# I make $25,000/mo with a Bootstrapped CRM

Channel: Florian Darroman
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5OLJwDAqn4
Duration: 58 min
Language: English
Words: 9958
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/n5OLJwDAqn4

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[0:00] our best months. We almost got 40k [music] in one month because we sell annual plans. This is Arno. He built a SAS to 25K MR in the most competitive market CRM. But this story is not a straight line. After becoming a lawyer, he decided to never practice. Instead, he took all his saving, rented an apartment in a city when he knew no one and gave himself one year to build a profitable SAS. The first one failed, the second one failed,

[0:26] and the third one eat 2K MR in 2 months. We had multiple plateaus to be fair. [music] So 2K MR for probably 10 months. This was the hardest part. But when he thought that everything was going well and he reached $25,000 a month, he plateaued again. He had to choose between an exit or building a V2 of his

[0:45] product. This conversation is different. It's about what to do when you plateau, when you push and nothing works. It's the most real conversation about SAS building I ever had on this podcast. one niche, one ICP, one distribution platform, and I think you can still do a SAS that is doing like 50K, a million

[1:02] RR. So, Arno, I'm super happy to have you today because you've been building your SAS for a while. You have a lot of experience to share today. And my first question is, how did you end up building a CRM? Yeah, man. uh pretty crazy to build a CRM. Uh to be honest, it was by accident. Uh like initially I was a training lawyer in France in Paris and I became a lawyer but I met my co-founder like six months uh before becoming a lawyer and we started to do projects together online made good money as students to be honest. It paid off uh my student loan and essentially we say okay

[1:50] we need to to to build a SAS. So I became a lawyer but I never practiced and we with our savings from the projects we made together like we rented an apartment in a city where we know no one in France and uh for a year we tried a bunch of SAS and I think the first SAS was essentially uh break cold which is now a CRM but back then it was actually um an AI firstline writing tool. So it was before um like chat GPT it was when there was only the open AI API and you could do a bunch of things but it was

[2:27] not very open to the public actually and so we started to uh essentially um build this SAS that was named break called back then and after a bunch of iterations essentially became a CRM uh but it was an accident like we didn't even know back then what was uh a CRM uh so so yeah so when was it exactly when did you start 2021 one

[2:51] uh to build some SAS or like the CRM. Yeah, first like trying some SAS and then when you started to build actually break call. Yeah, so we started to do some SAS in I think it was yeah July 2021. So we started with a um um an accounting software uh for lawyers in France and we got fed up of accounting after six months. So it was just like the the the market like the topic. It was uh yeah we

[3:20] hated it. So we were we had no patience. Then we tried a live chat software. Uh and um also um no patience at all. I think we're just too in a hurry like you think in just two days or six weeks you're gonna have something pop which is mostly the times not the case. And then actually in just two weeks we got something that popped and it was in January uh I mean in February January 2022 with break cold which was not a CRM. So that was the first the third project and the third project where we got uh MR in the first um two weeks uh after the the beta

[4:00] release and uh and very quickly within two months we got 2K uh 2K dollars in MR and then we iterated for a year because we were not satisfied with the direction and only after a year after that. So in June 2023 we launched breakold as a CRM. So pretty much we launched the CRM that date and ever since we've been positioned as a CRM but for a year almost a year and a half we have break but we it was probably a sales software that had like three different shapes because we knew nothing about SAS pretty much and uh and yeah we had to learn everything um business-wise as well in

[4:43] general. So yeah there was a lot to learn during this this period. What was your first distribution channel? Because you say with the first or second iteration of break code, you went from zero to 2KMR. What did you do to get the customer? Uh it was X actually. So uh I remember like end of 2021, very beginning of 2022, um we started to be okay like like [ __ ] France and we're going to just try to do a SAS in English. And uh and we because we were traumatized because of the accounting software for lawyers, we were like, okay, we want a software that

[5:20] can talk to everyone in every languages. There's no regulation specifically. You don't need to adapt every year to a new uh law that is enforced, etc. And so, um we started to go on X just to see some people building stuff. Um and back then there was a lots of people building in public, etc. Still today, I think, but back then was probably a different energy. I don't know but and we started just I just started to be like extremely active on X to find ideas to get inspired I think um this is where I met uh Tibo uh who's now since then became pretty famous on X so um he's running a

[5:59] lot of softwares and a lot of other people uh for example Marlu I think he was just starting out so he was not the ML that people know these days uh and he was sending me DMs about like skateboarding and stuff so it was Uh but essentially for X and I remember like in February March 2022 I was averaging about a million impressions a month and so when I was when we launched our SAS and I said oh we made money

