How Zety Grew Around 300% a Year to About a $10M Run Rate by Its 2019 Sale (Interview with Co-Founder Kuba Koziej)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey guys, my guest today is Kuba Koziej. He is building a company called Bold, which he sold... Sorry, but called Zety, which he sold to Bold in 2019. Prior to that, was co founder and CEO of interviewme.pl and also ResumeLab. Kuba, you ready to get started?

Kuba Koziej

00:15Sure. Excited to be here and thanks for having me, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

00:18You bet. So just to be clear, what is the current project you're working on right now? Is it Zety inside of Bold?

Kuba Koziej

00:26Yeah. Like, Bold pretty much our mother company. So we basically have a portfolio of website and a portfolio of products for job seekers. So back in the day, we started InterviewMe and Zety.

Zety's Launch Year and Early Focus

Nathan Latka

00:44What year was that? When did you launch Zety?

Kuba Koziej

00:46So Zety was launched in 2016, and we focused heavily... We pretty much, like, used the experience that we had building InterviewMe PL, strictly a Polish brand.

Zero to 4 Million Monthly Visitors via SEO

Kuba Koziej

01:03And we

01:06focused on SEO, and we went from zero to almost 4,000,000 users monthly. I mean, actually, visitors. So Zety went through this...

Nathan Latka

01:19In what period of time? Zero to 4,000,000 users. How many years after launch?

Kuba Koziej

01:23Within two years.

Nathan Latka

01:24Got it. So in 2018,

01:26you had 4,000,000 users visiting the site monthly?

Kuba Koziej

01:28Exactly.

Monetization Model: One-Time Fees to SaaS

Nathan Latka

01:29That's great. And how are you monetizing these users?

Kuba Koziej

01:32We basically offer a resume building... Resume Builder as service.

Nathan Latka

01:39And was it a pure play SaaS model or a one time fee?

Kuba Koziej

01:43So back in so back in the day, like, we started as a as a one one time one time state, you know, one one time thing. But but then we moved to to purely a recurring model.

Nathan Latka

01:55When was that? What year was SaaS launched?

Kuba Koziej

01:58So we started, like I said, we started as InterviewMe back in 2015, and Poland is not really used. I mean, now the situation has sort of like changed, But five years ago, like, no one was using

02:14subscription model. So this is why we started as

02:20one time... In the one time fee model. But when we when we moved... When we started at Zety, which was a which is... Which was a global website, we we basically... We operated in a pure SaaS model.

Nathan Latka

02:35So the SaaS model launched in 2016?

Kuba Koziej

02:38Exactly.

Nathan Latka

02:39I see. And and what was that?

Kuba Koziej

02:41On InterviewMe, we introduced it in two thousand two thousand nineteen.

Clarifying the SaaS Launch Timeline

Nathan Latka

02:48Okay. So was it 2016 or 2019 that you launched a recurring model?

Kuba Koziej

02:55On Zety. Zety.com, which is the international... The international site site, like, mainly focused on The US. It was 2016.

Nathan Latka

03:05Got it. And the other one was 2019. I understand. Which of these... Which... You were running both these businesses at the same time?

Kuba Koziej

03:11Yeah.

Funding: $200K VC Investment Through InterviewMe

Nathan Latka

03:12Okay. And and, I mean, did you have investors or how did bootstrap the company?

Kuba Koziej

03:16So so we actually started as a bootstrap company, and then in 2000... At the turn of 2015 and 2016, we had a VC VC investor that basically invested, 200,000... I'm sorry, $200,000.

Nathan Latka

03:31So you so you raised $200,000 in in Zety in 2019?

Kuba Koziej

03:35Uh-huh. We... Yeah. That was InterviewMe back in the day, so, like, we use this we use this money to start zety.com.

Nathan Latka

03:42Okay. Are these... We... To make this more clear for everybody, these are the same company now. Correct? InterviewMe and Zety?

Kuba Koziej

03:47It's basically the same product, but we offer the same product on a bunch of on a on a bunch of different sites. So, like, it's InterviewMe PL in Poland. It's zety.com, which is a global site. And then, you know, in 2020, we started approaching international markets.

