Onur Alp Soner quit his corporate job to build a bootstrapped SaaS with no validation, no contracts, and no enterprise product. Intel came knocking anyway.
In this episode, Onur reveals how Countly grew from a side project on SourceForge to a 7-figure ARR analytics platform serving BMW, Coca-Cola, and AWS – all without raising a dollar of VC funding. You'll learn why their first SaaS attempt failed, how a Hacker News blog post changed everything, and how he survived a co-founder breakup that nearly killed the business.
Onur Alp Soner is the founder and CEO of Countly, a privacy-first product analytics platform.
Back in 2013, Onur was working at Huawei when he and two co-founders decided to build a self-hosted mobile analytics tool. They did almost no validation – just trusted their gut and started building on evenings and weekends.
Six months later, they shipped a basic MVP and released it as an open-source project on SourceForge. A blog post Onur wrote about choosing unfamiliar technologies hit the front page of Hacker News, and suddenly companies like Intel were reaching out asking for an enterprise version that didn't exist yet.
Onur quit his job while his co-founders stayed in theirs a bit longer. Those early enterprise deals were messy – no contracts, no pricing strategy, and too many custom requests for too little money. But after the first 10 painful deals, Onur learned to set boundaries and charge for the expertise, not just the software.
Their first attempt at a SaaS product failed. Countly Cloud looked just like the competition and had no clear differentiator. It hit a revenue ceiling and couldn't break through, so they killed it to refocus on their bootstrapped SaaS enterprise model.
Then came the hardest part. A co-founder dispute that had been building for years finally boiled over. Onur describes an eight-month period where the breakup consumed his time and energy, nearly killing the company.
But he stuck with it. He rebuilt the team, relaunched SaaS with a privacy-first dedicated-server model called Flex, and kept growing organically through content and inbound leads.
Onur used these strategies to bootstrap Countly to 7-figure ARR:
1. Released the product as open source to attract enterprise buyers who could evaluate the code
2. Used content marketing and Hacker News to drive inbound leads instead of outbound sales
3. Charged for expertise and strategy consulting, not just software licenses
4. Killed a failing SaaS product to refocus on the core enterprise business
5. Relaunched SaaS with a dedicated-server model that preserved the privacy-first positioning
Today, Countly is a bootstrapped SaaS with a 40-person team across 12 countries, serving brands like BMW, Coca-Cola, AWS, and Roche.
Key Insight
Key ideas
- Open source as enterprise lead gen: Intel and BMW found Countly through the free version and requested a paid enterprise edition before one existed - First SaaS failed at a revenue ceiling because it looked identical to Mixpanel and Google Analytics with no privacy differentiator - Relaunched SaaS (Flex) with dedicated servers per customer, preserving the data ownership story and creating clear differentiation - Charged for expertise, not just software: enterprise contracts include strategy consulting, which is often more valuable than the product itself - Inbound-only growth through content, documentation, and Hacker News drove all customer acquisition for 12 years without an outbound sales team📖 Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:46 What Countly does and the privacy-first mission
01:42 Major customers: BMW, Coca-Cola, AWS, Roche
02:23 Revenue, team size, and bootstrapped status
02:48 Origin story: the idea at Huawei in 2013
04:00 No validation – just build and see what happens
05:13 The Hacker News blog post that changed everything
06:22 From MVP to enterprise version in 12 months
07:06 Quitting the corporate job while co-founders stayed
08:26 How Intel found them through open source
09:52 Why enterprises chose Countly over building in-house
12:16 The painful reality of early enterprise customers
14:47 Learning to say no and set boundaries
16:28 How long it took to close the first 10 deals
18:54 Inbound-only growth and content marketing lessons
20:47 Writing content without feeling like an expert
23:58 Why the first SaaS product failed
26:07 Killing Countly Cloud to refocus on enterprise
28:49 Relaunching SaaS with Flex – dedicated servers for privacy
33:00 The co-founder breakup that nearly killed Countly
36:09 Warning signs of co-founder misalignment
38:19 Having hard conversations early
40:04 Lightning round
