Founder Interview
How Brisso Was Building E-Commerce Infrastructure for LATAM SMBs with 11 Early Users (Interview with CEO Almer Ibarra)
- Interview Date
- February 13, 2023
- Interviewee
- Almer IbarraFounder and CEO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Free Users (2023)
11
Pricing Per Seat (2023)
$15 USD
Team Size (2023)
1
Stores Launched by Users (2023)
4
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Almer Ibarra during his interview with Nathan Latka in February 2023 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Brisso’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Brisso had 11 free sign-ups as of February 2023, all acquired through Facebook Groups and Facebook ads.
- 02All 11 users were actively using the Facebook ads post-generation tool.
- 034 of the 11 users had launched a live e-commerce store on the platform.
- 04Almer Ibarra was a solo founder and sole team member, running Brisso as a side project while employed as a senior software engineer.
- 05Planned pricing tiers included a basic plan at $10 per month and a higher tier at $15 per seat.
- 06Brisso was pre-revenue at the time of the interview, with no paying customers yet.
- 07The primary growth tactic was posting in Facebook Groups such as Colombia Drop Shipping.
- 08Almer was 22 years old at the time of the interview and had been working on Brisso for approximately one year.
- 09The platform targeted LATAM entrepreneurs and small businesses wanting to launch e-commerce stores quickly.
- 10Almer cited The Lean Startup as his favorite book.
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Free Users (2023) | 11 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Stores Launched by Users (2023) | 4 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Team Size (2023) | 1 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Pricing Per Seat (Higher Tier) (2023) | $15 USD | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Founder Age (2023) | 22 years old | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Brisso was pre-revenue at the time of the interview. Almer had not yet activated a paywall and was still gathering user feedback before charging customers.
Customers
The company had 11 free sign-ups, all acquired through Facebook Groups including Colombia Drop Shipping and entrepreneurship-focused communities. Four of those users had launched a live store on the platform.
Team
Almer Ibarra was the sole team member, building Brisso as a side project while working full-time as a senior software engineer at a company called QuickHelp.
Funding
Brisso was unfunded at the time of the interview. Almer mentioned he had begun conversations with investors through an incubator network but had not closed any funding.
Growth Strategy
Facebook Groups Outreach
Almer posted in Facebook Groups focused on entrepreneurship and drop shipping, including Colombia Drop Shipping, to attract his first 11 users. This was the primary channel for early traction.
Facebook Ads
In addition to organic group posts, Almer ran paid Facebook ads targeting entrepreneurs and small business owners in Latin America to drive sign-ups.
Freemium Model to Drive Adoption
Brisso offered a free tier to lower the barrier to entry and gather product feedback before introducing paid plans. All 11 users were on the free tier at the time of the interview.
Product-Led Engagement Before Monetization
Almer planned to trigger a paywall based on user activity, specifically when users reached a threshold of posting frequency, aiming to convert active users to paid plans organically.
Incubator and Investor Networking
Almer had begun engaging with an incubator and building investor relationships to support future growth, though no deal had been closed at the time of the interview.
Best Quotes
“Exactly. What I can say is that with our solutions, you start e commerce platform, e commerce store in just one minute.”
“In the moment, we are in traction. Okay. We are just recently a couple weeks ago, we start to make some ads on Facebook. On Facebook, we're starting to promote on some entrepreneurship,”
“Exactly. That. For instance, Facebook ads and Facebook groups for entrepreneurship and in drop shipping.”
“Four. Four. Four users have their store.”
“Right now, I'm working. I'm a software engineer. I'm a senior software engineer right now.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured Brisso at its earliest stage in February 2023, when Almer Ibarra had 11 free users and had not yet generated revenue. The figures and plans described here reflect the company at that specific point in time and should not be taken as current. Visit the Brisso company profile on GetLatka for the latest available data on revenue, customers, and growth.
