Friendly
Build stronger customer relationships with ethical marketing
Friendly offers ethical marketing tools that help SMEs strengthen their customer relationships. This leads to more trust and increases leads and sales at lower advertising expenses. All our tools are based on open source
When I launched Friendly just under a year ago, I wanted to get started as quickly and easily as possible, in line with the lean startup philosophy.
That’s why I deliberately didn’t set up an own company for Friendly yet, but initially handled all sales through my existing company – the agency Wortspiel.
In the meantime, Friendly has “grown up” and stands on its own two feet financially. For me, it is an important signal to reflect this in the legal status as well.
Since last week Friendly LLC is registered in the Swiss commercial register. By the end of this quarter, we will transfer all contracts from Wortspiel to the new Friendly LLC.
Many thanks to all customers who have already put their trust in us and made this step possible!
We are very thankful: in November the MRR of https://Friendly.is has risen to the next threshold.
It increased by +18% to $6,041 thanks to seven new customers. Our costs remained at the level of the previous month, thus our loss decreased by over -32% to “only” -$3,025.
You can read all the numbers in our latest Open Startup report – together with some fresh videos on email marketing best practices and tips for complying with the privacy regulations in the European Union:
It took us 94 days to go from 0 to $1,000 MRR. Here's all about how we did it: https://baremetrics.com/blog/friendly-growth-study
Both from $1k to $2k MRR and from $2k to $3k it took us about 2 months.
From $3k to $4k however, it took "only" 30 days, from $4k to $5k even only 18 days!
(Please note that the currency of that chart is CHF)
You can find all the numbers in our public revenue dashboard: https://friendly.baremetrics.com/
Read more about our recent developments in our Open Startup report October:
Friendly Automate is based on the open source software Mautic. The Mauticast is the most important podcast on Mautic.
In episode 18, our Joey Keller shares his extensive knowledge of e-mail marketing. The episode is worthwhile for anyone who wants to learn more about how good e-mail campaigns should be designed.
Listen now: https://friendly.is/en/mauticast-joey
Recently we crossed the special threshold of $3,000 MRR.
It took us 94 days to go from 0 to $1,000 MRR. Here's a detailed breakdown on how we did it.
Both from $1k to $2k MRR and from $2k to $3k it took us about 2 months.
This means that our growth is not exponential, but steady linear. We are okay with that.
Read more about our recent development in our Open Startup report September:
Friendly Automate is based on Mautic, the most popular open source software for marketing automation. We are proud to be one of the four main sponsors of Mautic since last week: mautic.org/sponsors
August report for Friendly, the obviously first and only #OpenStartup in Switzerland:
💵 MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue): $2,699 (+26%)
🤝 New customers: 7 (+17%)
🤩 Upgrades: 4 (+100%)
💔 Churn (cancellations): 2 (0%)
👩 Active customers: 27 (+23%)
👋 New trials: 13 (+160%)
🔎 Website visits: 3’588 (-4%)
📮 Emails sent (Friendly Automate): 92’783 (-37%)
📈 Pageviews tracked (Friendly Analytics): 1’125’695 (+3%)
💸 Costs: $6’937 (-)
🧾 Profit and loss: -$4,238
This is what moved us in August:
- +26% monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
- We share our salaries and all other costs in detail
- New Hosting for Friendly Automate in the European Union (Germany)
- September outlook: Innovations in Friendly Automate & Friendly Analytics
Complete report with all details:
Friendly offers “ethical marketing software” for small and medium-sized companies.
We recently sat down to define what this term means to us. This definition became our 📃 manifesto. Here it is:
👇
In July, our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) increased by 27% to over CHF $2,147.
For the first time, we also share our costs in our open startup report: they amounted to $6,435 – not including my own working time.
This means that Friendly is currently still operating at a loss of $4,289. Our next goal is to reach the profitability threshold as soon as possible.
There was a lot more going on in July - such as a viral blog post, and almost 150k emails sent - more about this you can read in this article:
I grew 🙂 Friendly from zero to 💰$1,000 MRR in 94 days building ethical marketing tools.
In the blog of Baremetrics I was invited to explain how exactly I did that.
Here is a summary:
1. Learn about alternatives to the traditional venture-backed start-up models.
Communities like this one or @sergiomattei' getmakerlog.com can be really helpful here.
2. Start with the audience, not the idea.
This tip from @arvidkahl has proven to be gold for me:
I found it in his free online guide about bootstrapping a business.
You should also check out is book! zerotosoldbook.com
3. Decide whether you want to do something for businesses or consumers.
Pieter @levelsio's advocacy for B2B helped me a lot.
4. Product Hunt is great for launching. But you should test your product before with a smaller audience.
I could have got more out of the launch of my first product if I had done that.
In this blog post here on Indie Hackers, @DannyPostma describes how to do it better.
5. In the beginning the % of customers who cancel will be higher because your product is not yet mature. Do not let this discourage you.
This table shows our customer development until reaching $1,000 MRR. Only about half of the customers stayed.
6. Think about making your numbers public and becoming an Open Startup.
This not only creates more trust with colleagues and customers, but is also great for marketing.
Baremetrics offers a curated list at openstartups.com.
We are proudly one of them! friendly.is/open
Want to know more?
Find out the whole story in this blog post:
