Founder Interview
How Postn Launched a Social Content Collaboration SaaS with 70 Free Users and $100/Month in Early Revenue (Interview with CEO Ross Gassman)
- Interview Date
- February 1, 2023
- Interviewee
- Ross GassmanCEO and Co-Founder
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Monthly Revenue (Feb 2023)
$100/month
Free Users (2023)
70
Pricing Per Seat (2023)
$30/month
Team Size (2023)
3
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Ross Gassman during his interview with Nathan Latka in February 2023 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Postn’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Postn launched as a spin-out from Fandium, a charitable fundraising platform with nine to ten employees and $3,000,000 in revenue in the prior year
- 02The entire Postn MVP was built no-code using Bubble by a part-time developer
- 03Three co-founders each put in approximately $1,000, totaling $3,000 in personal capital to start Postn
- 04Postn had 70 free users at the time of the interview, with 3 converting to paid subscriptions
- 05Paying customers are on a $30 per month beta plan, down from a previous $79 per month pro plan
- 06Monthly revenue at interview time was approximately $100 per month
- 07The team is bootstrapping and plans to grow without outside capital for as long as possible
- 08Growth to date has been entirely word-of-mouth
- 09Ross Gassman is 27 years old and based in New York
- 10The product is designed around a kit-based model where each content campaign or artist release gets its own kit
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Revenue (Feb 2023) | $100/month | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Free Users (2023) | 70 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Paying Customers (2023) | 3 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Pricing Per Seat (Beta) (2023) | $30/month | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Previous Pro Plan Price (pre-Feb 2023) | $79/month | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Team Size (2023) | 3 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Co-Founder Capital Invested | $3,000 | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
| Top Growth Channel (2023) | Virality (word-of-mouth) | Founder interview, Feb 2023 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Postn was generating approximately $100 per month in revenue at the time of the interview, with three customers each paying $30 per month on a simplified beta plan. The team had previously offered four pricing tiers at up to $79 per month before consolidating to two tiers for the beta launch.
Customers
Of 70 free users on the platform, three had converted to paid subscriptions. The team's conversion strategy focuses on users managing two or more clients, where the kit-based model creates a natural upsell opportunity.
Team
Postn operates with three co-founders, including Ross Gassman as CEO, an operations-focused COO, and a third co-founder. The MVP was built by a part-time developer using Bubble, keeping initial costs extremely low.
Funding and Bootstrapping
The three co-founders collectively invested $3,000 of their own money to get Postn started. The team plans to bootstrap the business, leveraging revenue from the Fandium operation and avoiding outside capital for as long as possible.
Growth Strategy
Word-of-Mouth and Virality
All early user growth at Postn came through word-of-mouth, with no paid acquisition. Ross credited the organic spread of the tool among music management companies and artists who discovered it through Fandium campaigns.
Internal Dogfooding from Fandium
Postn was built and validated internally at Fandium before being spun out. The team used it to coordinate content publishing for charitable fundraising campaigns with artists and management companies, which gave them direct insight into real user pain points.
Kit-Based Upsell Model
The free kit model lets any user try the product for a single campaign or artist release at no cost. When users manage multiple artists or releases simultaneously, the team pitches them on upgrading to a paid plan that unlocks additional kits.
No-Code Development to Minimize Burn
By building the MVP entirely on Bubble with a part-time developer, the team kept total capital invested to $3,000. Ross cited lessons learned from over-spending at Fandium as the reason for choosing the leanest possible build path.
Bootstrapping with Agency Revenue
Rather than raising outside capital, the team plans to use revenues and learnings from the Fandium business to fund Postn's growth. This approach lets them stay focused on customer feedback and product iteration without investor pressure.
Best Quotes
“So we have nine, ten, and we basically built this product internally as, like, our our our site our developer kind of was building this as well. And we saw this as a tool for us to use, and then we saw a lot of traction from management and them using it for other things, right, as for song releases, for tour announcements, and stuff like that. So we're like, there's gotta be a bigger play here. And that's kind of when we launched postn as its own vertical.”
“So right now, we give everyone a free kit to try. So we have around 70 users, and only right now, only three of them are paying subscription, which is fine. Know, we totally wanna get customer feedback and as many people on post in first.”
“So right now, they did the pro plan, which was 79 before we just changed it 79 a month. Sorry. Before we just change it to 30 as our beta launch. So now they're paying a reduced rate to 30, but previously, we had four tiers, and let's say we said, screw it. Let's simplify it. Make it two tiers for the beta launch.”
