Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share After I passed, this startup grew 30x in 3 years to $10M+ ARR. Here's how he did it—& what I missed. | Francois de Kerret, Co-Founder of Zeffy
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
After I passed, this startup grew 30x in 3 years to $10M+ ARR. Here's how he did it—& what I missed. | Francois de Kerret, Co-Founder of Zeffy
Zeffy is one of my biggest misses so far. I met Francois 3 years ago when he was raising his $3M seed round. But I passed.
They were at ~$500K in revenue at that point. In the last 3 years, they've grown 30x. Clearly, I missed out.
But it's been a long road for Francois. Before he got to the current idea, he had to make 3 pivots, including building a marketplace and selling to schools.
Finally he landed on what Zeffy is today, a fundraising platform for nonprofits. The crazy thing is that it's absolutely free to use. They make all of their money, which is now in the tens of millions in revenue a year, from tips. Voluntary tips that are given by donors while they donate to the nonprofits who use Zeffy's platform.
It's not an easy model to wrap your head around, but it's working in a big way.
Check out the platform at zeffy.com
Takeaways
- How to use new revenue models as differentiators.
- When to use sales-led vs marketing-led growth.
- Why the one and done funding model can work so well
- Why getting to profitability gives founders so much power.
Keywords
fundraising platform, nonprofits, product market fit, startup growth, profitability, marketing strategy, trust building, talent density, donation model
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:49) The Origin of Zeffy
(00:05:56) Gaining the Trust & Cold Calling
(00:08:52) Having a Sales Team Not Trying to Get Money
(00:13:21) Zeffy's Growth Timeline & Raising
(00:15:35) Google Ads Changed the Game
(00:18:54) The Mindset After Raising the Seed
(00:21:50) Staying Conservative When Recruiting
(00:24:05) What Makes Zeffy Unique
(00:27:38) Finding True Product Market Fit
(00:28:37) One Piece of Advice
Send me a message to let me know what you think!
View all episodes
By Mistral.vc
4.9
7878 ratings
Zeffy is one of my biggest misses so far. I met Francois 3 years ago when he was raising his $3M seed round. But I passed.
They were at ~$500K in revenue at that point. In the last 3 years, they've grown 30x. Clearly, I missed out.
But it's been a long road for Francois. Before he got to the current idea, he had to make 3 pivots, including building a marketplace and selling to schools.
Finally he landed on what Zeffy is today, a fundraising platform for nonprofits. The crazy thing is that it's absolutely free to use. They make all of their money, which is now in the tens of millions in revenue a year, from tips. Voluntary tips that are given by donors while they donate to the nonprofits who use Zeffy's platform.
It's not an easy model to wrap your head around, but it's working in a big way.
Check out the platform at zeffy.com
Takeaways
- How to use new revenue models as differentiators.
- When to use sales-led vs marketing-led growth.
- Why the one and done funding model can work so well
- Why getting to profitability gives founders so much power.
Keywords
fundraising platform, nonprofits, product market fit, startup growth, profitability, marketing strategy, trust building, talent density, donation model
Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:49) The Origin of Zeffy
(00:05:56) Gaining the Trust & Cold Calling
(00:08:52) Having a Sales Team Not Trying to Get Money
(00:13:21) Zeffy's Growth Timeline & Raising
(00:15:35) Google Ads Changed the Game
(00:18:54) The Mindset After Raising the Seed
(00:21:50) Staying Conservative When Recruiting
(00:24:05) What Makes Zeffy Unique
(00:27:38) Finding True Product Market Fit
(00:28:37) One Piece of Advice
Send me a message to let me know what you think!
More shows like A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
View all
This Week in Startups
1,283 Listeners
Startups For the Rest of Us
694 Listeners
a16z Podcast
1,043 Listeners
The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship
184 Listeners
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
522 Listeners
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
177 Listeners
Founders
1,943 Listeners
Y Combinator Startup Podcast
227 Listeners
The Startup Ideas Podcast
199 Listeners
The Logan Bartlett Show
187 Listeners
No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
129 Listeners
Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast
72 Listeners
The Social Radars
99 Listeners
BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley
465 Listeners
AI + a16z
32 Listeners