How systeme.io CEO Aurelian Amacker grew to $20.1M revenue and 8K customers in 2024.

hey folks my guest today is aurelian omaker he's building a tool called system dot io it's a click funnels alternative aurelion you're ready to take it to the top sure let's go all right well look i'm i'm glad you're on i'm looking forward to this click funnel is obviously in a very hot space so help me understand what you're doing how are you different so we are an all-in-one marketing platform for entrepreneurs creators so we don't have only the sales funnels we have the email marketing tool we have the membership side we have the affiliate program management and actually we use our own tool to power our entire business and uh today we do over 400 000 uh dollars in revenue per month oh that's incredible when did you launch the business so so i've been sending online courses about web marketing in the french market since 2010 but uh we launched the software system natalio in early 2018 so it's been a little bit over three years okay so 2018 was launched if you're doing 400 000 today in revenue what were you doing exactly a year ago so it was i'd say about half of that like with the because of kovid we got a huge growth in 2020 it was very impressive you know i mean we were doing fine before but it was definitely a very good year for us we grew a hundred percent so we we we grew from 1.5 million euros in revenue to 3 million in revenue you were at 1.5 at the end of 2020 and and now you're at three no no we were at 1.5 at the end of 2019 and we we did 3 millions in revenue in 2020 and this year i think that we're going to do i hope close to five million i'm talking euros right yes that would be close to six million dollars in revenue this year 2021. yep that's great and and you're doing you did 400 000 last month uh yeah a little bit over that like 414 in uh june 2021 yeah that's great so so give me the back story here i mean how did you get your first hundred customers back in 2014 uh you mean 2018. all right 2018 yep yeah no there's no so i because i've been selling online courses since 2010 i had a list of i think at the time it was about like 25 000 people on it and i did the launch by email so i'm an email marketing guy right i sent a lot of emails me too we're the same there awesome so after the launch we had our first i think for it was 400 first customers so it was close to 10 000 euros per month in revenue which was great i wasn't covering the cost but you know what it was nice and uh we kept growing since then so uh it's basically where did you get that list that initial list you sent a mail marge email to where'd you get it oh because i've been selling online courses since 2010 so you know i was so i had a blog i had youtube videos so i'm not really good at youtube videos i stopped quite some time ago i wasn't the best at blogging i wasn't even the best at selling online courses and i guess that's that's why i mean i was about to do between 20 to 30 000 euros per month so i was making you know a nice income but i wasn't the best marketer in the french market but i was like oh maybe i should build a software app because i wasn't happy with the existing tools i felt that there was a need for an alternative you know and and how big was your email list before right when you launched so it was about 25 000 people okay god and again those all came from your courses you're consulting all that yeah really smart okay so you get going now how did you get the initial mvp built are you developer no no i'm not a developer so i really struggle like uh in 2016 and 16 i i lost a year and about 30 000 euros um i i i contracted a company in morocco owned by a french guy customer of my courses it was like oh we can get this this thing built you know it's gonna cost you seven grand i was like seven grand just take it you know but um i mean it was a mess like they had no idea it was horrible so i fired them after quite a while actually uh we even flew to morocco with my wife to meet them in person and they were like uh yeah don't worry it's gonna be fine they were so good at telling me it was gonna it was gonna be fine but so bad at delivering and um yeah i fired them then i struggled i tried many different developers and one day i found a guy on upwork and i could see that i could rely on these guys i was like do you know someone like you and he was like i work with this guy he's good as well so we got him on board we got a third one on board and we built the product in 2017 i moved my business over to our own software so first the email is you know sending the emails uh then the the uh all the payment pages all the pages and then finally the the courses so how many engineers are full-time today so to actually we've just hired our six uh engineers so you know it's not a lot we we've been uh going with only three developers for a while but last year we felt that it was time to um you know add more people to the team so we we've doubled the team in a year and how many total are on the team now today so we have 60 people six zero yes six zero and uh you're gonna tell me oh it's too much you're not making enough revenue right not necessarily but what do they do how many sales people so sales people actually we don't have many because we're in uh you know we're selling to individuals so it's a very uh low touch uh business we do actually we do have uh two sales people but selling our coaching programs in the french market i see how many so you said low rpu what are customers pay per month on average so in the french market it's 32 euros and in the in it's it's weird because in the english market i just found out that it was a lot more it was like 50 more like 50 euros per month i was like wow this is this is crazy and how many customers today so we have 8 000 a little bit over 8 000 paying customers you know