View Brisso’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Company Overview
- 0:33What Got Almer Into E-Commerce
- 2:00How Brisso Works: Launch a Store in One Minute
- 2:17Pre-Revenue Status and Business Model
- 2:54Early Traction Through Facebook Groups
- 3:2311 Sign-Ups and 4 Live Stores
- 7:00Pricing Plans and Monetization Strategy
- 12:01Solo Founder Working a Day Job
- 12:30Investor Conversations and Incubator
- 13:07Rapid Fire: Books, Tools, and Habits
- 13:53Advice: Take the Risk
- 14:13Closing Summary and Outro
Introduction and Company Overview
Nathan Latka
00:00He launched his own company, brisso. Which helps ecommerce brands launch their stores faster and also quickly generate content for Facebook ads. He's seeing all 11 of his signups use that product aggressively, hoping to launch a $10 per month paywall here shortly. He's a sole team member right now, work at then working on a SaaS company here as a side gig. Hopefully, it takes off. He quits, and he comes up on a year, he tells us he's
00:19a millionaire. We'll see what happens. Hey, folks. My guest today is Almer Ibarra. He is the founder and CEO of brisso.io. It's e commerce infrastructure for SMBs. Almer, you ready to take us to the top?
Almer Ibarra
00:32>> Yes. I'm ready.
What Got Almer Into E-Commerce
Nathan Latka
00:33Alright. What got you into this space? Did you you have your own company or what?
Almer Ibarra
00:36>> Yeah. Yes. I have my own company. Right now, I've been working on it like a year a couple years ago. I started working on it a year ago. I started this idea because I knew there was a problem with e commerce right now. Here in LATAM, Latin America, I think there is a problem with the establishment of the e commerce. Okay? So the people that start e commerce, we can say entrepreneurs, people that want to sell
01:04>> their
01:06>> stuff, people that are already established a store, a physical store, they want to sell. Okay? But what's the problem? They always try to hire a graphic designer. They always start to look for another platform. Shopify, I can say, jump seller here. There is another application. I think it's summer that recently just got a fund of 5 millions. I think they fundraise 5 millions. They are from Rappi. They are ex Rappi. So, what is the problem here
01:39>> with LATAM e commerce?
01:42>> What I what I what I can say, what I see
Nathan Latka
01:47is Almer, real quick. Just so we don't lose the audience, guys, my audience, what Almer is helping companies do, Almer, correct me if I'm wrong. You're helping them launch in LATAM their e commerce stores faster using templates, visual templates and structural templates for their website. Is that right?
How Brisso Works: Launch a Store in One Minute
Almer Ibarra
02:00>> Exactly. Exactly. What I can say is that with our solutions, you start e commerce platform, e commerce store in just one minute. There are solutions that you can start a store on five minutes, ten minutes. Even in Shopify, you start with front store in like five minutes because you have to
Pre-Revenue Status and Business Model
Nathan Latka
02:17Yep. Yep. This makes sense, Almer. This is great. So help us understand how you're making money or are you pre revenue today?
Almer Ibarra
02:23>> Yeah. Right now I'm pre revenue. But what is my business what is our business model? Right now, we have a solution where you can make ads from Facebook directly from your application. You can put ads on Facebook. We try to partner with Google Ads and with Mercado Mercado Ads. You know, if you know Mercado Libre.
Nathan Latka
02:46Of course. How are you planning to get your first customers, though?
Almer Ibarra
02:50>> What? Sorry?
Nathan Latka
02:50How are you how are you planning to get your first customers?
Early Traction Through Facebook Groups
Almer Ibarra
02:54>> Okay. In the moment, we are in traction. Okay. We are just recently a couple weeks ago, we start to make some ads on Facebook. On Facebook, we're starting to promote on some entrepreneurship,
03:07>> drop shipping,
03:09>> payroll groups. And we get we got our our first users, but we received a lot of feedback.
Nathan Latka
03:16Almer, how many users do you have today?
Almer Ibarra
03:18>> Sorry?
Nathan Latka
03:19How many users do you have today? How many sign ups?
11 Sign-Ups and 4 Live Stores
Almer Ibarra
03:23>> 11. Eleven years year 11 sign ups. Yes.
Nathan Latka
03:2611 sign ups. Did any of them did any of those come from the Facebook ads?
Almer Ibarra
03:30>> Exactly. That. For instance, Facebook ads and Facebook groups for entrepreneurship and in drop shipping.