“We're gonna bootstrap. We're gonna try to be we try to hustle. I mean, we enjoy all all three of us enjoy that. If we need to bring on some reps here, people, like, we're that's obviously ideal rather than coming out of pocket. But, yeah, we're trying to boot shop to see kind of where it takes us and kinda figure it out as we go.”
“Probably 1,000 each.”
“Yeah. I mean, luckily, through building FanDium, which I'm also the head of product, I've been able to, like, kind of see when we spend too much money and when we could have spent way less just to have an MVP and probably when it worked and we still wanted to spend money. So it's kind of like a second go at let's let's go the basic route as long as possible until we actually have the money to to build it up.”
“No. So it's it's totally separate. Right? So there's two other founders on postn that are running postn as its own thing, and fandium still today its own large business”
What Happened Next
This interview captured Postn at its earliest stage, with just 70 free users and $100 per month in revenue in February 2023. The numbers here reflect what Ross Gassman reported on camera that day and should be read as a point-in-time snapshot of a newly launched product. For current revenue, customer count, and product updates, visit the live Postn company profile on GetLatka.
View Postn’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Host Introduction and Postn Overview
- 0:45Origin Story: From Fandium to Postn
- 2:10Building the MVP Internally at Fandium
- 2:47Postn as a Separate Company and Cap Table
- 3:13Fandium Revenue and Team Size
- 7:00Free Kit Model and 70 Users
- 8:22Pricing: Beta Plan at $30 Per Month
- 9:28Converting Free Users to Paid
- 10:09Bootstrapping Plans and Capital Strategy
- 10:38Co-Founder Investment: $1,000 Each
- 10:58Lessons from Fandium Applied to Postn
- 11:21Famous Five: Books, CEOs, and Tools
- 12:39Closing Recap and Outro
Host Introduction and Postn Overview
Nathan Latka
00:00Launched their SaaS company at their agency. Their agency has nine people that had 3,000,000 revenue last year, launching a 100 campaigns for celebrities, etcetera, helping them raise capital. Postn helps them schedule all the messaging, the social messaging around their fundraising. It spun out as its own separate app. The three cofounders have put in $3,000 so far. They've got 70 users, $30 a month in terms of three customers paying. So doing about a $100 a month right
00:21now in revenue. They're off to the races. I predict these guys will be doing way more revenue, call it, a year from now because they intimately understand their customer problems via what they're learning at the agency. Hey, folks. My guest today is Ross Gassman. He's building a tool called postn. It's a collaboration platform that makes it easy for you, your team, and outside organizations to easily manage content publishing without the distractions of multiple collaboration apps. Ross,
00:42you ready to take us to the top?
Ross Gassman
00:44>> Let's do it.
Origin Story: From Fandium to Postn
Nathan Latka
00:45Alright. Like so many companies, you got this idea from your agency business. Tell us about the agency business. When did you launch it, what's it called?
Ross Gassman
00:52>> Yeah. So well, actually, this comp this company was birthed out of fundraising platform called Fandium, which we started in November 2020. So we do charitable fundraising campaigns with artists, athletes, festivals, venues, and creators. And what we do is partner with them. We create a once in a lifetime experience. So for example, Metallica will do a flyaway to Lollapalooza, VIP, backstage experience, signed item, like crazy experiences. Right? So we work very closely with these management companies, these
01:27>> artists, and people in charge of their content, right, to promote these campaigns. And what we were doing and seeing, you know, we were sharing our contest graphics and messaging and copy and all that through Google Docs, Google Drive, email, and it was just getting out of hand and impossible to kind of track and, you know, remind them to post certain things on the announcement date or last chance. So we're like, there's gotta be an easier way.
01:54>> Right? So
Nathan Latka
01:55Ross, hold on. Before you go forward, so quantify the agency more, what year did you launch the agency?
Ross Gassman
01:59>> So it's it's not technically an agency. It's we launched in November 2020, Fandium.
Nathan Latka
02:04Okay. Perfect. Then And how many people did you have at Fandium before you started writing code for postn?
Building the MVP Internally at Fandium
Ross Gassman
02:10>> So we have nine, ten, and we basically built this product internally as, like, our our our site our developer kind of was building this as well. And we saw this as a tool for us to use, and then we saw a lot of traction from management and them using it for other things, right, as for song releases, for tour announcements, and stuff like that. So we're like, there's gotta be a bigger play here. And that's kind
02:37>> of when we launched postn as its own vertical.
Nathan Latka
02:40And when you say own vertical, does that mean you spun the company out of Fandium? It has its own cap table, or no, it's still inside of Fandium?
Postn as a Separate Company and Cap Table
Ross Gassman
02:47>> No. So it's it's totally separate. Right? So there's two other founders on postn that are running postn as its own thing, and fandium still today its own large business that
Nathan Latka
02:59Are you the founder of fandium?