[6:26] through um like through Facebook groups. So if I go in the story like the first MR was actually the better users were through Facebook groups and the first monthly subscription were through X because with the results I got with the better users in Facebook groups I was sharing everything on X and because of that it attracted uh eyeballs and people tried the software and we got our first subscription. So the first 2K per month it was purely uh from X within two two to three months uh back then. Um so only by sharing building in public for X and

[7:06] yeah that that was how it happened. And what was the second step? because you said 0 to 2k was the first um one that made money and then the first version of break of break cold uh was born and you went up to 5k. What did you change and did you do actually a new uh

[7:26] distribution strategy for this one? Yeah. So essentially x we got lots of distribution but the churn was insane. So what I mean by insane, we're talking about like 40% monthly return. And so uh we were like, okay, this is not sustainable. Like maybe we just are good at attracting people to the software, but the software is not good. It was just AI first lines for pro for outbound. So you know, like customizing the first line of the the outbound. Now it might be easy, but back then it was it was a thing. And uh and so we're like, okay, we need to to pivot the software. So we pivoted for uh within

[8:07] those 10 months we became like a social selling software. So we were like aggregating posts from LinkedIn from X and people could like and comment the post before doing outreach. And so by doing this feature without realizing it, we actually realized that the trend decreased and people stayed. But actually they used it more in a CRM way um beyond the feature that we had that where they could engage from one place uh with an engagement feed that now is a thing, but back then we were the first one to do it. And and then we were like,

[8:43] oh maybe there's nothing new in CRM. Like there's lots of CRM out there. They've been there for like 10 years, 15 years. There's no serums that are bootstrapped. There's a few VC backed here and there recently, but maybe there's a reason why. The reason is because the the serum market is extremely tough. And so our bet was maybe we should go in that space because you got to be crazy to build a CRM with so many big VC back startups and like Hopspot and enterprises softwares. But if we manage to survive, there's there's no competition. and maybe from an exit perspective um there's also some strategic acquisition to to do and so

[9:25] this is what we did and this is how we break even like the 2K MR milestone and so um and and and so we I started to post on LinkedIn. So I completely ditch X because X you have a lots of exposure but we really wanted to focus on like B2B B2B sales and uh like with way fewer impressions on LinkedIn back then we got way more leads because also we had like some features around LinkedIn and so I stopped like X for two years two plus years and instead I focused on LinkedIn and then we can talk about other distribution channels but essentially LinkedIn in was the the phase where it

[10:06] was from 2K to 5K. So at this stage it was only uh socials and outreach but manual outreach. So like like no automations. Um but to reach that that was the how we did it. And how did you do that exactly on linkadine like what was your workflow to actually get customer from there? Yeah so the workflow was was very simple. It was mainly like creating content. So adding so if we go step by step. So step one it was to go on sales navigator um and add people who I believe were in the ICP. So it was a lots of head of sales uh or co-founder

[10:49] of small uh B2B startups uh in the US or the UK. So those were the true targeted markets. And if they accept my request, I was not pitching them at all straight away. I was just posting content hoping that because I post content and also I was engaging with the post with my tool because our tool was enable me back then to like and comment the purse. So they comment I comment the post they reply to

[11:16] my comments with first me connections. So when I post on LinkedIn they see my purse and very gradually um then I can I can they they just sign up by themselves without even me sending a DM. And then occasionally I was sending DMs but the focus we're really just building an inine content machine uh on LinkedIn like that. So this is what we done and it was enough to reach those uh four 5k uh MR like this. So yeah and then I think you plateaued like at 5k it was pretty hard to actually break

[11:49] 5K for a while. Actually we plateaued more like the we had multiple plateaus to be fair. So 2K MR for probably 10 months. Although this was the the the hardest part because yes we bootstrap profitable we but there's still two mouth to to to eat and uh we were still on our savings at that time. Then then we reach 5K and uh actually once we reach the 5K so actually the plateau was more 2k uh for 10 months then once we reach we went beyond that like uh we reached 5k but we stay maybe like 3 months on 5k and then we went very easily during a year from uh the 5k

[12:34] to um the the plateau that we had recently which was 25k. So because everything that we put in place worked. Uh so yeah. So what did you do from 5K to 25? So mostly SEO. So um my background uh during school uh so I was training lawyer but to fund my studies um especially when COVID happened I I I built a drop shipping business but with SEO so not with ads. And so my skill set

[13:06] in the beginning uh back then was SEO. And so day one I was like even before we made like the 5K MR I was like we need to do SEO. And so it took some time for the SEO to take off. But day one u like maybe months four uh I started doing SEO and uh once we knew that we building a CRM I focus on like creating blog post manually uh not with AI back then again it was more 2024. Uh I got some articles generated with AI at scale like a thousand on top of the funnel content keywords. Um and those top of the funnel