Nathan Latka
03:35Name name a Facebook group that you've posted in that got you some of these sign ups.
Almer Ibarra
03:40>> Exactly. Currently, some groups is named Colombia Drop Shipping.
Nathan Latka
03:46Colombia Drop Shipping. Okay.
Almer Ibarra
03:48>> Colombia Drop Shipping. And I think there was another group.
03:55>> I think it was a group of e commerce.
Nathan Latka
03:58And Almer, are you reaching out to the owner of Colombia drop shipping and asking them to partner with you? Or do you just hustle on the group? You just post a random update?
Almer Ibarra
04:06>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I just promote on the group. Okay. I just promote on the group because I I first of all, I start to to start to get some feedback from new users. You know what mean? From from new users that they can they can test test it out, the application, because we have two solutions, the web app and the application. It is right now just in just in the Google Play Store.
Nathan Latka
04:28How many of the 11 sign ups have launched a store? They have a live website.
Almer Ibarra
04:32>> Four. Four. Four users have their store.
Nathan Latka
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Pricing Plans and Monetization Strategy
Nathan Latka
07:00the interview. When do you start when do you start planning? Like, when do you think you're gonna ask them to start paying?
Almer Ibarra
07:07>> Right now, I don't we don't have any paying users. We start what is what is happening right now? To be honest, I I stopped the the app because I got a lot of feedback because some users say that one of solutions that is the graphic designer, graphic design, the post, sorry, the post generator. So we have a solution where you can upload a photo from your gallery or you can take a photo with your camera. And
07:37>> we make automatically some templates where you promote your products on social media, Facebook ads, on eBay. You can make those products. It's something like PhotoMap. You don't, I don't know if you know that app. Called PhotoMap. Or you can upload a photo and that generates some posts for your social medias in your store. Well, we have a solution like that. Something like that. Okay. With that solution, you can make posts for your social medias. And also
08:07>> we have another solution where you can promote with
Nathan Latka
08:09Almer, just sorry. Just to take a step back. We I think we understand the product. What I'm trying to understand is how you build this into a great company. Right? So what do you think you're gonna charge from a pricing perspective and when will you ask for money?
Almer Ibarra
08:21>> Exactly. Right now, that's what I'm trying to say. So or we can I can say our our our strongest feature is the the post generator? Okay?
Nathan Latka
08:34Okay.
Almer Ibarra
08:34>> Because with with us post generator, you can make a pay with ads. Okay? You can make pay with ads. You you pay a small fee if you are a freemium user.
Nathan Latka
08:44How much though? How much do you plan that when you launch pricing, what will your first price point be?
Almer Ibarra
08:50>> Exactly. We have three plans right now. The freemium, the basic plan that is $10 can say in Colombian pesos is
08:59>> $10 right now. We have the resolution that is $15 I think. I don't know. I don't remember the the conversion right now.
Nathan Latka
09:10We are So what's your plan to get some of these four customers that have launched their website to start paying $10 per month?
Almer Ibarra
09:16>> Exactly. That's what I want. I was trying to I was trying to go to that to a question. So we have a user flow where we start to get the first paying user. Okay? So this is the user flow. You start
09:35>> your account, okay? You start to promote, to promote your store, your social media with our integration with Facebook ads, okay? You can promote from our application on Facebook ads for all those entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs, small businesses that don't know how to make marketing. Okay? So you create your content, you create your graphics for your social medias, You direct your phone app from app promoting on Facebook ads. We we charge a small fee for those for those for
10:08>> those ads.
Nathan Latka
10:09But, Almer, how many people are using the posting tool already to launch Facebook ads?
Almer Ibarra
10:13>> All those users. All those users.
Nathan Latka
10:14Okay. All users. Exactly. Many how many of them are so when you show them $10 per month, do they say, yes, Almer, I'm ready to pay. And if they say no, why are they saying no?
Almer Ibarra
10:25>> At the moment, no. At the moment, our our users that are using our integration with Facebook ads are your streaming users. So to those freemium users, we charge a small fee. That is $2 for every for every ad content.
Nathan Latka
10:39Okay? You have revenue right now?
Almer Ibarra
10:41>> No. At the moment, no. This is a feature that we're working on. Okay? It's a feature we're working right now.
