How Akiflow Reached 200 Paying Customers and $2.5K MRR Three Months After Launch (Interview with CEO Nunzio Martinello)

Introduction and Nunzio's Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Nunzio Martinello. He's putting in a tool called Akiflow. It's a productivity app. He started off as a coder, turned marketer, managed the growth of I'm a Watch and started building a smartwatch in 2010. He then moved to India when he was 23 to start his own company, a software developer, and then expanded to Italy and started one of the fastest growing marketing agencies in the country. He managed the innovation department

00:19and the spinoffs like in food, esports, technology, affiliates, and then founded Akiflow, which got funded by YC, then pivoted, and now here he is today. Nunzio, are ready to take us to the top?

Nunzio Martinello

00:31>> Sure. Thanks for having me, Nathan.

Original Product Idea and Pivot

Nathan Latka

00:33So what was the original idea before you pivoted?

Nunzio Martinello

00:36>> We were building a common bar similar to Spotlight to control your web apps. So it was like Alfred, but it was much easier to connect Asana or Gmail, and you could just type, know, Gmail, send an email, or Asana, create a task, and it would do it in a second. But we found a much better opportunity and something more exciting in the new product, so we decided to pivot.

What Akiflow Does Today

Nathan Latka

01:03Your headline on the website says the productivity app for busy people. Tell me what you do today.

Nunzio Martinello

01:09>> So Akiflow is a productivity tool that consolidates all your to dos from multiple platforms via API, like from emails, Slack, Asana, and in the same place, in the same inbox. It has a fast and very familiar interface, Task and Calendar, and we have a superhuman approach to manage and process your tasks, so mainly keyboard shortcuts. It's really fast and and, I mean, it's going pretty well. We launched three months ago and we started to charge users

01:44>> a month back, and the first signs of traction are just great.

Nathan Latka

01:48How many customers now in the first thirty days?

First 200 Paying Customers

Nunzio Martinello

01:52>> We have around 200 paying customers, but consider that we charge a premium and it's really an MVP, like, we have no mobile apps, we don't have a web version, you have to download an app, so we're pretty satisfied with the first results, especially in terms of, you know, the validation from the market that we're onto something here.

Waitlist Strategy and Free Trial Conversion

Nathan Latka

02:17Nunzio, how did you convert 200 into paid? Did you have a big waitlist or something, and if so, how did you use the waitlist to get your first paid customers?

Nunzio Martinello

02:24>> No, we used the waitlist trick on the previous version. This time I just wanted people to use it and try and get feedback. So we gave everyone two months free trial after the product had launched. We actually reduced it to two weeks right now, and at the end of the trial, most of the users, not most of the users, but like a very good

02:49>> bunch of them converted to paying customers.

Nathan Latka

02:51Can you quantify that? How many users converted to paid?

Conversion Rate from Active to Paid Users

Nunzio Martinello

02:55>> From active to paying customers we have about 15%.

Nathan Latka

03:00Okay.

Nunzio Martinello

03:01>> Which is

Nathan Latka

03:06How do you define an active customer, an active user?

Nunzio Martinello

03:10>> Somebody who didn't just download it and try it. Somebody who at least used it for a day. So somebody who, you know, tried to use Akiflow managed to use it for one day, and perhaps this is an active user.

Nathan Latka

03:22What does that mean though? Tried to use it for day, that means I logged in one time in a day and that counts as active or what?

Nunzio Martinello

03:29>> No, we consider that they had to at least create one task or mark one task as done. You know, with with these kind of tools, sometimes you you're just curious and you wanna you wanna see if you have a fit with a new productivity app, so you just install it, you look at it, and, know, and you kill it sometimes. So for us, we really wanted to see people who understood it and tried to use it

03:51>> if they would actually convert into paying customers, and the conversion rate is pretty good.

Nathan Latka

03:57And you said that the conversion rate was one-five percent or five-zero percent?

Nunzio Martinello

04:01>> No, one five. It's actually 16.5%, yeah. That would be too great.

Company History and YC Journey

Nathan Latka

04:07That would be great. Let's go back to early days. So you launched, yes, launched this a couple of months ago, but you've been tinkering around on the business since about 2019, correct?

04:18Lost your audio. Yeah.

Nunzio Martinello

04:20>> No. I I don't think I got your question.

Nathan Latka

04:23When did you actually launch the business? The product you launched only about a month or two ago, but you guys were working together back in 2019, I think. Right?

