Rise Vision

Byron Darleson founded Rise Vision in 1992 with a vision to create information management systems. The company initially focused on installing hardware solutions for digital signage in various settings, but gradually pivoted to a SaaS model. The key turning point came in 2010 when Rise Vision became one of the first companies in the digital signage industry to offer a cloud-based SaaS product, moving away from the traditional on-premises hardware model.

The original business model involved selling and installing hardware (TVs and servers) for organizations that needed to display information on screens throughout their facilities. Byron and his team built the software to manage content on these displays. However, over the last five years, they deliberately shifted focus toward their SaaS offering, which now represents approximately 65% of gross revenue. The company operates with a freemium model that has expanded to over 125 countries.

Rise Vision found initial traction through strategic partnerships, most notably with Reuters. About 10 years before the interview, the company noticed a significant market shift: while traditional financial trading floors were decentralizing and shutting down, educational institutions—particularly post-secondary schools—were increasingly interested in creating financial trading labs to train business students. This insight led the company to pivot its focus toward the education sector. Byron explained: "About 10 years ago, we started to notice that schools were far more interested in using our trading labs... the shift started to happen." The Reuters partnership became crucial, providing financial data that trading labs required, allowing Rise Vision to serve a premium market segment.

The freemium model proved highly effective. Rise Vision grew to approximately 12,000 total users (both free and paid), with about 6,000 paying customers. At an average of $52 per month per customer, this generated approximately $350,000 in monthly recurring revenue—representing 25% year-over-year growth. Byron revealed that a year prior (October 2017), they were doing approximately $310,000 in monthly revenue.

However, churn remained a challenge. The company experienced gross logo churn of 1.3% monthly and gross revenue churn of 4% monthly, indicating that higher-paying customers (primarily from financial trading floors) were churning faster than lower-tier customers. Byron acknowledged: "So they're churning higher value customers, but they are actively working on how to bring that down."

The company's lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio stood at 3.18:1, with a lifetime customer value of approximately $1,900 and a customer acquisition cost of around $600, resulting in a 12-month payback period (though Byron claimed to achieve less than six months through optimization).

Rise Vision operates as a fully bootstrapped, remote-first company with 35 team members distributed globally. Byron emphasized his commitment to maintaining independence: "My preference is the debt side just because I'm a firm believer in the upside of controlling your destiny." The company's primary focus has shifted entirely to reducing churn through product improvements. Byron revealed an ambitious internal goal: decreasing the time it takes for a display to activate from approximately one day to just five minutes. "Everything we're doing right now is all about churn," he stated, explaining that faster activation creates better aha moments for customers, which typically leads to higher retention.