🔑 Key Lessons
- 🚀 **Open source is a bootstrapped SaaS sales funnel:** Countly released free code that enterprise buyers like Intel and BMW evaluated, then requested paid versions - generating inbound enterprise deals without a single outbound sales call. - 💰 **Charge for expertise, not just software:** Onur learned from the first 10 enterprise deals that customers pay for strategic consulting and hands-on support, not just the product. That shift changed Countly's pricing from cost-based to value-based. - 📉 **Kill products that lack differentiation early:** Countly's first SaaS looked identical to Mixpanel and hit a revenue ceiling. Instead of pushing harder, they killed it and refocused on the enterprise model that was actually working. - 🛠️ **Relaunch SaaS with a clear differentiator:** When Countly tried SaaS again with Flex, each customer got a dedicated server in their chosen region - turning privacy from a marketing claim into a technical architecture that competitors couldn't easily copy. - 🤝 **Address co-founder tension before it becomes visible:** Onur's co-founder dispute built silently for four years before erupting. He now recommends having hard conversations at the first sign of misalignment, not waiting for a crisis. - 🧠 **Bootstrapping buys patience that VC money can't:** Without investor pressure, Countly spent 12 years iterating through failed products, co-founder breakups, and market shifts. Onur believes a VC-backed company wouldn't have survived the same timeline. - 🎯 **Write for yourself one year ago:** Onur's Hacker News hit was about getting out of his comfort zone as a C++ developer using Node.js. The lesson: share authentic founder experiences, not expert-level thought leadership.Show Notes
Book Recommendations
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
Episode Q&A
**How did Countly land Intel as one of its first bootstrapped SaaS customers?**
Intel discovered Countly's open-source mobile analytics tool and reached out asking for an enterprise version – before one even existed. Onur and his team scrambled to build it while the customer was already waiting.
**Why did Countly's first SaaS product fail?**
Countly Cloud looked identical to competitors like Mixpanel and Google Analytics. It had no privacy differentiator, hit a revenue ceiling, and couldn't grow beyond a certain MRR. They killed it to refocus on enterprise.
**How did Onur Alp Soner use Hacker News to grow Countly's bootstrapped SaaS?**
Onur wrote a blog post about choosing unfamiliar technologies (Node.js and MongoDB instead of C++) that hit the front page of Hacker News. The attention brought large companies directly to them without any outbound effort.
**What did Onur Alp Soner learn from undercharging Countly's first 10 enterprise customers?**
He learned that enterprise buyers are paying for expertise and strategic consulting, not just software. After those first 10 deals, Countly stopped publishing pricing and instead scoped each deal based on how much hands-on support the customer needed.
**How did Countly's co-founder breakup nearly destroy the bootstrapped SaaS business?**
A misalignment that built over four years finally erupted into an eight-month breakup process. Neither founder fully owned the company during that period, and the visible tension affected the entire team's ability to execute.
**How does Countly Flex differentiate from competitors like Mixpanel and Google Analytics?**
Instead of a shared multi-tenant environment, Flex spins up a dedicated server for each customer in their chosen region. This preserves data ownership and privacy compliance while making enterprise-grade analytics accessible to smaller companies.
**Why did Countly never raise VC funding despite serving Fortune 500 customers?**
Being bootstrapped gave Countly the patience to build properly over 12 years. Onur argues that VC timelines would have forced premature decisions, while bootstrapping let them survive mistakes like the failed first SaaS and the co-founder breakup.
**What content strategy did Countly use to drive inbound leads for 12 years?**
They focused on thorough product documentation that explained use cases (not just API endpoints), regular blog posts sharing founder lessons, and open-source code that enterprise buyers could evaluate before purchasing.
**How did Onur Alp Soner rebuild Countly after the co-founder split?**
He had hard conversations earlier with remaining team members, set clearer boundaries on product vision, and relaunched the SaaS product (Flex) with a privacy-first dedicated-server model that aligned with the company's core values.