[13:47] content keywords um it was pulling out a lot of uh visits so or maybe like 20,000 visits from top of the funnel content. So explaining like a B2B sales term and then bottom of the funnel content which was more like longtail keywords uh about like ext instead of doing like just CRM software you will maybe go with like uh LinkedIn CRM software or something uh a bit longer. So CRM for marketing digital agencies and then you do some blog post around that. Um and um essentially by going after all those longtail keywords and then top of the funnel using AI like we managed to reach about like 30,000

[14:27] monthly visits through SEO before like the content update in uh in uh 2026. Um that destroyed top of the funnel but this is how we grew mostly through SEO. Um, and yeah, mostly for SEOs from those. Um, we were still doing content, but content was just fueling the signups because every time we got signups, we were adding them on LinkedIn because our ICP is very active on LinkedIn usually um because B2B sales. And so if we have them on LinkedIn, they see our content, but they arrive mostly through SEO. Um,

[15:02] and u this is how we we were doing it. like I think at the top we were getting about like 750 trials uh a month um um but the software was also cheaper back then so yeah but that was how we did it like mostly SEO um and to be honest a bit of YouTube but probably YouTube is just like 5% uh I would say SEO is a strong like 50 was a strong 50% uh of the acquisition if not

[15:34] more because attribution is a bit hard. Give me 80 seconds to show you how to get your brand recommended by AI. Here is what happened. When one of your customer is looking for a tool like yours on chip, it will search a certain prompt. Then the LLM will search on Google, YouTube and different sources to actually get the best answer. Right now you can see that the best one is screenshot one. And now what you can do is actually click at the bottom on sources and you will see the list of all the sources that the LLM choose to [music] answer the question you ask. And

[16:07] now the goal is to get your brand on top of that listical. Now that you know the secret, you have two option. The first [music] one is to do it like Asan which means manually. You search a prompt, you find [music] sources, you find email and you send emails one by one. As you can see it works. He sent 241 email and he got nine high quality backlinks [music] which means that he get nine listical where his brand is recommended. This takes time. [music] So if you have the motivation you can do that or the second option is to let an AI agent do the work

[16:40] for you. We just launched this feature on this stream. Every single day we search prompt around your brand. We find the sources. We find their email address and we send them [music] an email. When they reply, you get a notification and the only thing that you have to do is [music] accept or not. That way you can go straight to the point and put your

[16:58] brain where the LM are looking for. [music]

[17:05] And you were saying that when you were doing content on X the churn was 40%. What did you see? What was the biggest difference between social media and SEO in term of like conversion trial conversion churn all this kind of number? No, I think it was like the problem was the product like u 100%. I think if the product was good like maybe the churn would be higher because people from X I think anyway they will churn more but it would not have been like 40%. Maybe it would have been like 15 uh 20% which is still very high don't get me wrong but I still would have been much lower um if

[17:48] the product was good um and on and on LinkedIn like you know it's still like in the beginning you're still very early you don't have a lot of features CRM is very product heavy so the trend was still like um u from SEO to answer your question it was still about like 12 Yeah, 12 14% uh I would say that would be the the number but where we saw the biggest difference actually was more about solarreneurs versus teams. So forget X forget SEO. Um so it was more like is it a team for us is like at least two or three people. So it's not like crazy but if

[18:30] they at least two or three people if you take the the different segments the churn rate is to totally different. Um and so uh this is where we realize okay we really need to think about teams how we can improve for teams because first teams they have the cash and also uh they don't jump softwares every month or two and if you have a team it means that in your team you have people where the sole job is to pretty much use two or three tools including your CRM that you're selling to them and the solar prneur sometimes they either uh even if they have a good business, they have too

[19:08] many things going on, so they give up. Uh, and if they otherwise they just don't have a business that is ready to actually have a CRM because the business they haven't figured this out essentially like they they have like a pool offer whether it's an agency or a small B2B startup. Um, so like that was

[19:28] more the difference for for the churn. Um, yeah really. How long did it take for you to understand that? And is it something that if you have to start again right now without like um well all this experience like do you think there is a way to find it faster like your ICP or the people you really have to target to reduce the churn and yeah I think it's probably the same for any kind of business especially our clients it's mostly um u digital um businesses mostly agencies different types of agencies or consultants thing and even with them like I see the trend problem and it's the same for SAS is my

[20:10] my takeaway let's say would be to to don't sell a cheap software in general except in some scenarios but if you bootstrap I would say to go for something where by default you um like cheap you won't attract cheap clients so usually at least $59 per month there's lots of guys out there they do minimum $99 per month which I think is a good buyer to avoid cheap people because maybe they will churn but they will not be that cheap if they bought the software in the first place. And so this is one thing because back then we were selling plaids it was $15 per months. So

[20:49] like u obviously you attract a lots of brokies to be honest um or just people they don't value your product even though it was good. Um so that is the one takeaway and the other takeaway is just to take um like a software and by nature that has a low churn. Uh what I mean by that is if you're doing a like a pure prospecting software for example an outbound tool you know that that by nature your acquisition will be like easier uh potentially uh but the churn rate is usually very high in those uh software at least 15% except if we have like a very large uh software with like

[21:28] tens of thousands of clients but when you bootstrap it's not the case fast on this and so and I think like the biggest example I have in mind on that is like there's a guy on X uh Twitter like um he's called like Oi from Sanja and I remember like I I remember this vividly because we had like a massive acquisition at some point I mean like the same as today actually but back then because we were low in MRO it was big like like we were like getting like 5k or 6k MR per months but because of the churn like we were not growing too much

[22:05] at all at some points and I remember like the guys from Sanja they had back then again back then they had a lower acquisition they was just getting 2k 1.5k MR per months but by nature it's a testimonial software and so we like people once they get it they they barely churn right so I think the churn rate was maybe two or 3% and so in the end they outgrew us uh pretty quickly in the end and now they're above a million era and so I think like combining not having a cheap product and picking a a niche or an industry where by nature you have low

[22:44] churn. I think this is this is yeah what you what what uh yeah what you need to to remember for whatever business actually. So so yeah what makes a a SAS or a business by nature low in churn is it like the infrastructure that it's really hard to actually move to another tool or what is

[23:04] it you think? Um yeah it's something I was talking a lot with my co-founder but I think in the end uh the thing where there's low churn by nature I feel like it's it's a lot when people they have nothing to do uh which because there's some softwares you you could think they have low turn by nature but if the person if the user has to do a lot of things essentially the problem is is humans let's say like uh if you expect someone to do a lot of stuff, there's always a probability that this person will not do the stuff that they that they need to do. So if you

[23:45] have a software, so typically accounting software uh like usually you don't have a lot of things to do. You just plug your data and maybe your accountant will handle the data but you you have nothing to do. You still pay the software and obviously accounting is mandatory uh in some countries at least. So this is like by nature something where you don't turn. But if you go ex if you go outside of like things related to to law or medicine and things that are less where there's like not laws that are regulated and force you to do this stuff. I feel like it's things where people they have

[24:19] nothing to do and they pay and then they don't think about it. uh a website typically like um a website builder it's a tough space because of the competition but normally you build your website and maybe you will do some modifications but like most regular people the average Joe they just need a website and then they have it and they don't think about it and and so the moment where you have friction is when people I feel like they need to do a lot of things um and so that could be one way to identify another way is maybe they have to do the action So for example um like you they

[24:54] need to post content on social media. Uh but technically like depending on your business it's like almost mandatory to post on social media. Like for example, if you're like um a like a restaurant and or like a a hairdresser um that really want to grow your business, like posting on on Instagram is is almost like a like um like a law that is enforced on you and you need to respect that and post every day or otherwise your business will not grow more. So you almost think of it like is it something that is that will kill your business that would be one way or is it something

[25:32] where the person they will be satisfied and they don't have to think anymore and they don't need to go back to your software. So there's two two two ways to see it um and it can and depending on the way you choose it can be totally different softwares. There's two school. There is like people like Marlu who actually build 10,000 million product with different branding and everything and you and your co-founder you choose to keep the same name and keep pushing in the same direction for

[26:05] a long time basically. Yeah. Why why did you decide to keep the same name and like push in that direction and like keep the same product and not change completely like the trajectory? Yeah, I think like uh it takes a lot to build uh multiple products and um I think there's two things like if you build uh like like a tool that that does one thing yes you can build a lot of products but we chose every single time maybe it was good maybe it was bad to build a platform and when you build a platform you really need to just invest your soul into it and It's uh that's why

[26:49] like usually um like people in the the shoes of Marlu or let's say others like they will maybe build like like niche tools which is a good way um for many reasons we we won't make a podcast on this uh but yeah we chose that way because again we were thinking something different um for especially the CRM market and we kept the name because break in the end uh considering B2B sales was a good name to recycle for every kind of projects and so that's why we kept the same the same thing and build on top of it and uh and we wanted to build a B2B sales software. Um and so

[27:26] that's that's why we did it. Um now that we have more experience um it's kind of a bet, right? Because I think uh like I I do believe that if you stick to one product um and if you have if you're a cockroach um you will have more success technically that to have multiple products um and I when I listen to podcast and some things the question that is recurring but if you look at the most successful bootstrap so here we're going to talk bootstrap the most successful bootstrap SAS they've just focused on one thing sometimes it went fast but when you dig there's actually a