Nathan Latka

03:47Okay.

04:05But from an equity perspective, Kuba, because this is very confusing. I'm trying to make it really clear for the audience. From a cap table perspective, it's the same technology. It's the same owners, equity owners.

Kuba Koziej

04:14Yeah.

Nathan Latka

04:14Okay. Got it.

04:15So it's not like four business units and there's different co founders on InterviewMe and there's different co founders on Zety and different people on Bold.

Kuba Koziej

04:22It's all one business, just different brands.

04:24Yeah. Like, so sorry sorry sorry for making for making it confusing. I mean, I think it actually stems from our business model. So, like, we we mostly use search traffic,

04:37which we which we monetize. So in our case, it makes a lot of sense to occupy a lot of real estate in Google, be it organic traffic or or be it paid traffic. So we basically we basically have a lot of different websites for career seekers, but at the end of the day, they use mostly one product.

Nathan Latka

04:37Great.

Revenue in 2016 and Early Growth

Nathan Latka

04:59Let's go back to the early days, because this is impressive. You go from zero to 4,000,000 views, right? So take me back to those early days. Do you remember in the first year that you were in business how much revenue you did back in 2016?

Kuba Koziej

05:09Yeah. Back in 2016, at the time, like, when we when we acquired... When we when we got the investment, it was around, like, $15,000 a month.

Nathan Latka

05:09Okay.

05:21Hold on. You told me about the investment in 2019, I thought.

Kuba Koziej

05:24No. It was two thousand two thousand sixteen. '16. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

05:28Okay. So you're doing $15,000 a month by the end of twenty That's also the that's also the year that you raised the $200,000 of capital.

Kuba Koziej

05:35Yeah. Exactly. And and importantly, that wasn't that wasn't recurring revenue. So it was... So we pretty much, like, had to make this money each and each and every month. Otherwise, we wouldn't be breaking even.

Nathan Latka

05:50And then take me into 2017, one year later. How much revenue did you do in 2017?

Kuba Koziej

05:56I can't give you, like, the exact number, but it was... At that time, like, we were growing at at around, like, 300% a year for the next three years. So 2017, I would say it was around 50 to 60 thousand dollars

Nathan Latka

06:11Still one time stuff?

Kuba Koziej

06:12Yeah.

Nathan Latka

06:13Okay. And that was 50,000 or 60,000 for the whole year or that's what you were doing per month?

Kuba Koziej

06:20Per month.

Nathan Latka

06:21Okay. I see. Got it. And then eventually you switched all this one time stuff over to SaaS and that happened in 2019. Correct?

Kuba Koziej

06:29Yeah. Like, I did make it make it confusing. So, like Yeah. Sorry. Zety used recurring recurring subscriptions pretty much, like, right from the beginning. So so it started being started being very profitable. But then we launched subscriptions on InterviewMe PL, which was the... Which was a Polish site.

Nathan Latka

06:56Okay. I don't I don't think that answers my question. When you're doing 15,000 in year one of one time revenue, you didn't grow 300%, so you're doing 50 or 60,000 per month in 2017 regardless of Zety. Interviewme.com. When did that one time revenue start switching over to SaaS?

Kuba Koziej

07:17On inter... On InterviewMe?

Nathan Latka

07:20It doesn't matter. Kuba, it's all your revenue. This is all your revenue. So Adam, if we talk about every brand, it's gonna get very confusing. I'm just trying to understand when you and your team looked at the revenue and said, know what? There's an opportunity to launch a recurring plan here. We're doing $50,000 a month in one time sales. We're sick of selling new stuff every single month. Let's get some recurring predictable revenue. When was that?

Kuba Koziej

07:39Yeah. Like, I did get the question. But the thing is, like, if we have the same product on two different sites, we use a different business model. So on zety.com, it was recurring revenue right from the beginning, 2017.

07:59On InterviewMe PL, which was a Polish site, we switched to recurring...

Nathan Latka

08:05The $50,000 that you were doing monthly in 2017, that you said is one time stuff, was that Zety or InterviewMe?

Kuba Koziej

08:11Both.

