SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1251 Why MailJet Founder Left, Despite Fast Growth, $10m+ in ARR
27 Dec 2018
Chapter 1: Why did the Mailjet founder leave despite its success?
Don't wrench your time, guys. He had a lot of success building up his first company, Mailjet. And when it got to the point where he was clearly in an operations role and he wasn't able to get his hand dirty and in the weeds, he said, you know what? It's time for me to step back.
He launched his new company, Envy, which basically builds SaaS companies from scratch related to project managers, a little bit of sales, but generally focused on, again, productivity and project managers. This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn.
Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million. I had no money when I started the company. It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs.
Chapter 2: What led to the founder's decision to step back from Mailjet?
We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers. With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes. I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode. Hello, everyone. My guest today is Wilfred Durha.
He is the 32-year-old French entrepreneur and startup advisor, former COO of a company called Mailjet, which he founded in 2010, raised 17 million bucks for it, built it to 25 people on four continents. And now he's entirely focused on his new venture, Enve, which aims to grow into a SaaS hub. We'll talk more about what that means in a second. Wilfred, are you ready to take us to the top?
Yes, absolutely.
Chapter 3: What is the focus of the founder's new company, Enve?
Very good. So first off, close the loop on Mailjet. So what happened there? You raise a bunch of money, you build the team. What happened? So Meljet, I'm a co-founder. So we started Meljet in 2010. It's been eight years already. I built the company with a tech guy, my co-founder. We raised a little bit of love money, so just based on the idea. And then everything went quite fast.
We raised more and more money, grew the team. I personally totally changed my position in the company, became the COO. I got to build the teams across several cities around the world. And after six years, for me, it was the end of the story. Not quite, but I felt like I was not happy anymore in this company. It's a great company. It's going fast, but maybe too fast for me.
Actually, I prefer to have my hands on. So having a pure managing position in this company was not for me anymore. I left the company.
uh simply my operational role and today i'm still a shareholder i'm happy to support a mail jet it's going still very fast today it's uh over 10 million euros uh in revenue yeah so so it's it's a good story and still continues i'm very proud of the team and i'm following what's happening obviously good okay so switch to your current venture uh convi what is it doing how do you make money
So what do we do is several activities, actually. So it's complex. It's not complex. It's a little bit part of who I am, what I want to do. Today, we are doing basically three main activities. The first one is building a SaaS platform. companies or products. So we are editors. The second one is more building a community around where I live today. It's in Bulgaria.
Our first employees are Bulgarian as well. So we try to create a local community. It's called French Tech. So we use a label which is quite famous today now around the world. And the last one is very when there is an opportunity, we act as an investor. So we take a minimum equity in companies that are very in our target, in our line of experience. So that's it.
But the main focus today is a day-to-day where we spend most of our time. It's going to be building softwares. Got it. So just to be clear, you're kind of like a SaaS studio. You're helping build SaaS companies. And sometimes instead of people paying you money for that, they'll give you equity. And so you're taking equity spots in the companies as well. Not completely.
So I don't like to talk about SaaS studio. We are a studio in itself as a structure, but the ambition is not there. So we want to build something more like Salesforce. So it's going to be more several verticals, several softwares, which are going to be under one roof. which is Envey.
So the fact that we invest in companies which are similar to us, because today we don't have a lot of money actually to spend. This is not our job to acquire or to buy companies. If we could, we will. But at the moment, no. So we just take a small stake of equity because it's going to be strategic partnership or for maybe recruitment or advisors, things like that. Okay. So I'm a CEO.
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Chapter 4: How has the founder's experience shaped his approach to building SaaS companies?
We are owner of those companies. So this is patchkin.io and userpace.com. So those are two companies. On the side, we made three investments where we actually know what to say and what's happening in those companies. Two of them are also software companies in our field of expertise. So we act a little bit as advisors. On the last one, it's going to be Puzzle. It's a co-working space.
It's the best co-working space in Eastern Europe. Are you in it right now? Yeah, I'm in it right now, yeah. Great. We have a small private office. That's it. That's good. You clearly do good work. I'm on userpace.com right now. It looks beautiful. It's clear what it does. It looks like it has a great interface. You clearly have a great design and tech team. So I understand that.
But when you are building software or SaaS from the ground up, This user pace looks like it is based off like improving business performance around smart customers, right? Collaboration. Are you only doing tools kind of in and around this space or will you do any kind of SaaS? No, exactly. We target mainly fields, but mainly people.
So we target product owner, product managers, and marketing a little bit. So all our tools are going to be dedicated to improve online product or product experience. I love this. That's our field. I love this. Which of the SaaS companies right now is doing the most revenue? UserPace? No, it's Patchkin. Patchkin. Okay, why is that? Yeah. Why is that?
Because user base is super new and we are very early stage in our venture. So we don't commercialize too much today. We have very small efforts in marketing and user base is in a public beta since only a couple of months. So we don't charge our customers at the moment. That's why. Got it. Very good. Walk me through more about how kind of how you're funding this.
Did you have investors or it's all your own money? Yeah, so mainly my own money. I invested in the past two years 120K personally. I bring on board a private investor, so a business angel. He gave us 60K, an additional 60K, which is still in bank today. So this is what we have to grow faster in the coming month to recruit a couple of people. Yep. And what's the team size today?
Today it's a small team, we're only three people. And we go to five by September. So let me ask you a question, right? So I run a small private equity firm. I buy and sell software companies. My biggest, the biggest problem that I have is when I buy companies, I then have to either put my own team in or hire a team like you to do some updates to the design and the code base.
Do you work with people like me or you only build from scratch? No, we build from scratch. All the time. You never, okay, got it. Got it. All the time. So we want to dedicate our time to what we can actually maintain and where we will make profit on the long term. So we don't rent our time today. Yep. Got it. Very good.
Would you ever buy another company, take it over, and then once you own it 100%, redo it yourself? Eventually, yes. Yeah. Yeah. What do you have to do to be able to start doing that? You said eventually. So eventually, it's mainly what happens is mainly the team. So today I need to evaluate who is the team, who is behind, what kind of energy and skills they have.
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Chapter 5: What are the main activities of Enve and how does it generate revenue?
There is already a product, a brand. So let's bring it over. Very good, guys. There you have it from Wilford. Let's wrap up Wilford here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book? So I don't read that much. Actually, not at all anymore. So it's been a very old one. It's called WeWork. It's called, it's just WeWork, the book title? Yes, exactly. Got it.
Did the WeWork guys write that? It's the guys from 37 Signals. Oh, 37. Oh, got it, got it, got it. Rework, not WeWork, rework. Yeah, rework, exactly. Got it, very good. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now? Well, Elon. Yeah, yeah. Number four, or number three, what's your favorite online tool for building a business?
um it's not one tool but it's actually google so i use every tool from google on a daily basis there's so much interconnected that that's it number four how many hours of sleep to get every night uh six to seven hours that's pretty good and what's your situation married single kids uh single but i i have a girlfriend here no no kids that you know of no okay good and how old are you I'm 32. 32.
Okay, take us home. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew? Probably what I told you earlier. So don't rent your time to somebody else. So take your time, make mistakes, and you will find your success. I love that. Don't rent your time, guys. He had a lot of success building up his first company, Mailjet.
And when it got to the point where he was clearly in an operations role and he wasn't able to get his hand dirty and in the weeds, he said, you know what? It's time for me to step back. He launched his new company, Envy, which basically builds SaaS companies from scratch related to project managers, a little bit of sales, but generally focused on
Again, productivity and project managers or product managers. So very good. Wilfred, thank you so much for taking us to the top. You're welcome.
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