Bootstrapping·Alex Ghiculescu, Workforce.com

Workforce.com: Bootstrapping a SaaS to Tens of Millions in ARR

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Alex Ghiculescu is the co-founder of Workforce.com, a leading provider of HR and workforce management software.

In 2012, Alex and his three co-founders had just graduated from a university in Australia. While they were still students, they had built software to solve a pain they were experiencing. Now, they decided to try and turn that into a business and gave themselves a year to generate sales.

By the end of the first year, they were making about $5K monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Although it was not a lot of revenue, it was enough to give them a reason to keep going.

It took the team another three years to hit their first $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). During that time, they underwent a lot of trial and error, trying to find product-market fit.

The team got a big break when they built one of the first integrations with a leading SaaS product, which helped spread the word about their offering. Plus, they honed their inside sales skills and started closing more inbound leads quickly.

Despite their initial success, the team still faced many challenges. They operate in a highly competitive market with many big and well-funded competitors such as ADP, Workday, and UKG.

When Covid hit, they faced a major problem because half of their customers were in the hard-hit hospitality industry.

Despite all these challenges, they've been able to grow a SaaS business doing tens of millions of dollars in ARR, with over 7,000 customers, and a team of 150. Most significantly, the business is totally bootstrapped.

This episode is part of our Bootstrapping series.

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