Founder Interview
How Planyard Bootstrapped to $10K-$20K MRR Serving 40 Construction Contractors (Interview with Co-Founder Ekke Uustalu)
- Interview Date
- June 1, 2022
- Interviewee
- Ekke UustaluCo-Founder and CPO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Total Revenue (2021)
Under $200,000
MRR (June 2022)
Between $10,000 and $20,000
Customers (2022)
40
Team Size (2022)
3
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Ekke Uustalu during the interview recorded in June 2022 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Planyard’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Planyard was founded in 2018, with first code written in 2017
- 02The company is fully bootstrapped with no outside capital raised as of June 2022
- 03Total revenue in 2021 was under $200,000
- 04Monthly recurring revenue at interview time was between $10,000 and $20,000
- 05The company serves around 40 customers, primarily general contractors
- 06The team consists of 3 co-founders working full time, plus 3 consultant/advisors
- 07Pricing is based on project volume and company revenue, ranging from roughly $10,000 to hundreds of thousands per year
- 08Ekke was considering raising approximately $1 million while aiming to sell under 15% equity
- 09The team is based across Switzerland and Estonia
- 10Planyard uses project-based pricing, with customers often starting on one or two projects before expanding
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2018 | Founder interview, June 2022 |
| Total Revenue (2021) | Under $200,000 | Founder interview, June 2022 |
| MRR (June 2022) | Between $10,000 and $20,000 | Founder interview, June 2022 |
| Customers (2022) | 40 | Founder interview, June 2022 |
| Team Size (Full-Time Co-Founders) (2022) | 3 | Founder interview, June 2022 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Planyard generated under $200,000 in total revenue in 2021. At the time of the interview in June 2022, the company was doing between $10,000 and $20,000 per month in recurring revenue, reflecting steady growth from a very small base in 2018.
Customers
The company had around 40 customers at interview time, primarily general contractors. Customers are onboarded on a project-by-project basis, meaning many are in the process of expanding their usage as they bring more projects onto the platform.
Team
Planyard operates with just 3 full-time co-founders and 3 part-time consultant/advisors. Earlier in the company's history the team was larger, but several employees left for opportunities at larger tech companies during the bootstrapped growth phase.
Funding and Profitability
The company is fully bootstrapped and has sustained itself on customer revenues since 2017. At the time of the interview, Ekke was considering raising approximately $1 million in outside capital to accelerate hiring and product development, while aiming to give away less than 15% equity.
Growth Strategy
Early Customer Validation Before Building
Planyard secured a willing paying customer before writing significant code, using early customer interest to validate the problem and fund initial development. This approach helped the team avoid building features nobody wanted.
Project-Based Pricing Model
Rather than charging a flat subscription, Planyard experimented with pricing tied to the number and size of construction projects on the platform. This allowed them to land customers at a lower initial price and expand revenue as customers brought more projects on board.
Targeting General Contractors with Large Projects
The company focused on main and general contractors whose projects span years and involve large sums, as these customers have the most acute need for profitability forecasting and the most to lose from poor visibility.
Capital Efficiency Through Bootstrapping
By remaining bootstrapped, the team kept costs extremely low, relying on a small founding team and part-time advisors. This forced discipline around which customers and features to prioritize.
International Expansion as a Growth Signal
Ekke noted that reaching customers on new continents and in new countries was a meaningful milestone for the team, suggesting that geographic expansion was an active part of their growth approach even at an early stage.
Best Quotes
“I think it's around 40 customers, forty, fifty customers, something in that range.”
“So we're now actually only three people again, so we didn't raise money. We're in the process of probably raising money soon. We are three co founders, and we have three, let's say, I don't know how to give a title, a consultant/advisors also on board who work with us.”
“Let's say that is the ideal case. Our pricing, we're really in the process of figuring out the pricing. So, construction is kind of a periodical business, and we have been experimenting with kind of project based pricing. They bring on one of the projects that they start on the platform, but not the past ongoing ones. So, many of the customers are in the process of, let's say, upgrading. So, they're not that the potential revenue is the number I told you. Like at the moment, they have a lower number because they just have one or two or three projects.”
“Between 10 and 20. Yep.”
“under 200. Okay. Around that. But I mean, it's growing all the time and between I mean, yeah, since it's smaller numbers, it's easy to double or triple them every year, but I'll put it at some point, but yeah, something in that range.”
“It's slower, right? We are not at the point to hire people. We have a lot of problems the customers are having. Basically, we have mock ups of validated solutions. In most cases, know where to go, but it's just we cannot do it with the three of us. It's just too slow.”
“I think think around a million or so. But also, we wanna keep the percentage low that we give away, but we'll see with the first round how realistic it is.”
“We we have a very international client base, every kind of new continent or or country we achieve, I think those are even more somehow fulfilling than maybe the first customer almost, if I'm honest.”
What Happened Next
This page captures Planyard as it stood in June 2022, when the company had around 40 customers, a team of 3 co-founders, and monthly recurring revenue between $10,000 and $20,000. Ekke was weighing a first outside raise of approximately $1 million to accelerate growth. For current revenue, customer count, and funding status, visit the live Planyard company profile on GetLatka.
View Planyard’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Background
- 0:18How Ekke Came to Construction Software
- 0:45Who Planyard Serves and What They Get
- 1:34Pricing Model and Value Metric
- 6:18Company Founding and First Customer
- 7:26Bootstrapping and Team Growth
- 7:58Current Customer Count
- 8:11Team Size and Structure
- 9:18Revenue and Pricing Reality
- 9:592021 Annual Revenue
- 10:38Revenue in First Year of Business
- 11:35Why Consider Raising Capital Now
- 12:05Target Raise and Equity
- 12:47Famous Five and Closing
Introduction and Background
Nathan Latka
00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Ekke Uustalu. He's the co founder of Planyard with background in B2B software and cybersecurity, now tackling profitability and forecasting in larger construction companies to make sure they don't go out of business due to insufficient visibility. Follow along at planyard.com. Ekke, you ready to take us to the top?
Ekke Uustalu
00:17>> Yes, let's go.
How Ekke Came to Construction Software
Nathan Latka
00:18All right. Now, you come from construction or did you come from finance?
Ekke Uustalu
00:23>> My background is IT, so software engineering and cybersecurity, basically we had friends and acquaintances who are in the construction industry and the pain that we got with our whole team, like from our acquaintances, the pain that we felt in the industry, we just decided to tackle the problem.
Who Planyard Serves and What They Get
Nathan Latka
00:45Interesting. So tell me sort of about a customer that's sort of paying you today and what they get when they pay you.
Ekke Uustalu
00:50>> So,
00:53>> let's say, main contractors or general contractors usually, they have the biggest problems their projects are the biggest. They often work on projects that take years to complete. That's many millions, often hundreds of millions.
01:09>> They really just don't have any idea what's happening on their project. And there are, of course, software solutions out there, but some of them are so complicated that they are not used in the end and that the companies end up using Excel. So basically, to know whether they are profitable or not, they just do a lot of complicated Excel sheets, make mistakes there. And in the end, many companies go bankrupt because of this.
Pricing Model and Value Metric
Nathan Latka
01:34And so what are these general contractors paying you on average per month to use your technology?
Ekke Uustalu
01:39>> It really varies, right? So it it goes to up to tens of thousands, and some of their customers even we think will go to hundreds of thousands. So it's very... It depends really on the company profile and their revenue and so.
Nathan Latka
01:54You said, sorry, 10... Sort of maybe 10 k per year up to 3... You know, couple 100,000 per year?
Ekke Uustalu
01:58>> Yeah. Depending on the company size. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
02:00I see. And what do you mean by company size? So someone paying you a lot of money. They have more projects, more head count. Like, what's the value metric?
Ekke Uustalu
02:07>> Yeah. So usually it really depends. The companies are run very differently. So some of them have their own forces, some of them have a lot of employees, but some of them just have huge projects. So they're building I don't know, shopping centers worth of hundreds of millions. So, it's really, we as a startup always, pricing is very difficult. So, it's a combination of all of these things basically.
Nathan Latka
02:30Okay. But I imagine when you get in a negotiation with a large general contractor, they say, What's your pricing? You can't sort of say like, we wanna figure out what to price against so that we can make the most amount of money, right? What's like your standard? Is it number of square feet they're constructing in a project? Is it the project value? Is it number of their full time employees? Is it timeline to complete? What's the-
02:47Yeah.
Ekke Uustalu
02:48>> So let's say let's say the biggest one is really the revenue or the volume of the project. And then maybe the head count as well, right? How big the team comes on board.
Nathan Latka
02:56I see. So so it's sort of based off the... Shopping mall is gonna be expensive to build. It's based off the the the price to construct whatever the project is. The bigger the price, the more they pay you.
Ekke Uustalu
03:06>> Exactly. And the more projects, the more awesome.
Nathan Latka
03:09I see. I see. Interesting. Okay. Very cool. And I guess, again, 10 k to, you know, 300 k per year is a massive range. I understand you have people on both sides, but what would you say your sweet spot is? Is it like 100 ks per year?
Ekke Uustalu
03:23>> To be honest, with these bigger companies, are a lot of work. Actually, sweet spot is the lower end because oftentimes then we can really implement the customers very quickly. The very big tickets are a lot of work. That's actually not the sweet spot.
Nathan Latka
03:37Okay.
Ekke Uustalu
03:38>> So somewhere in the lower, medium end rather.