Ross Gassman
03:01>> I'm a cofounder of both.
Nathan Latka
03:03Nice. Nice. Okay. Yep. And I guess, give me a sense. So you have nine, ten people at Fandium before you launch postn. What does that mean? You guys are doing, like, 5, 6, $800 k a year in revenue on the agency side?
Fandium Revenue and Team Size
Ross Gassman
03:13>> So we do we did about a 100 campaigns last year with around 65 artists. We did 3,000,000 last year.
Nathan Latka
03:24Oh, okay. Yeah.
Ross Gassman
03:26>> So this year
Nathan Latka
03:28With nine people?
Ross Gassman
03:30>> Yeah.
03:32>> So it it was a big year. This year, we're obviously looking to do some more and
Nathan Latka
03:37It's very high revenue per employee. I mean, why even why even deal with a software thing? I mean, you're building a very, very good agency with nine people generating 3,000,000 in revenue.
Ross Gassman
03:46>> Yeah. I mean, we that's a good point. I mean, we thought about that, and it was it was it's been a tool. It has been completely word-of-mouth and that other people have been using, and we've been seeing them have success on it. And we thought that there should be other people that could get some use out of it. And so we decided, obviously, to bring on cofounders that aren't involved in FanDium to help kind of run
04:10>> it.
Nathan Latka
04:11Are they engineers?
Ross Gassman
04:13>> So, no, this was built no code, so we hired a a part time dev to build it. This other our our other cofounder is more of an operations guy, COO, and he's kind of leading the charge on just managing the sales, marketing, and all of that for the platform. Because the product's all built and it works. You know, the MVP works. It's a good, great product. We've gotten good response, but now we just need a little
04:33>> push to get it out there essentially.
Nathan Latka
04:37Oh, 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. I'll show you how you can access this in a second. But you log in, you connect
05:00your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time. You can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founderpath dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna
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Free Kit Model and 70 Users
Nathan Latka
07:00the interview. So there's three cofounders over there, including yourself. Did you guys just split equity evenly at the start or something different?
Ross Gassman
07:07>> Yeah. We split the equity. I mean, we we have a a little vesting period for our newest co founder because we, you know, previous two kind of put a few few bucks in and then spent time building it. So time and time and money, and and, yeah, we had a little vesting six month period, but it's about to hit, and we'll be equal on theirs.
Nathan Latka
07:27Does the does fandium, the agency, earn any have any equity at postn?
Ross Gassman
07:33>> No. Not currently. But Okay. You know, in the future, it depends on what developments happen, whether, like, how much customization is needed for Fandium specifically or, you know the idea is, like, we really keep it separate so don't muddy the waters too much, but that's kind of, like, where it lies now.
Nathan Latka
07:50And as post and pre revenue, do you guys have customers on it already?
Ross Gassman
07:53>> So we offer a free kit. We consider every, like, landing page a kit. Right? So if you want a music release rollout for a single, you create one kit. Right? If you're a record label and you have multiple artists and you wanna create multiple releases, then you're gonna have to get more you're gonna have to get as many kits as you have artists. So right now, we give everyone a free kit to try. So we have
08:19>> around 70 users,
Pricing: Beta Plan at $30 Per Month
Ross Gassman
08:22>> and only right now, only three of them are paying subscription, which is fine. Know, we totally wanna get customer feedback and as many people on post in first. I know. But, you know, we're really looking to launch and and really get some more subscribers this month.
Nathan Latka
08:41That's great. So 70 folks with a free kit, three converted paid. What are those three paying per month on average?
Ross Gassman
08:47>> So right now, they did the pro plan, which was 79 before we just changed it 79 a month. Sorry. Before we just change it to 30 as our beta launch. So now they're paying a reduced rate to 30, but previously, we had four tiers, and let's say we said, screw it. Let's simplify it. Make it two tiers for the beta launch.
Nathan Latka
09:08So three customers paying about $30 a month. You're doing about a $100 a month right now in revenue. Right?
Ross Gassman
09:12>> Yep.
Nathan Latka
09:13Gotta start somewhere. Right? The only the only way to build a $100,000,000 business is to start with a $100 a month. You know?
Ross Gassman
09:17>> There we go.
Nathan Latka
09:19Alright. Very cool. How are you converting them? Right? You got 70 users for free. What are you looking for in their usage behaviors to understand when to sell them a paid plan?