your numbers you must you must listen to the show i've been listening to the show for a while since 2015 so i'm glad to be on the show you know you're wow you're an og have you haven't listened to every episode that's like thousands of episodes no no i've not listened to every episode but i've listened to a ton of episodes and you know it's funny because i met you know thrive teams they do like wordpress plugins so i met this their ceo hannah she lives in lisbon just like me in portugal and she was like hey i'm trying to connect with like some startup builders likes as founders you know any and i thought for a while i was like no actually i don't know any it's only because i've been listening to podcasts for years so years and mixergy yeah like i know you've been twice a mixer g and i listened to uh the two interviews so you know i i know my stuff how did i do how would you rate my performance on mixer g no you do great the first time i felt that uh andrew which is a great guy by the way so nice i felt that he was like a bit like aggressive with you because maybe there was like some kind of competition but then in the second interview that was uh for for your book uh it was like oh a lot more friendlier i felt nobody nobody believed that first interview nobody believed that we had 10 million podcast downloads in under a year and a half and that's what he was pushing me on and eventually i said you know what i'm just going to share my screen and show the downloads and he was shocked when i showed him and then then it all was good no i believe you because the show is great i really enjoyed it uh i thought that he was like more greeting you about the the numbers the real numbers of your first business that you sold i was like hey you're right oh yeah you heyo h-e-y-o you'll see i know my stuff you do know your stuff and it's funny because you know we did a book with random house and on page six uh and that was after the interview with mixergy i said you know what i'm sick of people asking me questions about numbers i'm just gonna put my tax return in the book and so my tax return is actually on page six for my first sas company in the book and it's the most highlighted uh it's the most highlighted page in kindle for the book so there you go yeah all right so you're killing it 8 000 customers are you profitable yeah actually uh yeah we are like very profitable i mean uh um i'm like my financial goal is to make a hundred thousand you know uh euros per month and um i'm getting close to that so yeah i'm very happy so of 400 000 a month in revenue how much do you take the bottom line is profit yeah so today it's about it's between 80 and 100. and what do you do with that money you just let it sit in a bank account or how do you invest it yeah it's a good question so actually we bought our dream house um six months ago with my wife uh so it was it was 1.5 million i mean 1.4 and uh we had a down payment but we still had close to 1 million so because i think that's there is so much cash in the world you know like everything is overpriced you look at you know the the stock market and everything so i just i would prefer like pay up the house in two or three years and invest a little bit between stock market and i don't know that's smart and do you own 100 of the business yeah so no no investors no stock option pool for employees you're a 100 owner yeah absolutely i love that now would you sell the business today if someone off what you're doing five minutes if someone offered you 20 million all cash up front today do you sell no no way i mean it's crazy people ask me all the time like hey what's your experience i'm like i i don't have any exit i love what i do uh i want to take this business to i don't know 20 30 40 50 millions in revenue um you know look i love i love the ambition i think that's great so just to be clear i imagine that you have vcs reaching out what's the highest valuation you've turned down no so actually uh like i avoid posting on indie hacker because i know the next week i'm gonna get two or three emails hey aurelien you know i'm a big fan of yours i've been following you and stuff so at the beginning i was of course i'm flattered you know it's great but i tell them right from the beginning guys i'm not looking to raise any money because i know that if we start talking then you know i mean there is no no point so i just turn it down that's it okay fair enough good stuff all right talking about churn is the product sticky so we have a high churn uh it was like nine to ten percent now we've got uh lower uh it's getting closer to eight percent because we launched a premium plan that was uh three months ago so with freemium because people have more time to actually experience the product the churn goes down uh but i think it's totally normal like i heard noah again saying oh if your return is too high you know fix your product i'm like no that's our market you know we're selling to you know bob and john and is that eight percent turned monthly or annually it is it is and it's high but i think that is it monthly or annual it's monthly oh wow okay got it so you're churning almost you're 100 of your base almost every year yeah so actually you say this all the time and actually it's it's not how it works because uh so churn is high but i mean sure if it really happens uh we're not gonna lose eight times twelve uh percent of the people in a year we're not going to be left because it's gonna be like first one eight percent and single month like seven percent and third month like six percent so the churn is not and it's to turn across our entire uh customer base but churn is a lot higher uh with new customers but we have people who have been with us for a year or two and these guys yeah or not it's a really good it's a really good point you have a wide top of funnel you get a lot