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
Description
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.
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
United States
