كيف وصلت بأداة إدارة العملاء إلى 6.75 مليون ريال سنويا

أنا Simo Lemhandez، CEO ومؤسس www.folk.app

شاب مغربي 29 سنة، graduated HEC Paris، McKinsey و Morgan Stanley، Forbes 30U30

CRM space أكبر sector في SaaS. dominated massive legacy players زي Salesforce و Pipedrive. بس اسأل أي أحد عن CRM وغالباً رد "oahhhhh bahhhh!"...

ظننا وقت CRM revolution. system simple to use، integrated لعالمك، collaborative و intelligent. زي sales assistant ما كان عند فريقك. mission possible، raised 34 مليون ريال total من Accel و angels حول العالم، powering 300K users و 3K clients sell more.

My image

بعد McKinsey، سويت Le Wagon coding bootcamp. بديت freelance لclients متعددين، أدير leads في spreadsheet، أتنقل بين LinkedIn و Whatsapp و emails و meetings. overwhelmed.

دورت CRM وجربت Hubspot و Pipedrive. wooooof. felt like going back 20 years. experience daunting, slow, complex setup، not connected لmodern tools. consultant hat، excited بالcontrast: market size massive! appreciation current offerings very low NPS!

قابلت Thibaud Elziere، ex founder Fotolia (sold Adobe) و Hexa. SaaS entrepreneur dreamed going after Salesforce، king of SaaS. هكذا started.

قابلنا Jean-Yves، CTO. built landing page validate idea: new CRM، simple, easy to use, connected, intelligent. 10K sign ups. knew onto something.

بعد validate landing page، started designing product على Figma. raised 9.4 مليون ريال pre seed من Accel.

invited leads من waitlist conversations، deeply understand needs. after each conversation، back to coding implement learned. email used to share:

First email to waitlist

bar challenge CRMs super high، so much to build. category super mature، CRM central in business stack، no room MVP. measured solving users needs by engagement و retention. metrics proud، went out waitlist و public launch (especially Product Hunt) April 2022. product of day, month, nominated product of year. raised additional 24 مليون ريال angels و funds accelerate.

started charging September 2022، per seat model. before artisanal way، Stripe payment links make teams pay. payments not integrated. moment felt becoming real business، optimizing revenue sharing Slack every morning.

started organically، posting LinkedIn build waitlist. lucky subject naturally generating interest، every business uses CRM، people hate CRMs.

when product loved، wanted more echo. Product Hunt launch natural option announce out of beta.

prepared launch like crazy، every detail. every email, every asset, very good video، world knew new modern CRM.

launch stressful بس helped lots echo.

starting business amazing yet intense. few choices outsized impact journey. one way door decisions.

1/ People. biggest impact day to day people you work with. understand type people energize you، structure process surround yourself. personally need enthusiastic positive people. fire fast if recruitment doesn't work. most proud team love working everyday.

2/ Funding model. some businesses keep running after funding series. others bootstrap profitable less invest early days. intermediate: raise early (engineering costs upfront) then profitable. funding impacts governance, dilution, ability invest.

3/ Market. market outsized impact outcomes. virtuous markets: high growth, high retention, low competition. choose wisely. fortunate large market, very low NPS existing players. category exists no need convince need CRM. high competition too.

biggest takeaway: founding company 10y journey maybe more. structure way you'd enjoy it!

Sept 22، product scale، payment integrated، users/teams onboard self serve. needed move beyond organic circle، distribution strategies scale.

thought deeply B2B buyers choosing tools، especially CRMs. intuitions: People rely communities to buy. Reddits, Slack, Whatsapp groups. presence helps. Reinsurance و social proof matter. "never get fired choosing IBM"، CRM central. needed reinsure. People buy from people not brands. needed faces represent business.

channels invested heavily: Influence, micro influencers LinkedIn. SEO, solution when searching Google. Affiliates, amplify echo experts (sales coaches, agencies) share folk owned channels.

distribution small number high conviction bets. takes time before channel pays off. go with conviction and care. choose channels intentionally، invest long enough satisfying results.

metric always optimizing CAC payback. new businesses challenge cash، how fast reimburse CAC. try 6 months CAC payback overall، organic ~50% revenue، paid channels below 12 months payback.