Product-Market Fit·Colin Nederkoorn, Customer.io

Customer.io: 18 Months to $10K MRR, 10 Years to $70M ARR

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Colin Nederkoorn is the co-founder and CEO of Customer.io, a platform that helps businesses send personalized messages to customers based on their behavior and actions.

In 2012, Colin and his co-founder John, while working at a startup, decided to build their own product. Their goal was simple: get 5 customers paying $10 a month before quitting their jobs.

With limited technical expertise and little knowledge of email marketing, they faced significant challenges. Their first version was basic and required manual effort to setup each customer's campaign.

The early days were tough. Growth was painfully slow, and they struggled to gain traction. To make ends meet, Colin and John lived off savings and credit cards for years, constantly worrying about finances.

Finding product-market fit was another major hurdle. They struggled with positioning and messaging, making it difficult to attract and retain customers.

But they persevered, focusing on educating potential customers through content while continuously improving their product.

A pivotal moment came during a meeting with Ramit Sethi, a personal finance expert. When Sethi asked what they were doing with their launch email list, they embarrassingly admitted they weren't doing anything. This realization hit hard.

Spurred by this wake-up call, Colin immersed himself in learning conversion copywriting and began sharing valuable insights with their growing email list. By focusing on educating their audience, they built credibility in the email marketing space even before officially launching Customer.io.

Despite their efforts, it took about 18 months to reach $10K in monthly recurring revenue – a significant milestone for the struggling founders. But this was just the beginning of their remarkable growth story.

Today, Customer.io serves over 7,000 companies, generates $70 million in annual recurring revenue, and has a team of 250 people across 30 countries. They've raised over $30 million in funding to date.

This episode is part of our Product-Market Fit series.

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