"Find a market where big forces are terraforming the world and creating new opportunities."
This really resonated with me. Great advice.
2
Glad to hear! Thank you.
4
Very inspiring story! Sounds like a really great product and I'm glad it's helping teachers across the world. One question about accepting customer payments, are you guys using Stripe? Are you only accepting debit card payments from US to German bank accounts?
1
Hey, Thanks!
We do use Stripe and we accept credit cards only (including debit cards that have a VISA or Mastercard function). Our customers are world wide, however most of them are in the United States which makes this foreign transaction tricky for some people trying to pay. It really depends on the customer's bank or credit card provider. Some people have no problem with this transaction and others have to call their bank every month.
1
Really inspiring article and backstory, thanks for sharing. I'd be interested to know what your dunning process looks like for the users that are having to contact their banks regularly. We have a similar issue as we are located in the UK and the majority of our customers are in the US and our biggest churn factor are credit card declines due primarily to American banks declining the transactions. At one stage we considered using a service such as Fastspring as they have 'intelligent payment routing' (https://fastspring.com/payment-success-rates/) but we have yet to come across any real world evidence that this process works better than Stripe who as far as i'm aware don't offer this.
3
Great interview but it'd be great to have more of an explanation on the revenue growth and how it is being achieved. Zero to $35k/MRR in just over a year with$10/mo ARPC... so zero to 3,500+ subscriptions at a 10% MoM growth rate?
3
For the first few months, we had a growth rate above 25% due to word-of-mouth spreading awareness of our product in a number of Facebook groups. After that, the growth rate stabilized around 10%.
We have very low churn (and therefore high CLTV even though the monthly ARPC is low), since our customers invest heavily into the platform by uploading their own templates and sharing it in our collaborative "Cloud". This in-app network effect translates into real-work network effects, which is essentially word-of-mouth marketing that we don't (have to) control. We provide job-relevant content to our community, which generates leads through social sharing.
2
Congratulations @daniksimpson. This is an amazing accomplishment. Keep up the great work and continue to keep us in the loop!
1
Thanks, Chris!
2
Wow, this is a great story, with financials that most bootstrapped startups can only dream of. Some useful advice here also. Thanks for this.
1
You bet. Thanks Phil!
2
Interesting product. My current project is focussed on education but purely focussed on kids learning. It's nice to see that there is indeed support required in the education sector.
Which places did you advertise your platform?
1
Absolutely! There is an exciting increase in funding for Education and Learning technology in recent years, especially in China.
Since we market directly to the teachers, and even more specifically online English teachers, we found where they hang out or where they go for information and then spoke with them directly. Since I am apart of these communities myself, they were easy to find and easy to join. We also did some interviews with star teachers and YouTube influencers to get the word out as well as guest blogging on ESL specific blogs to bring some traffic to our page. What are you working on?
1
How many employees do you have?
1
Hey Ricardo, it is just me and @arvidkahl at this point.
2
Amazing stuff!
1
Danielle, thanks for sharing your story and some great advice!
1
Very happy to share! Hope my experience can help you.
1
Thank you for the wonderful story, @daniksimpson. May I ask how did you create the images/illustrations on your landing page? Thanks a lot.
2
Hey, Glad to share. We worked with a great illustrator for those images.
I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted, so I searched on Behance and other communities to find an illustrator that would give us the cute and happy animal mascot I was looking for.
This is actually our second branding though. We had a quick logo made from Fiverr and put up a website with mostly screenshot images, to begin with. I think it was actually so bad that people needed to sign up for the trial to figure out what we were about. Luckily the word of mouth really worked for us instead of our landing page at that point.
Now our images and branding are much more consistent.
1
Hey Danielle, Congratulations on FeedbackPanda & this achievement in a short span of time. I have one question. "the click of a button would automatically pull my previously used template and adapt it to the student I had just taught." - here how would you adapt a previously used feedback template to the student?
1
Hey, Thanks!
The template would be adapted to the student by filling in the student's name and changing gender pronouns using a machine learning system Arvid built.
1
That's great Danielle. Thanks.
1
As someone also entering the education space with my project Fantasy Congress (fantasy sports for politics: https://fantasycongress.com), this story is so refreshing. I've been struggling so much trying to figure out how to price my product. Thank you for sharing!