Nathan Latka
10:47So, Almer, you're you're missing my question. My question is how do you take your active users that are using your tool that allows them to post images to Facebook ads? Right? When when do you plan? It sounds like they're using it. When do you plan to say, you can't use this anymore unless you start paying $10 per month?
Almer Ibarra
11:04>> Yeah. Is we I plan to do that when there is alert that the user starts to promote more on our application. I can say
Nathan Latka
11:15How many posts do you wanna see them making per month before you ask them to pay?
Almer Ibarra
11:19>> I mean, the the frequency where they make some posts is one a day. Once a day, okay? They make a post once a day and we try to charge a small fee. But if they want to make some more content, I don't know if more famous ads, we charge giving a greater fee. But if they have a plan, the basic plan or the entrepreneur plan that is $10 or $15 we a discount, okay? How about this
11:47>> one? We offer a discount and
11:50>> we have the we have an interaction with the with our gateway, the payment gateway, where you we can also charge less.
Solo Founder Working a Day Job
Nathan Latka
12:01And Almer, we're almost we're almost at a time here. So I wanna get more of your story. Are you are you a single founder here or do you have a co founder?
Almer Ibarra
12:06>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm a I'm a single founder.
Nathan Latka
12:08Does it just you right now working on the company or do you have a team?
Almer Ibarra
12:11>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right now, I'm working on about a person.
Nathan Latka
12:14That's awesome. And are you in school? What you look young. How old are you?
Almer Ibarra
12:17>> I'm 22. 22.
Nathan Latka
12:1922. So did you drop out of school to do this or what?
Almer Ibarra
12:22>> No. No. Right now, I'm working. I'm a software engineer. I'm a senior software engineer right now.
Nathan Latka
12:27At which company?
Almer Ibarra
12:28>> Quick Quick Help. So
Investor Conversations and Incubator
Nathan Latka
12:30So when do you when do you tell them, hey. I'm getting rich on my side business. I'm gonna quit.
Almer Ibarra
12:35>> I think I don't know. I it could be on six months. I don't know. A year. Because I already start to to piece my right now, have been incubated with founders. I started to piece with some investors. I have a very good networking scale, I can say. But right now, to be honest with you,
13:01>> idea of mine, this company is already I think you have potential. Okay? You have potential,
Rapid Fire: Books, Tools, and Habits
Nathan Latka
13:07but I do too. I mean, we're certainly we're certainly rooting for you. We hope it goes well. But for today, we're out of time. So let's wrap up. Number one, what's your favorite book?
Almer Ibarra
13:17>> My favorite book? It could be The Lean Startup.
Nathan Latka
13:21Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Almer Ibarra
13:24>> My CEO I'm studying. I think it could be Daniel B. Bob.
13:30>> It's it's Rappi.
Nathan Latka
13:31Number two. Is there a number three.
Almer Ibarra
13:33>> What's your favorite online tool for building brisso.io?
13:38>> Firebase.
Nathan Latka
13:40Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Almer Ibarra
13:44>> Sorry?
Nathan Latka
13:45How many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Almer Ibarra
13:48>> Ten hours.
Nathan Latka
13:49Ten. And what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids?
Almer Ibarra
13:51>> Single. Single.
Advice: Take the Risk
Nathan Latka
13:53I figured at 22. Alright. 22 years old. What's something you wish you knew back when you were 20?
Almer Ibarra
14:01>> I think it could be
14:08>> I don't know. I don't know. Okay. I think it could be work on it. Take the risk.
Closing Summary and Outro
Nathan Latka
14:13Guys, take the risk. He launched his own company, brisso.io, which helps ecommerce brands launch their stores faster and also quickly generate content for Facebook ads. He's seeing all 11 of his signups use that product aggressively, hoping to launch a $10 per month paywall here shortly. He's a sole team member right now, work at then working on a SaaS company as a side gig. Hopefully, it takes off. He quits, and he comes up on a year, he
14:34tells us he's a millionaire. We'll see what happens. Almer, thanks for taking us to the top.
Almer Ibarra
14:38>> Thank you. Thank you, Eric.
Nathan Latka
14:40One 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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