#10 Interviews - Maciej Cupial
Burning All of His Savings and Starting from Scratch
Maciej is a different type of saasstrapper compared to our previous interviewees. While he is an IT guy, he started his company with no prior knowledge of SaaS businesses and eventually hired 10 people. He lost all the savings he had accumulated from real estate and cafe experiences.
After two years, they earned nothing, and he decided to build the system from scratch. He rolled up his sleeves and worked on coding the product. The rest is below. :)
In this interview, you will witness the importance of resilience and the power of testing different strategies, such as publishing content in various languages rather than focusing solely on English.
Hope you enjoy.
Can you give us some information about your background?
I used to be a programmer and I'm still a programmer. I'm programming a lot. I've worked in various businesses and roles, creating a unique mix. The core is still technical, focusing on programming and other IT aspects like DevOps and mobile applications.
In the past few years, I've also learned how to grow a SaaS business, specifically Calendesk. In my previous experiences, I've been involved in a coffee shop, real estate, and other ventures. While I enjoyed them, I was searching for something more location-independent, easily scalable, and automatable.
Why did you decide to build your own SaaS company?
I prefer not to depend on location, as I've tried it in the past and found it not to align with my preferences. A SaaS business provides everything I want and need, making me genuinely happy and fulfilled. That's why I enjoy running my own software company.
Nice, Matias. I'm wondering, how did you decide to build Calendesk? Your previous experiences, okay, you're an IT guy, but how did you find the idea? Is it something you faced or heard from friends? How did that process be?
It's funny because I didn't do any validation or anything like this. Whatever I say now is something I wouldn't start again, but I can share what I did in the past.
I was doing another business related to real estate, flipping apartments, completely unrelated to IT. Despite bringing in money, I found it boring. While searching for ideas in the IT field, I had a conversation with my hairdresser, who complained about the software he used. He expressed dissatisfaction with its features and was looking for alternatives. That's when I thought, "This isn't really difficult – just a booking appointment scheduler with a simple website and notifications." It sounded manageable.
With some initial funds, I hired programmers to build it. We started with a team of around 10 people, including backend and frontend programmers, mobile app developers for Android and iOS, a UX expert, an SEO and marketing specialist, my co-founder, and myself. This marked the beginning of Calendesk.
How did you find those guys, and in terms of the investment, did you have enough savings or did you get some credits, other stuff?
I had savings from other businesses at the time. I collected around 300.000 or 400,000 Euros or dollars, quite a lot for a beginning. I felt comfortable, thinking I had enough savings to hire people and start a project. However, there was no clear plan, and I quickly burned through the money. Invoices were coming in every month, but the project wasn't progressing. I realized it wasn't working, and with the arrival of COVID, I decided to move to another place and put a pause on the project.
During this time, I was burning my savings and had to let go of the team I initially hired due to my lack of knowledge and mistakes. I decided to finish the project myself. For another year and a half, I developed everything on my own, taking part in the backend, frontend, and mobile app development. Despite not having worked on Android apps before, I learned by reading documentation and completing it. As a programmer, jumping into different technologies is relatively easy.
How long does it take to have your first sale?
First of all, I had a co-founder, but he wasn't doing much at the beginning. Not really much because he was responsible for support. He's also a smaller co-founder, so the amount of shares he has is not really a lot. We were waiting for the time when the product would be ready to sell, and that took us almost two years—way too much time, with many mistakes and unnecessary features.
Why would we need mobile apps at the beginning? Why would we need all these features we planned without simple validation? It was super crazy. I learned a lot about how not to run a SaaS business. After two years, the product was ready. We launched the first beta version and invited some customers.
My co-founder at the time was searching for customers who could use the product at the beginning. But then they came, and they said, "Well, it's not really what we want." I was like, "What, two years, and this is not what you want, really?" So then I learned that you shouldn't build features until you talk to your customers.
What type of people do you target at that time?
Yeah, we targeted beauty, like hairdressers and beauticians. Aria was our first target, but we realized they weren't the right fit for us. They already had their own applications on the market. We needed to pivot, change our approach, and shift our target customers. After some time, we found that other types of businesses might need our solution more.