[28:04] story they build multiple companies before sometimes it took a it took some time but they just stick to one thing and they just beca became like the top expert on it and ultimately they figured out either the distribution or either on the product and we are more in that mindset meaning that regardless uh if we sell like in two years or 15 years or never like we just want it's so much effort that we like maybe want to have a SAS that can reach not just like 1 million AR but then after five then 10 then 20 and basically building like a big company and um and so it's a

[28:44] different mindset to build diff like a lot of tools um that can still make you a lot of money. So uh yeah it's two two different things but yeah we're more in the the game of yeah with our software we know that if we reach like 1 million ARR like considering the fact that we bootstrap and there's there's also no competition virtually except the gigant ones but um like essentially when you bootstrap in that space and considering the bias to entry that are extremely high that's why there's no one building a CRM essentially bootstrap uh like you you can you can go then easily to 510

[29:21] and more. Um and also in terms of acquisitions like without going into details we have on paper like a small uh MR but um but but the thing is like because there's no targets to buy in that space we already got approach and multiple offers like LOE almost like or in the process of having like like offers that are not linked to our let's say real valuation because from a from a strategic acquisition point of view like the value of the business is quite high. Um so there's also different ways to think about the stuff. Um so yeah yeah it's definitely a good niche to be

[30:07] for that because when I was doing for example uh affiliate there was a Monday and I was spending so much into uh marketing into affiliate marketing and all the thing that a client for you is like usually really hard to acquire and it takes a lot of money for them. So yeah, I can imagine that any acquisition

[30:28] will be way higher than another tool. And to um bounce off what you on what you say like in the podcast the in the last few interview I had I think you can take Mari from Tali Elton um or Neo and the the three of them they were just working on one product and right now when they reached actually 1 million AR it went really fast to actually grow to two three or five million a year. So yeah, I totally agree on that. Um I want to ask you a question

[31:02] on um iteration. Actually two question. First, before you got actually your first first money, how did you know that you had to change the product before you did your um iteration that brought you to 2KMR? Like before that, how did you know that you had to stop the product and start something new? Uh I think it was just that there was no

[31:25] uh future for the product in the end. Again, it was you know like you do your cold emails and we're basically generating like the first line that was personalized for every um every um yeah for every emails for every person. And so we're like okay but this is not crazy. And the second thing is probably AI will get better and better and we were right in the end like all the softwares in that space got completely destroyed. I think the biggest in the market they failed as well but now they're very famous then it's like smart lead for people listening to this um and so back then like they also pivoted and

[32:06] became a smart lead which is now I think probably doing 15 20 million era um and so yeah there was just like yeah this kind of software will be disrupted like in the next 10 months and we got lucky because of the hype back then on on AI uh in 2022 very early uh but we knew it was not sustainable and we also had the numbers to back this up. So, so yeah, like maybe you could have built a company or and maybe it would have been a project we could have sold actually, but yeah, we decided just to pivot from

[32:42] there. And [clears throat] from the time when you reached 2KMR with this first SAS, you decided to iterate because you were listening to your customer and they were actually changing the way they use your product. They were using that as a CRM. How did you see that? And how did you actually monitor the behavior of your customer? Because you're not the first one who actually changed the entire

[33:07] product because of the behavior. Yeah. So us like we we know it's like super crazy when it comes to analytics. Like we had a post hog with lots of features activated on the post hog to see how they behave to record videos and stuff, but to be honest like we ba we barely watched it. um like heat maps and stuff like we didn't touch it but the thing that I was personally crazy at was to talk with our customers um and so um like at some point I was doing so many calls per week it was insane um because there was also no processes but like

[33:47] just like I was I was my goal was just to talk as many people as possible because I was like the mindset was yeah maybe we don't have the perfect product but by talking to so many people, we will understand what they want, right? Um, and so we we iterated step by step and the ones that were using the product were like, yeah, but actually like I I would like to get this stuff and you're like, okay, yeah, okay, okay. But then once you have like 50 people saying we want that, you're like, okay, so this is a real thing. It's not just a product road map where they upvoted and people

[34:21] it's not reliable to have a product road map except if you like big B2C consumer app. Um once you do the calls and you have always the same thing the same thing the same thing. you're like, "Okay, we should maybe iterate more in that way and that way." And the CRM way was just that like um like the CRM move was just that we had the software that was already a CRM without knowing it and we're just trying to promote something that was not coined or didn't exist which was a social selling software. And so the concept of social selling was existing, but then we're just like, oh,

[34:58] we have a social selling software, we have a social selling software. Then we're like, no, we have a CRM that happens to be pretty good with social, but it's technically a CRM. And then it's it was also easier for people to digest this. And the thing is, I remember I was reading that there's a software, live chat software called Drift. And this live chat software called Drift. Um I think they they say they spend about $15 million to um to coin a marketing term for live chat softwares. I think it was like conversational chat chatbot or something. And I was like okay so we you actually have to

[35:38] spend so much money to introduce a new um category in software and we will never be able to do it. And I think Clay that is also now very famous like everyone now is talking in the B2B space about like GTM engineer they probably spent at least $20 million um to to to push that to the market and so we're like oh we're just going to take the category that fits our software and not trying to reinvent the wheel. So that's why also the realization once we also iterated. So yeah. And how did you get your customer on the call? Because a lot of people want to talk to them, but it's

[36:16] hard to get them. Uh, for example, for us, we get like maybe three call a week, sometimes more. It's always hard to get them on a call. What did you do for that? Yeah, I think personally I think it's uh it's quite easy to get people on calls um if you're not shy. So, this there's a couple of ways. Um the first way is probably something that people don't do enough is just that um like once the pe the person sign up to your product like you should have a strong onboarding email sequences like you should have like strong email sequences first for conversions but also depending on the

[36:57] emails that are being sent or maybe depending on the behavior in the app you can you can depending on all of those parameters like send an email to to propose a call and just by itself you will get calls booked. So I think this is something that people they don't do enough. The second thing is just to add them uh where they are active. So if it's people that are active on X go on on the go following them and sending them a DM if they have the DMs open. If it's if it's people in the B2B space, go at them on LinkedIn uh and try to talk

[37:33] to them and people they will reply much more on LinkedIn than uh an email sequence obviously and from there like they just reply to you and and what you want to do is that in the first two messages you're like hey uh thanks a lot for trying the product like if you want to chat like feel free to book a time happy to book uh on your calendar link and from there people they just they

[37:56] just book the the slot and that's it. Um, and so this is the second way. And the third way is to just put this very aggressively uh the first time they arrive on your product. So they arrive on your dashboard or the onboarding page or whatever and you just have a big button like book a call. And I think if you just do those three things and also you have like a volume of signups, you will have like at least uh yeah at least uh eight calls a week at least. um if

[38:28] not more depending on your momentum etc. Uh and if you push for the DMs you can you can have way more than that. Um so so yeah that that's how you can do it um easily. And I also know a guy again it depends on your size but if if you don't have a free trial I can just enforce the book a call straight away. So it's I don't like this because you have to book a call to try the product. Uh but depending on the product it can be something that works well. uh but if you have a free trial or premium plan that would be the way to chat to them and

[39:02] also maybe more for the people on X that people who have SAS on LinkedIn or elsewhere I think just people they don't talk enough to uh the leads on the customer support uh and probably they try to automate too much with like um intercom using fe or like other softwares I don't remember the name but like other softwares to automate the convert on the on the support with a knowledge base first. But the thing is if you're not making in my opinion if you're not making at least maybe 30k 40k MR like you should still need to talk to your customers and not trying to prevent them to chat to your

[39:44] support because the conversions you can make and the retention you can make and the feedback you can get during support is invaluable. And at some at some point we hire uh we hired some people to do the support because it felt natural um and the quality of the conversions and retentions feedback went down also because it was our fault maybe not the best training but I think the person was trained well but because it was not the founders it was not the same quality and you don't have like true product market fit people they say yeah I have product market fit I have 10k MR 20k MR I think

[40:22] you have product market fit when you have like like you you never from prestige and like every day you have 1k new MR but otherwise you don't have product market fit right um you just have to brute yourself to have it uh but uh but if you don't have like 1k MR every day like easy like um you don't have like true product market fit sorry so so you should still do support to to either have a excellent product you have true product market fit or you accept you will never have like true product market fits and you become a beast in uh

[40:54] in distribution. Um so yeah, you choose. You said that you hired people for the support. Um I think you also hired more people. I think five people at one point and then you scaled back. Yeah. Why was that and why did you do it and why did you came back like to two after

[41:15] that? Like what happened exactly? Yeah. basically uh we were growing like 1k to 3k MR per month and so we were like so it's not per day but it was per months and we were like okay we have it it's done like it's done we growing forever and so we're like okay now we need to structure how we going to make hires and so it felt natural like um like retrospectively like now that I'm better with anticipating like plateaus I would have not made this mistake but back then we were we we were like okay we just need to hire we're growing like 3k at least MR per month so easy now and

[41:55] so uh this is where we started to hire like a developer and then u something for SEO uh someone sorry for SEO then someone for support and someone to do videos uh essentially and then we also had someone to do sales so I removed myself from doing the calls I had someone to do the calls to do the outreach to send DMs and to do a lot of things and uh that's how it was structured and so the structure was not bad the hires were not bad uh but the thing is we reached the plateau because again like the product was just too limited um and distribution you can

[42:35] always do better which is true uh but very from the product perspective especially for CRM we you it was not normal to have such a such a high churn and uh and and uh and they essentially um like um after maybe 10 months like that with this team, we essentially scaled back and I didn't fire like like uh violently the people because uh I found them uh all of them I found them uh except one to be honest like except one uh because it was like that he came back to be a freelancer but the other ones like I found them a better job better paid uh 100% modes and four day

