How did EmailEngine do in 2023?

It's that time of the year again. It is time to start preparing for the year-end holidays. To look back, how did EmailEngine do in 2023?

All numeric expectations were met. MRR, ARR and net cash flow grew more than 100% compared to 2022. The customer churn rate was 20% for the entire year, which is on par with 2022. The subscriber count grew by 70%. My current ARR is 65k€, and my expectation is to reach 100k€ by the end of 2024. It is a tiny number for mankind, a giant leap for a single-person business.

Key learnings

There is little point in working with enterprise clients as a solopreneur. I was in talks with 3 different (inbound) enterprise prospects, and during on-and-off negotiations lasting six months or more, not a single customer got closed. The best I was able to achieve was to get added to the vendor's database for one prospect, and that's about it. It's a total waste of time. I like my existing customers way more. Hands-on, no-fluff problem-solving people.

No real reason to give discounts. I value long-term customers and all customers who have asked for a discount churned by the next yearly renewal. So, if they are going to churn anyway, maybe try to get the full payment out of them.

Do not overpromise. It is better not to promise anything and only sell the existing feature set as it is. I told one potential customer that I was working on a larger feature they needed. They subscribed and became a paying customer. 4 months later, I've had no time to work on this feature and really don't see how I could do it in the next quarter. Being a solopreneur means I need to take care of all sides of the business, and there is often just not enough time for building larger features.

As EmailEngine grew from micro-business to small-business as defined in the local accounting act, I've been busy getting all the business sides in order, including taxing, etc. For example, I moved from a homebrew tax collecting system to Stripe Tax. Shouldn't have done that. Stripe Tax shows me exactly in which regions I have met the sales tax threshold. Didn't want to learn this information 🫣