growth; founder says it is accelerating | +400%/year approximate | “we are at like 400% year over year. It's actually accelerating.” |
| Swipe.by | team size 'over 25' full-time employees | 25 people approximate | “in the entire company, we're like over 25 full-time” |
| Swipe.by | team size Engineers, excluding the founder who also works on architecture | 3 people | “Out of that are three engineers plus me.” |
| Swipe.by | sales quota New restaurant locations closed per outside rep per month | 6 locationsper rep /month approximate | “quota target is actually fairly low. It's still not a walk in the park, but it's around six locations a month.” |
| Swipe.by | sales quota New ARR per rep per month implied by the 6-location quota | USD 36Kper rep /month approximate | “you would bring in about 36,000 of ARR a month at around six locations, plus minus” |
| Swipe.by | acv Average annual contract value per restaurant location | USD 6,000per location approximate | “6K ACV on average. Correct. Exactly.” |
| Swipe.by | commission rate Share of year-one revenue on new sales paid to the outside rep | 30–40%per rep approximate | “you take home between 30% to 40%. So that's real money. We're giving a lot of year one revenue away to the rep” |
| Swipe.by | ad spend No paid ads and no inbound funnel; all outside sales (Indeed job ads for recruiting excluded) | USD 0 | “all outside sales, not a dollar on marketing, not a single inbound funnel” |
| Swipe.by | activity volume Demos per month across the company, all generated by outside sales | 300–400 demos/month approximate | “400, something like that. 300 to 400 right now.” |
| Swipe.by | activity volume Target in-person touch points per rep per week (not unique; three visits to one account = three) | 70 touch pointsper rep /week | “Generally, we want to have you to have around 70 touch points a week. A touch point is not unique.” |
| Swipe.by | activity volume Touch-point requirement is reduced by closing activity; at 10 demos a week no more walk-ins are required | 10 demosper rep /week | “If you do 10 demos in a week, you can't do any more walk-ins, right?” |
| Swipe.by | compensation 'Activity guarantee' paid to reps who knock doors and set appointments even with no closes | USD 36K–40Kper rep /year approximate | “How much would I make? Like 36K, 40K a year. Nothing crazy.” |
| Swipe.by | time to milestone Typical time for a good field rep to be promoted to salaried (W2, no commission) market lead | 6 monthsper rep approximate | “normally people get promoted within six months to W2, no commission anymore” |
| Swipe.by | funding raised Non-dilutive capital from Founderpath, fixed monthly payments | USD 450K/one-time | “We got $450,000. I think that is the right number, right?” |
| Swipe.by | debt loan term; Repayment term of the Founderpath deal (host calls it '16-month payback'; not a CAC payback) | 16 months | “We gave you a 16-month payback, which gives you more runway to invest in those commissions.” |
| Swipe.by | debt debt service; Fixed monthly repayment to Founderpath | USD 35K/month approximate | “there's 35 grand a month it's fixed” |
| Swipe.by | time to milestone Time to fully repay each Stripe loan (repaid as % of receipts), making the effective interest very high | 3 months approximate | “We have been paying Stripe loans back within three months, the full loan, right?” |
| Swipe.by | margin EBITDA margin while growing ~400% | roughly EBITDA breakeven; some months slight loss, some slight profit approximate | “all the growth we're doing, we're doing plus minus EBITDA profitable. Some months we lose a little bit money, some months we make a little bit money.” |
| Swipe.by | valuation | VC term sheets 'close to double, a little less than double' a $15M all-cash offer (i.e. just under ~$30M) approximate | “Close to double, less than double, little less than double.” |
| Swipe.by | valuation Valuation the founder is trying to land in the next VC round | USD 60M–75M goal | “60 million valuation? Yeah. 60 to 75, right?” |
| Swipe.by | valuation Target valuation as a multiple of ARR, computed by host | 20–25 x goal | “which would be like a 20x multiple 25x multiple correct” |
| Swipe.by | funding raised Size of the prospective VC round | USD 10M/one-time goal | “on a 10 million type of check right” |