We started working with lawyers, psychotherapists, tutors, and many others who didn't have a specific tool for them. Currently, we mostly work with lawyers and psychotherapists, but this decision came after exploring different business types. We tried many variations before settling on the target we want to work with.
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So your main target right now is the lawyers and psychotherapists, right? And how do they use the product? It's for scheduling appointments at the moment?
So, Calendesk is, you can say it's an online booking tool for scheduling appointments, but in reality is something really more like, we work with business type of customers.
For example, if you are a solo entrepreneur, you probably wouldn't find, enough value for the price. You don't need that many features, but if you're a business customer, you have different expectations.
So for example, you have employees, you have different schedules for employees. You have different types of notifications for services. Then you don't want to have simple calendar. But you want to build entire infrastructure for your customers where they can log in, sign up, where they can see their bookings, where they can schedule appointments to you, or maybe have a subscriptions to your services.
For instance, lawyers, they usually use our platform for creating, subscription model in their company. So we allow them to also handle subscriptions. If you meet a lawyer five times a month, so instead of scheduling each time a meeting and paying for this, you can have a package of services or a monthly subscription for the lawyer or maybe, smaller amount of money.
And then our system keeps track of everything. So we track how many appointments you've done in the past and how many you can still do. And, on top of that, you can have the entire infrastructure for your customers.
Another example, psychotherapists, imagine you are a clinic. With five psychotherapists and you have a big customer, like a corporate, let's say Microsoft or whatever. And then you talk to them and you want to offer them your services as a psychotherapist. And then, you give them a platform that is built on Calendesk, that their employee can access and also use.
The services of the psychotherapist. So basically, you know, with current or other simple booking appointments that wouldn't be possible, like it's much more complicated and there are businesses that have these needs.
So your name is close to Calendly because it starts with C A L E. Maybe people can imagine it's a similar solution to Calendly, but the things that you feature are completely different as far as I understand.
Exactly. I mean, you can use Calendesk the way you use Calendly for just simple scheduling and making a calendar. But you don't make payment for that because Calendly and others like you can book me have all free plans. But yeah, we won't because we also want to filter out at the beginning people that are not our target. If you are a solo entrepreneur, you search for maybe a free tool or something that allows you to schedule a few appointments per month. You are not our customer. Sorry. But if you are a business with employees, then you might find value here.
You have a free trial, but you don't have a freemium package because you don't want to target solopreneurs, and you want them to pay you a monthly fee, right?
Right, right. Well, that also came from the experience because we tried a free plan at the beginning. And, um, and I felt that it's not for us. Maybe it's not even for someone who starts a business because if you cannot find customers that pay for your product, well, something is wrong with your product. Maybe you target the wrong customers. And we had this problem at the beginning. So we had hairdressers at the beginning using the platform for free because we had this free plan, and they were taking our time.
They were complaining a lot about the system. And like, uh, they didn't want to pay, taking so much time. And then we realized, well, there's something wrong, like they don't pay and then complain, and they are not really our customer. And so we got rid of this free plan at the beginning, after a few months, and decided to actually keep only paid plans.
I see. But you are not thinking the same with the free trials, right? This is for only free plans.
No, no, free trials. I feel like this is really something you will need. Necessary, yeah, because we allow businesses to use the platform for free for two weeks. They can see if this is the solution for them.
We don't require any credit cards or anything like this. You just sign up, you see if it's for you. You also can schedule a call with us, a demo, where we show you all the features, where we. Ask you specific questions regarding the configuration. And we see if you are actually our customer because we had many, customers that were searching for some solutions and we told them, you know, Calendesk is not ready for you.
We are not afraid about saying this because we know that the wrong customer will churn after two months. We tell them honestly. Sorry. It's not for you. You can try, but you know, you're gonna take our time.
You're gonna pay for it and you're not gonna like.
Congrats on surpassing $10K MRR! Could you share how you reached $10K?
The growth to almost $10K is mainly from monthly recurring revenue. Additionally, we offer services like personalized SMS notifications and IT/configuration assistance, generating extra revenue. Indie Hackers may not reflect the total income as it only shows Stripe numbers. We handle manual payments for customers who prefer invoices over credit cards, a common practice in Poland. So, the actual revenue is slightly higher. The growth has been rapid, and we continue to explore new channels for sustained success.