[43:16] work week instead of five. Was pretty good uh for them. Um but uh essentially um yeah we scaled back to um to like two people and we had very strange like we had then our best months with a s like best months uh just the two of us like we almost got 40k in one month because we sell annual plans so we have our MR but sometimes we have way better months that our MR because of annual plans and so yeah we almost make 40k just the two of us and things got yeah easier um because obviously when you have a team you have more processing

[43:57] in place but um also like yeah like um and now also with AI and also with other things you can also do much more things than uh before with less people. So obviously I'm I'm a bit biased because of this. uh but uh retrospectively I think if we had like maybe 8K or 10K of people in payroll retrospectively I think we would have not even if the product was the churn was too high we would still plateaued later by injecting 10K or 8K per month in distribution into uh like agencies or like ads or partnerships or paying influencers. I think retrospectively like all those dollars like almost 60k or even even

[44:44] even way more 70 80 plusk if we had invested back in in distribution it would have been better growth we have still plateau but we still have been a higher you never know like um so yeah and now another version is coming well you just launched it uh now a few weeks ago I think what happened so you plateau 25k and you decided to do the move to launch a new

[45:14] product. Why and what it is? Yeah. So essentially when we came back just the two of us um there was this tough decision to continue or not because we can continue we bootstrap we can die by default we're profitable. So that's the good news. Uh but then we're like okay but because it's so hard like what should we do? Um, and so we were like, should we do another SAS uh, and just having this one running? Uh, should we try to keep up? But we know that the CRM space is the toughest the old the oldest of the the the SAS space. So, it's quite hard to break this thing and

[45:57] um and um and so like the we cannot do Google ads or uh like like like you could do in other spaces. we can do Google ads but like there's some for us like you have Salesforce Hopspots like it's $60 a click right so there's lots of acquisition channels that cannot work in your space because of the market is so hard and then like by chance we got approached at the same time when we were questioning by big actors making anywhere between like $15 million a year up to u like 7 million dollars a year like a AUR as a group, as an entity, but with multiple companies. And so we were

[46:39] talking with them, with the CEOs, realizing we our business is actually worth quite more than our real valuation for the MR. And then we're like, okay, do we want to sell or do we want to continue to go above the plateau? And so the decision uh that we took in the end was um to to try to go above the plateau and to build a new version because we knew what was wrong in the product and also the acquisition that is linked to the product and other things. And so like do we want to try to solve this problem? There's a risk like the business dies etc. But if it works we

[47:20] can scale a lot more. If it works okay, we will scale a little bit or still plateau. Who knows? But from also an acquisition standpoint, if we get acquired by the structure of the product and everything, the V2 will also be extremely great for um the acquisition value because you have the cash up front, but you also sometimes have earnouts. And um if people are familiar with earnouts, you can know that if it's with the right company, you can still get few millions more um if the product is ready to actually scale. And so um so we decided to do this move and for five months almost if not yeah five months uh

[48:05] like 90% of our focus on the V2 they were we stopped doing acquisition so we were just like on on profusions uh like uh like surviving through our SEO YouTube videos I was still posting on LinkedIn but not like actively at all and so the just the focus one on the V2 that we launched back um uh that we launched uh two two months ago and it was also very hard to do a big migration because it's a different product with a different database. So in terms of

[48:37] migration it's um it's it's also a mess. You have to migrate the customer from V1 to V2. Some of them they're not happy even though the price is the same etc. So you it's um obviously you lose some customers and then you get new ones. But from the stats we have right now when it comes to the V2 if you run the math like we will grow outgrow like what we had before. Um so it's positive but definitely not easy mentally. Um but yeah don't regret it uh at all. Um, so we will see what what what holds. But yeah, so far V2 is doing um extremely

[49:14] great um on the on the on its numbers versus the V1 because obviously we still have MR on the V1 for the ones that didn't migrate yet. Um so so yeah, there's a clear difference in turn rate in everything essentially. Uh although it's just been two months, we know it's good. So so that's good. So what's your plan now? What's the plan

[49:37] to reach 100k or even more? Yeah, the plan to be honest is to to to stop working. So bear with me when I say stop working. What I mean is that building the V2, building the product, the CRM for three years was tough because CRM is very product heavy. The expectations from customers who have the money is extremely high and it's crazy to do to say that because the opposite that is preached on the X they say, "Yeah, you should distribute the product. [ __ ] the product." Yeah, but not for this. So on this one so because of being bootstrap obviously you don't have like five 10x engineer to build the

[50:22] product fast uh and I think we pretty much aiming toward what we wanted to achieve and we know because very few objections retention is cool. So what I mean is that all of my time was on the product uh on the support for the product on many things that was not distribution and sometimes I'm like yeah it's almost a miracle that we grew yes we plateau but it's almost a miracle that we build this business where like we were not going crazy on distribution and so now my time for my goal for the next six to 12 months is just to go crazy on distribution because I have

[51:06] nothing else to do. SEO, I've written all the articles and I built all the tools that I wanted to do. Uh the backlinks we have like it's already running well. Uh for the rest the content, it's figured out um for the strategy on the LM. So the only thing I have to do is now to to try to to to grow the product by having the product more visible. And so I think it will go there's multiple possibilities but I think it's just staying alert on the trends and because you are available you can adapt to trends. So you were talking about the guy from posties um and um and

[51:46] I think it's the perfect example. He he basically was at 20k MR and but he was very flexible. So he was alert on what's going on and so when there was like the open close on other things he already had his MCP and but basically like the key for me was availability and so when you are building your product and you you don't you don't see what's happening on the world you don't have availability to go to jump on trends and to be there and also you don't have availability to be visible online right so if you want to have massive LinkedIn reach or massive X reach you need to be available

[52:25] and more recently you also have like goji berry which is different but like the Roman from goji berry the free co-ounders so they can split the task more but him like his sole job from 8 a.m. to maybe midnight is just to be visible for Goji Berry. And so they had a very like regular trajectory of MR and then at some point it went like boom because like for maybe six months he was just going crazy on LinkedIn on X on

[52:55] Reddit and then he had this one thing. You just need this one thing because the product is already there. And so if the product is already there you just need that one thing to have this jump. And so my goal right now is to go crazy on LinkedIn, on X, on YouTube. Maybe not too many platforms at once because if you have too many platforms going on, it's hard to nail one. So I just think I

[53:19] need to either nail LinkedIn or nail X. X is not the best audience um probably um for us, but at scale, you run the math, it always work. Um and so so yeah, that's pretty much the much the goal. Then there's other other little strategies, but it's more um other things related to maybe ads and some stuff. Um and uh and already by default with our current acquisition, if the new product has a way lower churn, we just grow by default. So also staying having a stable and good product. But yeah, the strategy is just to go to go full

[54:00] madness. So, so yeah, that's the plan. And you joined Profitable Founder Mastermind, this small mastermind that I founded that long ago. We are like 10 now, I think. Like we meet every two weeks. Yeah. Did it help you? What did you get from that actually? Because it's really nice to see your face every two weeks. But

[54:22] what happened for you? Yeah, I mean in the group it's right because like there's um first there's a good group um in similar MR numbers um related industries but not competitors and so you can learn a lot from uh from the group um and also just having sometimes again we're coming back to that one thing uh like maybe sometimes like you like you you can be like oh like um like um like uh I should like have more conversations, but sometimes you just ask the question, you get the answer, which is always great. And

[54:58] sometimes you just have this one info. So maybe in one hour call, you'll be like, "Oh, okay. I know already this. I know already this. I know already this." But you then have another angle on how it was done, another angle, and then it sparks you an idea that works for your business. And um you can already have that without technically uh I would say the mastermind. uh but here it's different because like you know it's people who have the same target the same goals um and it's made for that uh essentially so that's the good aspect of it and uh yeah that's how how why I like

[55:32] it personally so yeah last question now you have all these experiences you did that for years you know where you have to go you know that you're going all in on distribution if you had to start from scratch um if someone is like looking at this podcast right now like what would be the shortcut for this person to actually like make everything you did but faster if it's possible um let's be honest I think just not taking a platform product so again taking a smaller niche um like a very defined ICP so I know I think people know it already right it's like one niche, one ICP, one

[56:20] distribution platform and I think you can still do a SAS that is doing like 50K a million ARR maybe you will plateau but it's a different plateau right like maybe it will be easier faster to reach the million but then maybe you will never grow anymore but when you think about it is it not already good to do 1 million era with like maybe a team of one or two people obviously yes um so that would be my tip um retrospectively probably it would be Like maybe you first do your little little 1 million error is still crazy good, right? But you still you do a smaller project that

[56:57] potentially will go faster but maybe will never go beyond a certain number. And I think that that is the thing like just uh you take one distribution channel one ICP one niche uh and ideally one niche that is not covered by VC backed startup meaning that the niche it exists this competition but it's not big enough to the eyes of VC backed or enterprise companies to kill all potential distribution channels and then it will make your life extremely hard

[57:27] essentially. Well Arno thanks for your time. I will get you back on the podcast in six months to see where you are. And in the meantime, I wish you the best luck with Break Cold. Yeah, thanks a lot. I see my battery is dying, so [laughter] that's a perfect thing. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon and thanks

[57:47] everyone for watching. Bye.

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