2
Awesome! Glad to hear it. About Pricing, we did start out with an even cheaper $5/month option with limits on certain features. We also did not have the yearly option in the beginning.
The limits did not really make sense for the teachers and users quite often started on the lower tier and then upgraded. About 2 months in we grandfathered in the $5 plan. We added the yearly option upon request from customers around the same time. It has been a great addition. About 10% of our subscribers are on the yearly plan.
2
So no matter what you start out with, you can change and find whats works. : )
1
Figuring out what works for teachers and students is the most difficult part for me since I'm not an educator. When you say you "grandfathered" the $5 plan, does that mean everyone paying for the $5 plan was then placed on the $10 plan?
1
What I mean with "grandfathered in" is that we removed the $5 plan from our pricing page and as a subscription option for new subscribers. Those who were already subscribed to the $5 plan were able to keep it.
1
Given your financials AND your problems with US payments, Stripe Atlas seems to be the perfect solution. I wonder if you've heard of it.
1
Hi! Thanks for this idea. We did indeed look into Stripe Atlas and also the FastSpring payment localization. They both seem like great options for helping us make payments easier for customers and reduce unnecessary churn.
1
Great story. I especially like the fact that you are fully bootstrapped. Getting to $35k MRR is just great.
What are your plans for the future? Do you want to remain as a "family business" or do you aim to raise and grow to several millions of ARR?
1
Thanks, Roland!
We have a lot of momentum now and I would love to ride this wave to more growth. One way we hope to grow is to diversify. This could mean re-building a similar product for different education settings or finding another industry that needs a tool like ours.
1
What a great and inspiring story. It's alway rewarding to see how focusing on solving a real problem is the key. Also, reaching this kind of revenue for such a short period of time is admiring.
@daniksimpson, I've added FeedbackPanda to www.saashub.com. To finalize that, who would you name as your best competitors?
1
Hi Stan, Thanks!
We are actually first to market with this kind of all-encompassing tool. Our competitors seem to be other organizational software tools like Google sheets or Excel sheets that teachers have customized for their records or that contain feedback templates that teachers share amongst each other. Some teachers have created personal databases using Airtable as well.
35k in just a year that is awesome. congrats.
Thank you!
"Find a market where big forces are terraforming the world and creating new opportunities."
This really resonated with me. Great advice.
Glad to hear! Thank you.
Very inspiring story! Sounds like a really great product and I'm glad it's helping teachers across the world. One question about accepting customer payments, are you guys using Stripe? Are you only accepting debit card payments from US to German bank accounts?
Hey, Thanks!
We do use Stripe and we accept credit cards only (including debit cards that have a VISA or Mastercard function). Our customers are world wide, however most of them are in the United States which makes this foreign transaction tricky for some people trying to pay. It really depends on the customer's bank or credit card provider. Some people have no problem with this transaction and others have to call their bank every month.
Really inspiring article and backstory, thanks for sharing. I'd be interested to know what your dunning process looks like for the users that are having to contact their banks regularly. We have a similar issue as we are located in the UK and the majority of our customers are in the US and our biggest churn factor are credit card declines due primarily to American banks declining the transactions. At one stage we considered using a service such as Fastspring as they have 'intelligent payment routing' (https://fastspring.com/payment-success-rates/) but we have yet to come across any real world evidence that this process works better than Stripe who as far as i'm aware don't offer this.
Great interview but it'd be great to have more of an explanation on the revenue growth and how it is being achieved. Zero to $35k/MRR in just over a year with$10/mo ARPC... so zero to 3,500+ subscriptions at a 10% MoM growth rate?
For the first few months, we had a growth rate above 25% due to word-of-mouth spreading awareness of our product in a number of Facebook groups. After that, the growth rate stabilized around 10%.
We have very low churn (and therefore high CLTV even though the monthly ARPC is low), since our customers invest heavily into the platform by uploading their own templates and sharing it in our collaborative "Cloud". This in-app network effect translates into real-work network effects, which is essentially word-of-mouth marketing that we don't (have to) control. We provide job-relevant content to our community, which generates leads through social sharing.
Congratulations @daniksimpson. This is an amazing accomplishment. Keep up the great work and continue to keep us in the loop!