Converting Free Users to Paid
Ross Gassman
09:28>> Like I like I mentioned, I mean, if they're a smaller freelancer and they're managing one client, like, hey. Do take the free kit, you know, use that as much as you'd like. It's really kinda where we go to more of the they have two to 10 clients where we try to sell them on. Right? Like I mentioned, the record label example, if they have four artists and they all have releases coming out within the same time
09:50>> frame, they're gonna need to create four different kits. So that's kind of when we, like, push them, hey. If you enjoyed this free kit for this rollout, like, let's expand it. And, basically, each artist will have their own folder. You know, they would have their own kits, and you can kind of, like, organize it like like that stack.
Bootstrapping Plans and Capital Strategy
Nathan Latka
10:09That's great. Now just to confirm again, three people full time right now, just the cofounders on the on the app?
Ross Gassman
10:14>> Correct. Yep.
Nathan Latka
10:15Yep. Yep. Very cool. Any plans to raise capital? Are you gonna just bootstrap with agency revenues?
Ross Gassman
10:20>> We're gonna bootstrap. We're gonna try to be we try to hustle. I mean, we enjoy all all three of us enjoy that. If we need to bring on some reps here, people, like, we're that's obviously ideal rather than coming out of pocket. But, yeah, we're trying to boot shop to see kind of where it takes us and kinda figure it out as we go.
Co-Founder Investment: $1,000 Each
Nathan Latka
10:38Ross, how much money have you guys put in personally just to get it started?
Ross Gassman
10:43>> Probably 1,000 each.
Nathan Latka
10:44Okay. Crazy.
10:46Oh, yeah. It's enough they have skin in the game, but not not crazy. So that's good. I've heard people put, you know, $250,000 into MVP, and they don't have any paying customers yet. So you guys have done this no code, $3,000, and you already have a $100 a month in revenue. We'll see what happens happen next.
Lessons from Fandium Applied to Postn
Ross Gassman
10:58>> Yeah. I mean, luckily, through building FanDium, which I'm also the head of product, I've been able to, like, kind of see when we spend too much money and when we could have spent way less just to have an MVP and probably when it worked and we still wanted to spend money. So it's kind of like a second go at let's let's go the basic route as long as possible until we actually have the money to to
11:20>> build it up.
Famous Five: Books, CEOs, and Tools
Nathan Latka
11:21That's awesome, man. Hey. We're out of time. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, your favorite book.
Ross Gassman
11:27>> Favorite book? Can I give you a favorite pod? Sure. 20 VC with Harry Stebbings.
11:34>> That's good.
Nathan Latka
11:35Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Ross Gassman
11:39>> CEO, I'm following or studying. It actually happens to be my cousin who just recently bought is the largest Auntie Anne's franchisee owner, and he's my idol in the business world. So he's you know, his name's Kevin Bush at Fresh Dining Concepts.
Nathan Latka
11:55That's awesome. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building postn?
Ross Gassman
12:01>> Online tool for building postn Bubble.
12:03>> Yep.
Nathan Latka
12:04So is Bubble it's I was gonna say no code tool.
12:05Is the whole thing built on Bubble?
Ross Gassman
12:07>> Yep. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
12:08Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Ross Gassman
12:11>> I get around seven.
Nathan Latka
12:12Okay. And situation, married, single, kids?
Ross Gassman
12:14>> Single, girlfriend, live together in New York.
Nathan Latka
12:18How many kids? Or or sorry. No kids, I assume?
Ross Gassman
12:21>> No kids.
Nathan Latka
12:22Alright. How and how old are you, Ross?
Ross Gassman
12:24>> 27.
12:25>> 27. Last question.
Nathan Latka
12:26Something you wish you knew when you were 20.
Ross Gassman
12:29>> Something
12:31>> I wish I knew was 20. You're you get, like, the whole new perspective on life after college.
Closing Recap and Outro
Ross Gassman
12:39It's a
12:39>> it's like a rebirth.
Nathan Latka
12:42Guys, there you have it. Watch out for this guy. They launched their SaaS company at their agency. Their agency has nine people that had 3,000,000 revenue last year, launching a 100 campaigns for celebrities, etcetera, helping them raise capital. Postn helps them schedule all the messaging, the social messaging around their fundraising. It's spun out as its own separate app. The three co founders have put in $3,000 so far. They've got 70 users, $30 a month in terms
13:03of three customers paying. So doing about a $100 a month right now in revenue. They're off to the races. I predict these guys will be doing way more revenue, call it, a year from now because they intimately understand their customer problems via what they're learning at the agency. Watch out for Ross. Ross, thanks for taking us to the top. One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called
13:21Shark 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 Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM
13:47Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally,
14:09if you want to take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign up for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in
14:31the 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. We got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate
14:48your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments.
14:51See you.