of trials so of course a lot of trials are going to churn in the first month or two but once they stick past four or five months the churn should drop so when you start looking at customers that have been with you for more than six months which turn monthly then no i don't have this kind of data i just know it because i i see our customers you know they've been with us for a while and i know our customers because i've been sending online courses to these guys for 10 years you know and like they want to start online business tomorrow they're gonna try to invest in real estate you know or learn the guitar you know and maybe they'll come back later you know that's that's fine what are you paying to get new customers oh so we are so 70 of our sales come from our affiliate program we pay our affiliates over 100 000 us dollars per month so we pay 40 lifetime commissions to our affiliates how many affiliates made at least 10 last month oh that's a good question actually so um so it must be about i'd say 600. how did you recruit 600 affiliates is it just because you pay out so much no it's over time like you know it's word of mouth obviously the customers that i guess some of them you know refer around them to earn some affiliate commission so it's really of over time so in the french market we have a lot of affiliates promoting us and in the english market now we we're trying to you know build this up and we have some affiliates who have made so far like three thousand five thousand dollars you know so it's it's and and um so then that's your biggest expense really i mean a hundred thousand bucks a month is your biggest expense yeah yeah interesting okay very cool so affiliates there you've moved your your cac basically from being uh you know you know fixed on your balance sheet to basically variable only if affiliate closes the sale for you which is great uh things are going well what's next for you you don't want to sell you don't want to raise what's the next product you're going to launch no grow this thing you know like start getting some traction in the english market actually it's happening right now it's very exciting we we get like a we we get so many testimonials and people promoting us and noticing we're doing some outreach so just keeping this thing you know and getting to 10 million in revenue then 20 million 30 millions and hopefully get back on your show you know you should you should start using founder path so that i can put put other companies that are email marketing or funnel builders or affiliate programs or video hosting in front of you and you can start buying them with your profits and growing faster how about that could be i mean uh that would be better than you know buying some stocks i guess right there you go i would love that well really and this is great congrats on your growth let's wrap up with the famous five number one favorite book so favorite book uh the truth is i cannot name it uh because i think there is one book that's uh responsible for our success so i'm gonna name the the second one after that would be uh uh i mean the great boot that i've just read it's working backwards by two senior uh former senior executive at amazon you know it was very interesting number two is there a ceo you're following or studying yeah jeff jeff b my man jeff bezos number three number three what's your favorite online tool for building a business besides your own oh that's slack i mean it's amazing we're entirely remote so i can go you know i can go to the beach i can go to the gym whatever and you know faking i'm still working so it's great do you use remote.com to manage your remote employees no i've never heard of it what's that how do you manage like payroll in 20 different countries so it's a mess like my wife handles the payments they have to send invoices so we use time doctor to to track timing but um yeah it's a lot of work oh really you definitely should use remote.com they have a special deal they want to sponsor the show and i said give me a great deal for my people you are one of my people you've been at it for five years so you guys check it out if you have a lot of remote employees and you want to decrease all the stress associated with paying them you know tax burdens ip issues all that try out nathan laca dot com forward slash remote all right aurelien how about that for an organic ad plate and that was pretty smooth right it was perfect how many hours of sleep to get every night like um eight hours eight okay and what's your situation married single kids married one uh four-year-old lawyer wow and how old are you i'm 41. 41. last question what's something you wish you knew when you were 20 that's um i'm not going to believe it you know like uh buckle up guys there you have it get going system dot io they went from 1.5 million in revenue in 2019 to over 4.8 million run rate today they're doing this all bootstrapped 8 000 customers are competing with click funnels most their revenue and their growth have come from affiliates over 600 affiliates made money last month through the program they pay out 100 grand a month right now to their affiliates they are profitable take about 100 grand a month to the bottom line as he reinvests in buying his dream home maybe the stocks one day but having a lot of success really in owns a hundred percent my man thanks for taking us to the top thank you very much natan it was a pleasure one more thing before you go we have a brand new show every thursday at 1 pm central it's called shark tank for sas 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 1 pm central additionally remember these recorded founder interviews go live we release them here on youtube every day at 2 p.m central 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 sas world whether it's an 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