Nunzio Martinello

04:30>> Yes, yes. So, we started the previous product. With that one, we got into YC. We did demo day, but around demo day, had a lot of users that were using the product, but we also saw a very bad retention, and we tried to look into that and we realized we were actually building something that was not solving a major problem. So, went back into talking to customers for two full months, we did no coding, just user

04:58>> interviews, and we realized that there

05:04>> was an opportunity in this field, like I think there was no one really focusing on consolidating tasks, which is something that is necessary considering the new workspace, which is very busy and it's getting even worse now that there is COVID and every company had to put down, like install some apps to collaborate online. And

05:28>> the main reason why we also choose this is that it really focuses on fundamentals of productivity, like it makes you faster in capturing and consolidating information and processing them and visualizing them. So, compared to other tools that focus a lot on how you visualize information, we really focus on making you faster than whatever the methodology you want to apply on top of it.

Nathan Latka

05:52And can you quantify that, right, so you have 15% going to pay, you have 200 paid customers today, but what do they pay on average? Are they all paying $15 a month?

Pricing, ARPU, and MRR

Nunzio Martinello

06:00>> The average is 13.5, 40% of our customers actually committed to the yearly plan.

Nathan Latka

06:08So you have about 200 customers at $14 a month, many of them paid annual upfront, but it's about $2,800 a month in true MRR, correct?

Nunzio Martinello

06:17>> It's around 2.5, yeah.

Nathan Latka

06:19Yeah, okay, got it. So you're doing, call it, 30,000, 35,000 in ARR right now. How do you grow faster? How do you get your next 2,000 customers?

Nunzio Martinello

06:30>> I mean, keep

06:34>> getting users from word-of-mouth, which is pretty good. But of course, we know we're going to start to put some team features in product,

06:42>> hopefully real soon.

Team Size and Composition

Nathan Latka

06:44Tell me about the team today, how many folks you have working on this?

Nunzio Martinello

06:48>> We have two coders and out of four of us working on marketing and product and design, so it's six of us in total.

Nathan Latka

06:57Got it, six total, two engineers, the rest are product design, customer interviews, things like that?

Nunzio Martinello

07:03>> Yeah.

Funding History and Runway

Nathan Latka

07:04And do you guys have enough runway to sort of keep testing here from the 125,000 you raised back in 2019?

Nunzio Martinello

07:11>> Yeah, we raised a little bit more from angels and we can go on for almost two years, but we plan to raise the seed round this month or next month.

Current Seed Round and Valuation

Nathan Latka

07:21Oh, I see. How much do you plan to raise? What are you targeting?

Nunzio Martinello

07:25>> $1,500,000. That would be enough for us to get to around 8.

Nathan Latka

07:32And why is that the right number? It's always tricky to come up with how much you want to raise. Why 1.5?

Nunzio Martinello

07:39>> I calculated how much I want to spend on the ideal team to build all the features that we have in mind and especially to keep talking to customers and get data from them,

07:50>> I consider that we are actually charging, so we also make a bit of money. So that would be enough to get us to have a bunch of team features and more virality coefficient, like a higher virality coefficient to, you know, to get a lot of users and raise more.

Nathan Latka

08:12And Nunzio, have you thought about what valuation you would target? Are talking about 5,000,000 pre money, 10,000,000 pre money, something else?

Nunzio Martinello

08:19>> We're raising a 10,000,000 post money right now.

Nathan Latka

08:2210 post, okay. And what, I mean, what is the likelihood that you think you get that valuation? Are you getting, you know, inbound interest?

Nunzio Martinello

08:32>> Sorry, Nathan. I lost the last question.

Nathan Latka

08:35What do think the likelihood is that you were able to raise at that valuation? Are you getting inbound interest?

Nunzio Martinello

08:41>> Yeah, we already raised 150 ks at this valuation, and we have a few people and funds who are pretty interested in investing, so we'll talk to them and then

Nathan Latka

08:55And ignoring this current round, how much have you already raised?

Nunzio Martinello

09:01>> Just YC.

Nathan Latka

09:02Just a 125,000 from YC?

Nunzio Martinello

09:05>> Yep.

Nathan Latka

09:05Got it. And now I forget what their model is. They what would they take for that? 7%, 10%?

Nunzio Martinello

09:11>> They take 7%.

Nathan Latka

09:13Okay, got it. So 7%. Now, they participating in the $1,500,000 round?

Nunzio Martinello

09:19>> No, this is still our seed round. So, they participate in the participant.

