GTM Sauce

Fleet · B2B · laptop rental for companies

Sell each 36-month laptop rental contract to a bank for cash on day one

Funded ~50,000 devices with no VC; bank keeps ~10%, carries customer credit risk

Workedfinancingpricing

What they did

Customers rent devices on 24- or 36-month contracts paid monthly with no early exit (e.g. ~EUR 50/month for a laptop). Fleet resells each contract to a bank, which pays the full contract value upfront minus ~10%. Fleet buys the device with that cash and books its margin on day one; the bank carries the credit risk if the client goes bankrupt. At contract end Fleet buys the device back from the bank for a small amount. Because growth needs no working capital, the company was cash-flow positive and bootstrapped for 7 years.

What happened

~50,000 devices financed across 20 countries; profitable and cash-flow positive from the start, no outside capital needed to grow; 'we can double the revenue next month'
Stage
From launch (2019) to ~EUR 40M run-rate

In their words

How He Makes $40M/yr Renting Laptops for $50/Mo

Play from 13:31
13:19

HostLet me just make sure I understand something. So, let's say your first customer ever, right, they're renting a MacBook Air 13-in with an M3 chip, right, and you're charging them $59 a month. Don't you guys have to go buy the computer for 2K?

13:31

Sevan MarianOur contract are uh are are 24 or 36 months contract. Uh so, it's not like it's not monthly. You know, the customer pay monthly, but cannot like after 1 month say, "Hey, I don't want the computer anymore. I give it back to you," no? Because it wouldn't work as a business model, you know? You have to buy the machine and then you get a machine back, it's I mean doesn't make sense. Uh so, the fact that it's a 36 months contract allow us to resell the contract to a bank, you know? And the bank will pay us up front for the total value of the contract. So, we buy the computer, but we get the the full value of the contract up front, which allow us to to you know to to make our margin and and and our profit, you know, uh from day one. So, if the client goes bankrupt with uh 100 Fleet computer, you know? Um we already got the money for the contract, and it's the bank who take the risk, the credit risk. We don't pre-buy computer and and have them in a warehouse waiting to sell them, no? We work and in like directly with suppliers. So, our suppliers uh delivers the client directly, you know? So, we don't have stock, inventory um risk also. Uh so, it's very very asset-light business model, and that's why we are we can scale, we can double the revenue next month.

14:50

HostSo, just to confirm this, right, if someone's paying you 59 bucks a month, right, times a 36-month contract, that's $2,124. You're taking that contract and selling it to a bank, and the bank is wiring you $2,124 on day one, is that right?

15:02

Sevan MarianYeah, minus uh their their profit margin. So, they you know they take a 10% rate, you know? So, 2,100 minus 10%. But, yeah.

15:13

HostOkay. And have how many how many times have you done that? Have you done that across 30,000 devices over the past 7 years or 100,000 devices?

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Tags: device-as-a-service, contract-factoring, equipment-financing, bootstrapped, cash-flow