Nathan Latka
03:41So most customers paying $20,000, $30,000 a year then, something like that. Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with SaaS founders. But imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually. Saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this. We've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out.
Ekke Uustalu
04:07>> I'll show you how
Nathan Latka
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05:43we're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but if you wanna check this tool out, if you wanna jump in and sign up, you can check it out for free to get your valuation at this link, this link, founderpath.com/products/valuations. Or if you go to founderpath.com and hover over products, click on get your valuation here, and go ahead and sign up to give it a whirl. Again, all that valuation data live right inside
06:09the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into the interview. Okay. Give us the backstory here. What year did you launch the company?
Company Founding and First Customer
Ekke Uustalu
06:18>> I think when we fully launched, 2018 or so, I would say at some point.
Nathan Latka
06:24When did you write the first line of code though?
Ekke Uustalu
06:27>> Yeah. Maybe like the first time it'd be 2017, we we did some experiments. Right? Some very basic, I think, Google Sheets or like Google presentation mock ups with the customers. But, yeah, somewhere around there. So 2017, 2018.
Nathan Latka
06:42That's awesome. And then how long did it take you to get your first customer?
Ekke Uustalu
06:46>> We had actually... So, we don't do very extensive contracts with our customers, so we try to keep the legal part simple. But we had basically one of the first leads we had was already before we started doing anything. So, we never went into a full on agreement with them, they are a customer, but we never made a contract with them in advance, but they were willing to pay before we did anything. So that shows also how
07:13>> big the problem is. So we can say 2017, basically 2018 from the beginning.
Nathan Latka
07:18That's awesome. That's great. So then, I mean, you able to use their money then to continue growing the business?
Ekke Uustalu
07:23>> Are you able
Nathan Latka
07:24to bootstrap or do you have to raise capital?
Bootstrapping and Team Growth
Ekke Uustalu
07:26>> We are bootstrapped. I mean, yeah, we used the money for various... We had some... We had more kind of employees and the interns working at some point in the beginning, which we used the money for. Because all the founders basically had like side jobs since we're bootstrapped, we needed to do something on the side. So we used money for that. But yeah, I would say the customer, the revenues have made it possible to bootstrap.
Nathan Latka
07:51So that was your first customer 2017. How many customers are you working with now today?
Current Customer Count
Ekke Uustalu
07:58>> I think it's around 40 customers, forty, fifty customers, something in that range.
Nathan Latka
08:04Okay, cool. And then you mentioned early interns and obviously growing the team, trying to be capital efficient. How many folks are on the team full time today?
Team Size and Structure
Ekke Uustalu
08:11>> So it's a complex topic. So we're now actually only three people again, so we didn't raise money. We're in the process of probably raising money soon. We are three co founders, and we have three, let's say, I don't know how to give a title, a consultant/advisors also on board who work with us.
Nathan Latka
08:31Okay.
Ekke Uustalu
08:32>> So many of the people who started with us, it was a long process with bootstrapping, so many of them got very good offers in, let's say, the big equivalent to the big three or whatever startups, or not startups, but the big tech companies, and I understand their decision to go from a slow tech... Slow growing startup to a
Nathan Latka
08:51tech Do you do you and your three co founders? Do you own the equals amount of equity? It's 33, 33, 33?
Ekke Uustalu
08:57>> It's pretty close to that. There's a slight deviance, but it's basically that.
Nathan Latka
09:01I see. I see. And you guys are all full time. Right? Or are you doing side gigs?
Ekke Uustalu
09:04>> Exactly. Exactly.
Nathan Latka
09:06Full time. So can... I mean, can we take 45 customers, you know, paying on average $20,000 per year? That would put your monthly recurring revenue at, like, $80,000, $90,000 a month or about a million dollar run rate?
Revenue and Pricing Reality
Ekke Uustalu
09:18>> Let's say that is the ideal case. Our pricing, we're really in the process of figuring out the pricing. So, construction is kind of a periodical business, and we have been experimenting with kind of project based pricing. They bring on one of the projects that they start on the platform, but not the past ongoing ones. So, many of the customers are in the process of, let's say, upgrading. So, they're not that the potential revenue is the number
09:46>> I told you. Like at the moment, they have a lower number because they just have one or two or three projects.
Nathan Latka
09:51Okay. Okay.
09:52So what are you guys doing more like, you know, $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a month in revenue?
Ekke Uustalu
09:56>> Exactly. Between 10 and 20. Yep.
2021 Annual Revenue
Nathan Latka
09:5910 and 20. Okay. That's still nice traction for a three person team. When you look back in in last year in 2021, it sounds like you have maybe recurring revenues, but you also have like project based stuff as well. If you add up your total revenue from last year, what were... What'd you what'd you get above? What'd you beat?
