SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
This Google Analytics Alternative Just Broke $6.3m Revenue, valued at $70m, Considering a Raise
29 Sep 2022
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
So in terms of monthly recurring revenue, we do somewhere in the vicinity of 525, 530. A thousand US dollars? Yes, that's in US dollars.
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Hey folks, my guest today is Maciek Zawadzinski. He's building a company called Piwik Pro, P-I-W-I-K dot Pro. It's a privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics. Maciek, are you ready to take us to the top?
Yes, thanks for having me.
Competing with Google Analytics is not easy. So help us understand why are you different? Why are people switching to you?
Sure. So the shortest way we can call Pwik Pro, it's a privacy-friendly analytics platform that is alternative to Google Analytics. And we fight by giving the users control over the data and complying with the privacy laws.
Very cool. Now, give us a sense of growth here. How many customers are on the platform today?
We work primarily with enterprise customers and we have over 200 of large organizations as our customers.
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Chapter 2: What is Piwik Pro and how does it differ from Google Analytics?
Congrats. That's big.
So we are like, of course, this includes churn and upsell.
What were those percents? How much churn and how much upsell?
Um, I don't have this number at hand, but probably around, uh, less than 10% churn and then, uh, more than, uh, 15% of, uh, upsells that 15, 20, 20% upsell, 10% churn will be one 10 net. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. And, um, what are you upselling? So why would someone pay you, you know, a thousand bucks a month versus two grand a month?
So there are a couple of reasons, but the largest two contributors were the traffic increases. And as COVID-19 unfolded, we have seen a lot in the government sector, finance sector, healthcare sector, which are among our top sectors when it comes to the customers. So our pricing is volume-based. So this increases.
We also increased our pricing plans itself for the new business, which had some impact.
uh also for the renewal of the contracts and uh we do a bit of the absence of the modules but currently you have just you know uh the analytics platform or analytics platform with cdp uh so for those customers that don't have cdp yet uh we upsell them uh additional module well this is a great stream logic i want to get more into pricing in a second but first tell me how capital efficient have you been have you raised additional capital outside of the 2 million in 2017
So actually our story is that we spinned off Pwik Pro as a product business from our services business. And this services business contributed over the years around 2 million as well. So in total of the capital that we rise, that is somewhere in the vicinity of 4.1 million.
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Chapter 3: How many customers does Piwik Pro currently serve?
And this is the company that specializes in building custom advertising and marketing technology. And because we had this experience in the marketing technology space, we started investing in the product and we built P-Wik Pro. And then finally, at some point, we spin it off as a separate company.
Makes a lot of sense. Now, does clearcode.cc own equity in PwC Pro? No. Okay, so how did you put $2 million from the agency into PwC Pro without giving up equity?
That's a state from now, but it used to own the equity when we were adding the capital. But right now, after the spinoff, it's the same shareholder structure pretty much, but this is a completely separate entity.
Maciek, how much equity do you own currently in PwC Pro?
Chapter 4: What is the average revenue generated per customer for Piwik Pro?
So I own over 40% with additional voting rights that gives me the control.
So you control the company. Who owes the other 60% of the equity though?
It's employees, former founders, as well as investors.
How much do investors own?
We have investors on somewhere around 20%, but it's not only for the primary, but they also did some buybacks from inactive founder, as well as we have a sizable employee pool, as well as management pool of like 10 plus percent.
Okay, 10% there. So 10% employee option pool, Maciek, you own more than 40%. Investors own 20%. That's 70 there. So former founders still own about 30%.
Yes, yes. So there is still one inactive founder that owns... It's probably there is some miscalculation, but he still have like a double digit percentage in the company.
Understood. And the 2 million you raised in 2017, do you remember what valuation you raised that at?
We raised it at, I will have to recalculate it to US dollars because it was in Polish zlotys, but that was in the vicinity of 7 million pre-money, 7.5 million pre-money.
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Chapter 5: What are the growth metrics for Piwik Pro over the past year?
So we, uh, but we really want to like, uh, double down on what we are doing now. So there will be significant, uh, marketing, uh, and sales spending coming up next year, which we are ramping up for.
Um, so how many people pay with metric are on the team today?
Uh, we have a hundred people, a hundred people.
How many engineers?
Around half of that are engineers.
Wow. Okay. How many salespeople with a quota?
Salespeople, eight, seven people and me because I'm actually interim head of sales. So I'm very close to the customer.
What's their quota target?
Depends. This is 400K, 500K of ARR per year.
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Chapter 6: How does Piwik Pro maintain a low churn rate?
35. Last question, Maciek. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?
Probably I would like to know how to build a company because that was the time I founded my first company at 20 years old. So I knew nothing about creating the business then. And it was a lot of faults on the way to get where I am today.
Guys, there you have it. Pweek Pro, an alternative to Google Analytics that cares about your privacy. They were doing $400,000 a month a year ago, now doing $530,000 a month for over a $6.3 million run rate, serving about 200 customers.
Machic still owns over 40% of the business, controls it with shares, but they've got investors that put in $2 million with a $7.5 million pre-money valuation in 2017. And they turned down recently term sheets in the $60 to $70 million raises. They look to bootstrap to see how their freemium model performance before thinking about a raise in 2022. We'll see what happens.
Machic, thanks for taking us to the top.
Yeah, thanks.
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