Nathan Latka

08:12Okay. Got it. Got it.

Kuba Koziej

08:13Yeah.

Nathan Latka

08:13So you're combining...

08:14You're giving me numbers that are combined and then trying to split out the business model, which is what's making it confusing.

08:22I'm trying to simplify the story here. 50,000 in 2017 across both brands was all one time stuff, correct?

Kuba Koziej

08:28Yeah, like if we want to simplify and let's say it was like $50,000

08:33bucks.

Nathan Latka

08:33Okay. You then transitioned at some point where you were selling more monthly recurring stuff, and it sounds like that was in 2018 and 2019.

Kuba Koziej

08:41Exactly.

Why the Team Switched to Recurring Subscriptions

Nathan Latka

08:42And why why did you make the switch from a founder's perspective? Why go from the one time high volume stuff to the maybe less people paying, but more predictable revenue recurring?

Kuba Koziej

08:53Well, numbers numbers work work for us. So, like, we we started running tests we started running tests on zety.com, and, like, and obviously, we... The number subscriptions went down slightly, but our LTV made up for it massively. So we basically started making like three or four times more money.

Pricing Consolidation to $25 Per Month

Nathan Latka

09:20Yep. So when you did, and looking like at today, for example, the folks that pay you monthly to use these tools that you've built for the market, what are they paying you on average per month? Are we talking like $5 a month or like $500 a month?

Kuba Koziej

09:33So back in the day, like, we had we had three of three plans, five, 10, 15.

09:43We consolidated consolidated them, you know, into 20... Into one plan, which is like $25 per month.

Nathan Latka

09:50And who are the people usually paying for this? I imagine if I paid you to do one resume and then I get a job, I'm gonna stop paying the $25 a month fee. One of your most searched search terms actually is how to cancel my Zety subscription. I I imagine this is a theme you deal with.

Kuba Koziej

10:04Yeah. So

10:07so here's how it works. Like, so like most most of the time, like, when we think of creating creating a resume, like, we think that we will basically create a resume, send it over to the employer, and then all of a sudden we get the job. This is not what happens. And most of the time, like the average time of looking for a job, like, is anything from two up to five, sometimes six months. So during

10:30this period, during this period, like, you should be sending resumes and customizing them for each and every position. So like, so our users basically come back to the platform to make some changes,

10:47customize the resume for...

Nathan Latka

10:49Why do they need you once they get a job is my point?

Kuba Koziej

10:52Once once they get a job, I don't think, like, they need the resume builder to begin with, but now we started offering a bunch of other a bunch of other retention features. So so so trying to to to focus on the on the value that we are providing to the user. Like, what the social cards would be one of them. So it's basically an Internet profile that you can have, something like something similar to LinkedIn profile

11:27that you may have. And it's kind of linked to your resume. So when you send your

11:37social card to an employer, have basic analytics, how many employers are opening your domain.

Conversion Rate and Scale at Acquisition

Nathan Latka

11:44Help me understand scale here, I imagine most of audience are saying, I was curious, you went from zero to 4,000,000 users visiting the site in 2018, but how good were you at converting those users, those eyeballs, into actual paying customers?

Kuba Koziej

11:57Yeah. Like like I said, I wouldn't be able I wouldn't be able to give you to give you specific specific numbers, but we were on a... At the time when we were acquired, we were on a a 10 million dollar run rate.

Nathan Latka

12:12Mhmm. Okay. Got it. So how many paying customers was that back in 2019?

Kuba Koziej

12:16Hundreds of thousands.

Nathan Latka

12:17Hundreds of thousands. What... I guess, a better question might be, what conversion rate were you guys trying to optimize for in terms of unique hits, right, unique users converting into paid? Was it the three, 4%, 5% we typically hear or something higher?

Kuba Koziej

12:30No. It was was it was way lower than that. It was it was around like one per... 1%.

Nathan Latka

12:371%. Interesting. And and I guess that model can work for you. Right? So a lot of people think they have to get up to two, 3%, but you made it work for you.