What did you do in terms of marketing to reach that MRR in 2 years?
To achieve our MRR growth in two years, we prioritized SEO as a fundamental strategy. A consistent influx of customers through organic search has become a vital aspect of our daily operations. Investing in SEO yielded significant value, surpassing the impact of paid channels like Google Ads or Bing. Initially, Google Ads were crucial for visibility, requiring us to reinvest every earning back into content, SEO, and paid campaigns.
To elaborate on our strategy further, Google Ads played a pivotal role in our early visibility efforts. In the initial stages, when we lacked organic visibility, Google Ads served as a valuable tool to reach potential customers. As the company grew, we gradually shifted focus from heavily relying on paid channels to investing more in SEO and content. This transition allowed us to establish a robust organic presence, reducing dependency on paid advertising over time. Striking a balance between paid and organic strategies has been crucial in sustaining our growth and achieving a profitable business model.
Building a SaaS business is challenging and demands substantial time, money, and perseverance. While the initial phase may not bring substantial profits, persistence is key. Our company now operates at a profit, allowing for sustainable growth.
Notably, focusing on SEO in both our native language (Polish) and English proved beneficial. In countries like Poland, where the majority prefer their native language, investing in SEO in Polish enhanced our visibility and customer base. And Poland is not a small country as 36-37 millions of people live there.
Contrary to the challenging English market, targeting the native language provided a competitive advantage, as markets like Poland offer substantial business opportunities. This strategy recognizes the dynamics of language preference and emphasizes seizing opportunities in less saturated markets for effective visibility and growth.
So the pricing is same for Polish or, and also the English versions, or is it totally different?
No, no. We try to keep the same prices. We want to avoid customers complaining about different prices in English or in different countries. We strive for fairness, charging the same. I feel like Poland is not the poorest country, so they are ready to pay for it.
Just back to your question about other things. Definitely, SEO is the main thing, and I'm even thinking about dropping completely investing in SEO in English and moving to another small country in Europe. There are many small countries where you can get visibility quite quickly.
So, if you are building a SaaS business and come from a small country, it's probably better to start in your native language and get visibility quickly.
And are you still alone, by the way? Or you found someone to work with? I guess you are not the only guy focusing on Calendesk at the moment, right?
No, I have a co-founder who handles customer-related tasks like support, demos, and customer success. This allows me to focus on the technology and develop the app myself. We currently don't have any employees, and after a previous experience with 10 employees, I decided to work with freelancers instead. This may change as we might need internal hires, especially for support. Currently, the project is a full-time endeavor, and we are generating more than 10k.
Are you planning to go like this as a bootstrapping or would you like to look for VC funding later on?
Yeah, I've considered VC funding, but I'm currently leaning towards bootstrapping. Some VCs have approached us, but I value the independence and control I have over my company. I can make decisions without seeking approval, and that flexibility is crucial to me. I've experienced the stress of financial difficulties in the past when I went bankrupt while bootstrapping Calendesk. Now that the company is profitable, I prefer to avoid the added pressure that comes with VC funding.
Maintaining the current bootstrapping approach allows me to work at a comfortable pace, and the company is thriving. I'm slowly rebuilding my savings and don't want to return to the high-stress period of overworking. While I acknowledge that my perspective may change in the future, especially as the company grows, for now, I find satisfaction in the current bootstrapping model. The goal is to build a profitable, scalable company that could be attractive to potential buyers in the future.
Matias, thank you for addressing all my questions. Is there anything specific you'd like to share with fellow bootstrappers? Perhaps some advice or insights from your experience?
Certainly. To fellow bootstrappers, I want to emphasize that this journey may seem challenging, and there were times when I considered giving up. However, being consistent, maintaining focus, and persevering are key. It may sound cliché, but it's crucial to keep going, pivot when needed, and engage with customers. Don't give up until you achieve success and start generating revenue. Many startups fail because they stop too early, so resilience is vital. Additionally, consider building a business that doesn't rely heavily on burning through a large amount of money. I hope this advice proves helpful.
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