Thanks, Chris!
Wow, this is a great story, with financials that most bootstrapped startups can only dream of. Some useful advice here also. Thanks for this.
You bet. Thanks Phil!
Interesting product. My current project is focussed on education but purely focussed on kids learning. It's nice to see that there is indeed support required in the education sector.
Which places did you advertise your platform?
Absolutely! There is an exciting increase in funding for Education and Learning technology in recent years, especially in China.
Since we market directly to the teachers, and even more specifically online English teachers, we found where they hang out or where they go for information and then spoke with them directly. Since I am apart of these communities myself, they were easy to find and easy to join. We also did some interviews with star teachers and YouTube influencers to get the word out as well as guest blogging on ESL specific blogs to bring some traffic to our page. What are you working on?
How many employees do you have?
Hey Ricardo, it is just me and @arvidkahl at this point.
Amazing stuff!
Danielle, thanks for sharing your story and some great advice!
Very happy to share! Hope my experience can help you.
Thank you for the wonderful story, @daniksimpson. May I ask how did you create the images/illustrations on your landing page? Thanks a lot.
Hey, Glad to share. We worked with a great illustrator for those images.
I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted, so I searched on Behance and other communities to find an illustrator that would give us the cute and happy animal mascot I was looking for.
This is actually our second branding though. We had a quick logo made from Fiverr and put up a website with mostly screenshot images, to begin with. I think it was actually so bad that people needed to sign up for the trial to figure out what we were about. Luckily the word of mouth really worked for us instead of our landing page at that point.
Now our images and branding are much more consistent.
Hey Danielle, Congratulations on FeedbackPanda & this achievement in a short span of time. I have one question. "the click of a button would automatically pull my previously used template and adapt it to the student I had just taught." - here how would you adapt a previously used feedback template to the student?
Hey, Thanks!
The template would be adapted to the student by filling in the student's name and changing gender pronouns using a machine learning system Arvid built.
That's great Danielle. Thanks.
As someone also entering the education space with my project Fantasy Congress (fantasy sports for politics: https://fantasycongress.com), this story is so refreshing. I've been struggling so much trying to figure out how to price my product. Thank you for sharing!
Awesome! Glad to hear it. About Pricing, we did start out with an even cheaper $5/month option with limits on certain features. We also did not have the yearly option in the beginning.
The limits did not really make sense for the teachers and users quite often started on the lower tier and then upgraded. About 2 months in we grandfathered in the $5 plan. We added the yearly option upon request from customers around the same time. It has been a great addition. About 10% of our subscribers are on the yearly plan.
So no matter what you start out with, you can change and find whats works. : )
Figuring out what works for teachers and students is the most difficult part for me since I'm not an educator. When you say you "grandfathered" the $5 plan, does that mean everyone paying for the $5 plan was then placed on the $10 plan?
What I mean with "grandfathered in" is that we removed the $5 plan from our pricing page and as a subscription option for new subscribers. Those who were already subscribed to the $5 plan were able to keep it.
Given your financials AND your problems with US payments, Stripe Atlas seems to be the perfect solution. I wonder if you've heard of it.
Hi! Thanks for this idea. We did indeed look into Stripe Atlas and also the FastSpring payment localization. They both seem like great options for helping us make payments easier for customers and reduce unnecessary churn.
Great story. I especially like the fact that you are fully bootstrapped. Getting to $35k MRR is just great.
What are your plans for the future? Do you want to remain as a "family business" or do you aim to raise and grow to several millions of ARR?
Thanks, Roland!
We have a lot of momentum now and I would love to ride this wave to more growth. One way we hope to grow is to diversify. This could mean re-building a similar product for different education settings or finding another industry that needs a tool like ours.
What a great and inspiring story. It's alway rewarding to see how focusing on solving a real problem is the key. Also, reaching this kind of revenue for such a short period of time is admiring.
@daniksimpson, I've added FeedbackPanda to www.saashub.com. To finalize that, who would you name as your best competitors?
Hi Stan, Thanks!
We are actually first to market with this kind of all-encompassing tool. Our competitors seem to be other organizational software tools like Google sheets or Excel sheets that teachers have customized for their records or that contain feedback templates that teachers share amongst each other. Some teachers have created personal databases using Airtable as well.