Nathan Latka

09:23Oh, like any investor coming in is going to see that you have, that you went through YC, and it's a negative signal if YC is not in this current round, making it really hard for you to raise more capital if YC doesn't invest. How do you deal with that?

Nunzio Martinello

09:38>> No, it's not happening in this case because basically we did not do a round after YC. So usually YC, they invest and then you raise capital on your seed round without YC, and the YC will come in at the A round if they decide to invest.

Nathan Latka

09:54Well, there's a lot of companies where YC will, they will put money in right out of YC. And if you're not one of those chosen companies, it's a negative signal to the marketplace. Know this because I've had friends that they've fallen into this sort of trap. I'm just wondering if you're getting around that.

Nunzio Martinello

10:11>> Well, to be honest, there may be that we like a lot of reasons why YC doesn't decide to continue, like they don't invest in all the companies throughout the batch, after the pre seed, so

10:26>> it's just about like, we are in a very tough market, and it's a very crowded space, and a lot of investors have already invested in similar companies. I don't think that's necessarily a very bad signal, not in our case, but

10:40>> we haven't approached YC specifically round because for us, it's right after Demo Day, basically.

Nathan Latka

10:48You're saying YC, you're not approaching YC because you're way past demo day at this point, and you're doing your own thing.

Nunzio Martinello

10:59>> Yeah, usually YC, they bring you to demo day, and then you close your seat ground. That's what happens usually, and we aren't close to closing our seed round yet. So, the more our seed round gets filled in, then of course we'll have a chat with our partners.

Nathan Latka

11:21Well, that was two years ago, though. The demo day was back in 2019. You know, you're raising It

Nunzio Martinello

11:26>> was last year, actually.

Nathan Latka

11:28Oh, was 2020. Twelve

Nunzio Martinello

11:30>> months back, yeah.

Nathan Latka

11:31The point I'm trying to bring up, is a lot of people go, I want get into YC, I want get into YC, but they don't realize a negative, very real negative signaling risk where if you leave YC and you do not raise on demo day, there's a black mark on you effectively. It sounds like you're not feeling that, though.

Nunzio Martinello

11:49>> No, I'm not really feeling that. Like, what happened is we did Demo Day with a different product, we figured out it wasn't the right thing to build, we stopped fundraising for a seat round because it made no sense at that point, we went back into building, and right now we feel we have a product that can raise a seed round. I guess, ideally, this stage would have been twelve months ago if we started to build this

12:15>> product during YC, but that didn't happen. And yes, we were for twelve months with no apparent progress on that product actually, so it's a new thing, it's like, we feel like we're just out of the modern day in terms of maturity of our product and the state. So it's I think it's just fine. You know, all our investors also, people who gave us money or even YC, they were all fine with us voting and not wasting

12:44>> their money on something that we didn't think it could have worked and, you know, turning into this new product. And now we have nice metrics. I think we can prove there's an opportunity over here and we're building something valuable. So, no, I don't see any problem with that.

Nathan Latka

13:02Nunzio, how much equity do you still own in the business?

Nunzio Martinello

13:06>> Me and my co founders?

Nathan Latka

13:07Yeah.

Nunzio Martinello

13:09>> We just gave 7% to YC and then we raised

13:15>> 150 ks, a $10,000,000 cap, so still most of it.

Nathan Latka

13:21Got it, so you guys own what, about 91% YC owns 7% and then other investors own like one or 2%?

Nunzio Martinello

13:28>> Yes.

Nathan Latka

13:29Got it. And are you guys,

13:33I guess, do you think about like setting up an employee stock option pool? Do your key employees own any equity or no?

Nunzio Martinello

13:39>> Yeah, definitely. That's the plan.

Nathan Latka

13:41How do you structure that?

Nunzio Martinello

13:44>> We still haven't thought about it. We're very close. I've worked before with all my employees right now. They all know as soon as we raise a seat around, I'll start to talk to our lawyers to figure out how to set it up. And, yeah, I definitely like, I'm glad of the team I have right now, they're all very smart and skilled people, and we have been knowing each other for a long time, so as soon as

14:08>> we get seat around to go forward, we'll set up the option pool.

Product Hunt Launch Strategy

Nathan Latka

14:14Cool. Let's end here with your product launch. It was very successful. Number three product of the week back last year in August. You got 100,000 upvotes. Walk me through a couple of things, like why was it successful? I'm sure you hustled on the back end. So for other people watching on product, what can they learn from you? And then how many leads did you get from that?