Ekke Uustalu
10:18>> Good question. I think
10:22>> under 200. Okay. Around that. But I mean, it's growing all the time and between I mean, yeah, since it's smaller numbers, it's easy to double or triple them every year, but I'll put it at some point, but yeah, something in that range.
Nathan Latka
10:36That's great. And
Revenue in First Year of Business
Nathan Latka
10:38so if you were doing sort of 200,000 ish in 2021, do you remember what you guys did in your first year of business back in 2018?
Ekke Uustalu
10:49>> Yeah, very little because we... The process... We didn't nail the biggest pain point, I think, right away. So it took us a lot of time to kind of
11:00>> prototype and to test that. So I think it's really in the range of maybe 10, 20, something in that range really.
Nathan Latka
11:07But that must have felt really good, right? Your first thing, getting your first 20 ks of revenue?
Ekke Uustalu
11:12>> For sure. Yeah. I mean, the the... We we have a very international client base, every kind of new continent or or country we achieve, I think those are even more somehow fulfilling than maybe the first customer almost, if I'm honest.
Nathan Latka
11:25Now you mentioned, you sort of hinted that you might be considering a raise right now. Why would you do that when you've bootstrapped so far and had some success?
Why Consider Raising Capital Now
Ekke Uustalu
11:35>> It's slower, right? We are not at the point to hire people. We have a lot of problems the customers are having. Basically, we have mock ups of validated solutions. In
11:50>> most cases, know where to go, but it's just we cannot do it with the three of us.
11:55>> It's just too slow.
Nathan Latka
11:56Yep. Yep. No. Understood. Makes a lot of sense. If you did go and raise capital, how much do you try and target?
Target Raise and Equity
Ekke Uustalu
12:05>> I think think around a million or so. But also, we wanna keep the percentage low that we give away, but we'll see with the first round how realistic it is.
Nathan Latka
12:17What do you wanna keep it under in terms of how much you have to sell?
Ekke Uustalu
12:21>> I mean, as little as possible. So under 10%, 50% would be ideal, but I don't think it's realistic. So we'll have to see how it is.
Nathan Latka
12:29Yeah. It's tough right now to raise capital. Obviously, really tough environment. So where are you based?
Ekke Uustalu
12:34>> So we are... I'm living in Switzerland, but the... All of the team is from Estonia. So it's very close to the... To a very, very, very good neighbor. So it's it's a bit tricky now with the with the discussions that we've had.
Famous Five and Closing
Nathan Latka
12:47We should celebrate, obviously, getting past $202,150,000 bucks in revenue. That's not an easy thing to do. So we're certainly rooting for you. But in the meantime, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, favorite business book?
Ekke Uustalu
13:00>> Predictable Revenue.
Nathan Latka
13:02Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Ekke Uustalu
13:09>> Yes.
13:11>> There's one guy,
13:15>> he's doing like a payment thing. On LinkedIn, he has very, let's say, he's American, he's a very socialist. I don't remember his name.
Nathan Latka
13:25I think you're thinking about Gravity Payments, Founder with the Long Hair.
Ekke Uustalu
13:28>> Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
13:29Number three, what Sorry.
13:32What's your what's your favorite online tool for building Planyard?
Ekke Uustalu
13:37>> I mean, for engineering side, it's Google Cloud, but
13:42>> but let's say, actually, yeah, Google
13:47>> Google Presentation tool to make very simple mock ups.
Nathan Latka
13:50Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Ekke Uustalu
13:53>> As much as possible. Eight, nine, ten.
Nathan Latka
13:56Okay. Good. And situation, married, single, kids?
Ekke Uustalu
14:03>> Between single and married, let's say.
Nathan Latka
14:05Okay. Not not married. Okay. No kids?
Ekke Uustalu
14:07>> Not married yet. No kids.
Nathan Latka
14:09Okay. And how old are you?
Ekke Uustalu
14:11>> 30.
Nathan Latka
14:12Alright. Ekke, last question here. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.
Ekke Uustalu
14:21>> Always ask questions.
Nathan Latka
14:23Guys, there you have it. Planyard.com launched because he had friends that were having issues forecasting their construction projects launched in First Code in 2017, first customer 2017, right when they started basically, they had a customer pre launch. They passed call it $20,000 of revenue in 2018. They did around 200 last year, now doing between 10 and $20,000 a month in revenue with a team of three. So pretty darn capital efficient. Bootstrap today serving 45 customers. Those
14:48customers are usually general contractors that use Planyard to plan their construction projects. Looking potentially right now at raising some capital, would like to sell something between 10% and 15% of the business for around a million bucks. We'll see what he decides. But, Ekke, in the meantime, thanks for taking us to the top.
Ekke Uustalu
15:02>> Thank you.
Nathan Latka
15:04One 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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16:13up for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people.
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