Kuba Koziej

12:45I think our product requires a very specific business model. So so in a in a a typical SaaS, you get this much higher conversion rate 3 to 4%, and maybe much higher. In our case, we used organic traffic. So that we built this content machine, we basically started targeting each and every person who was at the stage of looking for a job, and we were reaching these people with free content, and that traffic was very...

Nathan Latka

12:45That's right....

Kuba Koziej

12:45Sufficient

13:24for us to build. So even with around 1%, we've been able to... It worked.

Post-Acquisition Growth: Over 100% YoY

Nathan Latka

13:32Yeah. We're running out of time here. Last couple of questions before we wrap up with the famous five. So since you sold in 2019, has growth increased or decreased? What have you grown, like, at percentages fine? So you don't have to give numbers.

Kuba Koziej

13:43Yeah. Massively massive massively increased. I would say, like, we've been... We've still been growing at over at three digits.

Nathan Latka

13:43Got

13:52it. So over a 100% year over year growth since since the sale in 2019.

Kuba Koziej

13:56Yeah.

Nathan Latka

13:56That's great.

Kuba Koziej

13:56I mean... Because all the other brands that that we that we built. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

14:01Yep. Yep. I mean, yeah. And and you just sort of said you you were at a 10,000,000 run rate in 2019. If you have over a 100% year over year growth, that means you break 20,000,000 last year. And if all goes well, maybe you can break 40,000,000 this year. You think you can do it?

Kuba Koziej

14:14I said, like, around. But... And... Yeah. And it's it's you doing the math the math, Nathan. Not me. But... Yeah. Like, I'm...

Kuba's Departure from Bold

Nathan Latka

14:25What gets you excited to stay with the company? I mean, you're a founder. You're a builder. What has Bold done to incentivize you to stick around after the acquisition?

Kuba Koziej

14:31Yeah. It's funny it's funny that you're actually asking this question because we're leaving in about two weeks.

Nathan Latka

14:37Interesting. What's what's next?

Kuba Koziej

14:41Ask me in about six up to twelve months for now. Like, I need to I need to take a bit of a break to explore my curiosity and think about it.

Co-Founders and Cap Table

Nathan Latka

14:50How many co founders did you guys have at Zety before before you sold?

Kuba Koziej

14:54Two.

Nathan Latka

14:54Just two of you guys, and you guys just split it fifty fifty and then you had a $200,000 angel investor?

Kuba Koziej

15:00Nope. It was... We started we started we started with with my idea, so I

15:09had...

Nathan Latka

15:09You had more.

15:10You don't have to say how much more, but you had more.

Kuba Koziej

15:13Yeah.

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

15:14Okay. Fair enough. Good stuff. Let's wrap up here quickly with the famous five. Number one, Kuba, favorite business book?

Kuba Koziej

15:21Well, that actually... Okay. My... I can give you, like, the most recent one. Extreme Ownership.

Nathan Latka

15:28Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Kuba Koziej

15:34The Bezos and Musk.

Nathan Latka

15:36Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building the business?

Kuba Koziej

15:41I started as an SEO guy, so that was... Has been Ahrefs.

Nathan Latka

15:49Favorite... So what's your favorite SEO tool?

Kuba Koziej

15:52Ahrefs.

Nathan Latka

15:53Number three. How many hours of sleep are you getting every night?

Kuba Koziej

15:58It used to be six. I'm trying to get up to eight.

Nathan Latka

16:01And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

Kuba Koziej

16:04Single.

Nathan Latka

16:05And how old are you?

Kuba Koziej

16:0735.

Nathan Latka

16:0835. Kuba, last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Kuba Koziej

16:15Yeah. Travel

16:17more and started started earlier.

Nathan Latka

16:20Guys, Zety was founded to help you build your resumes back in 2016. They only raised 200,000 of outside capital and up scaling to a $10,000,000 run rate in 2019 before selling around there, before selling to Bold. The company continued to grow internally at Bold, over 100% year over year. Kuba is now jumping out, gonna launch his new thing after a six month break. We'll see what he does. Kuba, thanks for taking us to the top.

Kuba Koziej

16:40Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Nathan Latka

16:42Thanks a lot. One 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

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