Nunzio Martinello

14:33>> We got a few thousands download from

14:38>> Product Hunt. It was a good journey. Actually, we had a very successful Product Hunt as well on the previous product, so we learned something from that. It's a long process, man, like 90% of the work is done in the four weeks before, so we started to engage, like, we engaged in a lot of communities, we started to talk to other founders,

15:05>> we tried to leverage all the possible contacts that we had for to get more exposure and,

15:12>> yeah, and that's it actually, like, to be honest, it's there's not many tricks. So I'll

Nathan Latka

15:16give you one minute so that people can learn from it, right? So name one community you engaged that helped you get more upvotes on launch day.

Nunzio Martinello

15:26>> Of communities, you mean?

Nathan Latka

15:27Yeah, you just said one of the ways you had a successful launch is you engaged communities. Can you name a community you engaged with?

Nunzio Martinello

15:34>> Yes, we engaged with the productivity community Reddit, for example.

Nathan Latka

15:40Okay. And

Nunzio Martinello

15:41>> Individually with with users, so

Nathan Latka

15:43How big how big was your email list when you launched on product time?

Email List and Launch Results

Nunzio Martinello

15:48>> We had we had 6,000 people on our email list, and a lot of people, they actually subscribed to the previous product, so we sent all of them an email saying this, we pivoted over, this is the new product, you know, check it out on Product Hunt.

Nathan Latka

16:03How many website hits did you get that day, do you remember?

Nunzio Martinello

16:07>> It was around 2,000, 3,000, but not the same day, it was like both that day and the next day when we got in the newsletter as product of the day.

Nathan Latka

16:19And of that 3,000 hits that you got during Product Hunt launch week, how many actually gave you their email and signed up to try the tool?

Nunzio Martinello

16:27>> Around, I think, 30% of them.

Nathan Latka

16:31Okay, so call it a thousand actual email sign ups, and then what, about 150 of them converted into paid, or 100 or so, or what?

Nunzio Martinello

16:39>> Yeah, I guess of that batch it was around 100 of them, but consider that product brings also to people, most of them, they were actually not in Target.

Nathan Latka

16:51Yeah, so did a lot of them churn, they're not active today?

Nunzio Martinello

16:56>> Yeah, a lot of them stopped using the product straight away. I remember after Product Hunt, we went to 400 active users, but

17:08>> we also made a little mistake of saying that it was a free version, which we actually kept for the product hunt users, so there are a bunch of people that they are in the free legacy plan,

17:22>> but yeah, I think more than 25% of them actually converted to paid plan.

Nathan Latka

17:27Okay, we're out of time, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Nunzio Martinello

17:32>> My favorite book?

17:35>> Definitely,

17:38>> well I think GTD man, getting things done.

Nathan Latka

17:41Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

17:46There a CEO you're following or studying?

Nunzio Martinello

17:50>> I really, I really love what Superhuman is doing, so I'm a fan of Rahul.

Nathan Latka

17:57Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business?

Nunzio Martinello

18:02>> Akiflow.

Nathan Latka

18:04Besides your own?

Nunzio Martinello

18:06>> We

18:09>> use Notion extensively, but I think my favorite tool is Slack.

Nathan Latka

18:13Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?

18:17Sleep, how much sleep each night?

Nunzio Martinello

18:21>> I slept six hours, but I try to sleep eight every day.

Nathan Latka

18:24And what's your situation Nunzio, married, single, kids?

Nunzio Martinello

18:28>> I'm single.

Nathan Latka

18:29Any, no kids around?

Nunzio Martinello

18:32>> No kids.

Nathan Latka

18:33Alright. And how old are you?

Nunzio Martinello

18:36>> I'm 32.

18:37>> 32.

Nathan Latka

18:38Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Advice: Talk to Users Before Building

Nunzio Martinello

18:46>> We talk to users much more before trying to build any kind of business.

Nathan Latka

18:50Guys, having Akiflow launch back in 2019. It's a totally separate idea. Now building a productivity app that combines all of your tasks, calendar invites, everything else in one spot. They've got 200 customers signed up paying $14 a month, doing about $2,500 per month right now in revenue or about $30,000 in AR. They're looking to raise a seed now, call it 1,500,000 on a 10,000,000 post money, pre money valuation. They've already raised $125k from YC in

19:132019. Now looking to scale with our team of six and increase their activation rate. There's several thousand signups, 15% convert to paid as they look to scale. Nunzio, thanks for taking us to the top.

Nunzio Martinello

19:24>> Thank you, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

19:27One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers. They try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM

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