Building a SaaS Company with only Technical Co-founders
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This document summarizes the story of quintly, a social media analytics SaaS company founded in 2010 by two technical co-founders in Germany. It details their journey from a small prototype in 2010 with $20k in ARR to growing their team to 34 members with $2.5m in ARR by 2017. Key learnings included bootstrapping the business, doing early sales themselves, focusing on revenue over investors, keeping the business family-owned, and constantly innovating the product. The co-founders learned the importance of company culture, standardized processes, and not being afraid to fail along the way.
Building a SaaS Company with only Technical Co-founders
- 1. Building a SaaS company with only technical co-founders The quintly Story
- 2. • Our Product: Social Media Analytics platform • Location: Cologne, San Francisco and Sao Paulo • Team: 34 team members with 18 nationalities • ARR: Around 2.5 million USD
- 3. Spring 2010 The Beginning - ARR: $0 • One computer scientist (My brother) and one mathematician with some consulting experience (me) • Running an agency for 2 years and fed up with the agency lifestyle • No clue about marketing, no clue about sales, no clue about investors • BUT: We were pretty good developers
- 4. Learnings • Don’t be afraid of anything • Try, fail, learn (repeat), but don’t make the same mistake twice • It’s ok not to know certain things
- 5. 2010 The First Prototype • Build prototype from a small town in Germany • Problem came up through an agency client project • First few clients until end of 2010 • Funny thing: Our first three clients are still clients • Really crappy user interface ARR: ~$20K
- 6. Learnings • Your biggest advantage as a tech guy: You can actually build a product for low cost (basically your own time and salary) • It helps to have a good relation to the problem you are solving
- 7. 2011 - 2012 Growing into a real product • Lucky coincidence got in touch with US investor • Got funding beginning of 2011 from US investor • Renamed to „AllFacebook Stats“ • Start of our international rollout • Bought back our shares end of 2012 • Completely family owned after this • Product Market Fit Phase • Move to Cologne ARR: ~$250K
- 8. Learnings • Sometimes you just have to be lucky, but persistence increases the chance of being lucky • Investors come and investors go • Being in an ecosystem helps a lot • The best investor in the world is called Revenue
- 9. 2013 - 2014 Going multi network and start selling • Going beyond Facebook • Renamed to “quintly” • Introduced formalized sales process • Spent multiple months in the US ARR: ~$1m
- 10. Learnings • Just go out there and do the sales yourself, even if you hate it (it’s not so bad after all) • A good product is worth nothing if you can’t sell it • You have to do everything yourself first before you should hire someone • Go to places where there are companies with similar business models
- 11. 2015 - 2016 Scaling up • Growing into a real company • Increasing team to have specialists for every field • Switching the office for the first time • Introduction of Company Culture • Multi company structure with flip to quintly Inc. ARR: ~$2.5m
- 12. Learnings • Company culture is really important (one that allows for authenticity) • It never gets easier, new challenges will come up that you never thought existed • Tax and Legal sucks big time in an international market
- 13. 2017 Reinventing and processes • Reinventing of our product • Introduction of more standardized processes • Setting up the company for the next decade
- 14. Learnings • Always keep innovating • Growing the team causes pain and slows you down
- 15. Growth of Employees 160,000+ hours worked * * over 54 man years 10 20 30 40 3/1/2011 10/1/2011 5/1/2012 12/1/2012 7/1/2013 2/1/2014 9/1/2014 4/1/2015 11/1/2015 6/1/2016 1/1/2017 8/1/2017 34
- 16. Key Learnings • Building a profitable SaaS business is pretty cool • Bootstrapping may take more time, but it’s possible to succeed • Don’t get nervous when you hear how successful others are - There is a lot of bullshit out there • Be very honest with your metrics - Always! • It’s ok to be ashamed about your mistakes from the past (It’s probably bad if you are not ashamed)
- 17. Building a SaaS company with only Technical Co-Founders The quintly Story