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Founder Interview
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Revenue
$10.8K
Monthly Customers
16
ARPU
$50/month
Gross Churn
0%
AppSumo Codes Sold
3,000
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Emir Atli during the interview recorded in June 2021 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See HockeyStack’s current numbers.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $10.8K | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Monthly Customers | 16 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| ARPU | $50/month | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Gross Churn | 0% | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| AppSumo Codes Sold | 3,000 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| AppSumo Marketplace Revenue Kept | $90,000 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| AppSumo Marketplace Gross Sales | $150,000 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| AppSumo Select Revenue Kept | $40,000 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Lifetime Users (Active Monthly) | 900 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
At interview time HockeyStack was generating approximately $900 per month in monthly recurring revenue from 16 customers each paying $50 per month. The team had also generated $90,000 kept from the AppSumo marketplace and $40,000 kept from the AppSumo select campaign, totaling roughly $130,000 in lifetime deal proceeds before pivoting to focus on monthly revenue.
HockeyStack had 16 monthly paying customers at the time of the interview, all acquired within roughly two months of focusing on monthly recurring revenue. More than 1,000 lifetime deal buyers were also active, with around 900 logging in monthly and 400 logging in weekly.
The company has three co-founders splitting equity equally at 33 percent each. The founders were 18 and 17 years old, and their first full-stack developer was 15 years old. Two founders were dedicated full time to sales and SEO at interview time.
HockeyStack was fully bootstrapped with no outside capital raised. The founders were meeting with investors to learn how the process works but were not actively seeking to raise at the time of the interview.
The team launched on Product Hunt and AppSumo in August 2020, originally to gather data for a product analytics tool. The campaign gained unexpected traction and ultimately generated over $150,000 in gross sales on the marketplace side and a similar amount on the select side, providing both revenue and a large base of users whose feedback shaped the product.
The founders used Apollo to prospect and send cold emails to three target personas: SaaS companies, e-commerce businesses, and agencies. Each founder doing sales was booking 5 to 10 meetings per week after only three weeks of running the outbound motion.
The team was publishing targeted landing pages for specific platforms and use cases, such as analytics for WooCommerce and analytics for e-commerce, to capture high-intent search traffic. These pages were chosen because they are easier to rank for and attract visitors with clear purchase intent.
HockeyStack planned to launch a free survey tool on Product Hunt and other channels with HockeyStack branding embedded, generating backlinks and brand awareness at no paid acquisition cost.
The more than 1,000 AppSumo lifetime users provided ongoing product feedback that the team used to build new features, which in turn made cold outbound and marketing more effective for converting new monthly customers.
“Hockey stack is a web analytics tool that is powerful and simple. So it's a SaaS company. You can create funnels, goals, segments, and get insights with it with no code.”
“So we first started working on analytics in May last year. Like, eight eight months later, this this year in February, we pivoted to HockeyStack, and we started working full time on that, on HockeyStack.”
“We have around, I would say, 15 to around, like, 16 monthly customers who are paying on average $50.50 dollars per month.”
“We launched it on AppSumo in August last year, and we made around $1,000 until February. Then I started working on sales, and we started focusing on hockey stick. And then in one month, we made around $150,000 on AppSumo in sales.”
“We we kept around $9,090,000 dollars.”
“Nine nine hundred of them, like, around around we have around a little bit more than thousand lifetime users. So 900 of them enter hockey stacks dashboard monthly. Around 400 of them enter dashboard weekly, so it's a good number for a lifetime deal.”
“We are using Apollo to prospect and send cold emails. So we are prospecting based on the pain points of different personas. So we have three different personas. One is SaaS, e commerce and agencies.”
“We didn't have any, like, churn yet, but we were on the, like, we are focusing on monthly recurring revenue for the last month month, like, two months or so. So we didn't have any churn right now.”
“It's all bootstrapped. We are not thinking about raising right now, but we are also, like, meeting with investors, but we don't think about raising right now.”
“My co founders are 17, and our first developer, like, full stack developer, is 15 years old. So we want to learn how this works and, like investors reach out to us and just we just want to learn how they work and like, how the meetings go.”
This interview captured HockeyStack at a very early stage in June 2021, when the company had just 16 monthly customers and roughly $900 in monthly recurring revenue after pivoting from a product analytics tool earlier that year. The figures here are a point-in-time snapshot reported by CEO Emir Atli and do not reflect the company's current scale. Visit the HockeyStack company profile on getLatka for the most up-to-date metrics and growth data.
View HockeyStack’s current profile and metrics| Lifetime Users (Active Weekly) | 400 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Total Lifetime Users | 1,000+ | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Monthly Revenue at Interview Time | $900/month | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Cold Outbound Meetings Per Founder Per Week | 5 to 10 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| Co-Founder Equity Split | 33/33/33 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
| AppSumo Pre-Pivot Revenue | $1,000 | Founder interview, June 2021 |
Nathan Latka
00:00Hello, everyone. My guest today is Amir Adli. He's an 18 year old who's passionate about making things people need and use. He's tried a lot of things, going from personalized book boxes to a social media app to solve different problems with his friends, and now growing his first software as a service company, hockeystack.com. Amir, are you ready to take us to top? Yeah. Alright. What is hockey stack, and how do you guys make money?
Emir Atli, CEO
00:21>> Hockey stack is a web analytics tool that is powerful and simple. So it's a SaaS company. You can create funnels, goals, segments, and get insights with it with no code.
Nathan Latka
00:35And and so is this, like, a easier to use version of, like, Mixpanel, would you say, or bare metrics? Or how would you describe it?
Emir Atli, CEO
00:43>> So, like, Mixpanel is more of a, like, product analytics tool. Okusec is focused on web conversions. So it's more of a simplified version of Google Analytics and and, like, a faster way of Hotjar, I would say.
Nathan Latka
00:59Okay. Got it. So a version Google Analytics plus Hotjar put together. And when did you launch the business?
Emir Atli, CEO
01:05>> So it's a little bit complicated because we pivoted from a product analytics tool. So we first started working on analytics in May last year. Like, eight eight months later, this this year in February, we pivoted to HockeyStack, and we started working full time on that, on HockeyStack.
01:25Oh, great. And now who is we? Do you have cofounders?
01:29>> I'm sorry?
01:29Do you have cofounders?
01:31>> Yeah. I have two other cofounders.
01:33Okay. Two co did you how'd you guys split equity?
01:38>> 33. 33. 33.
01:41That's very nice. You guys just said right down the middle.
01:44>> Yeah.
01:47Very cool. Okay. So you split it down the middle. And and how did you decide what to launch with pricing wise? What do you charge for this?
01:55>> So we recently changed the pricing to domain based pricing. So before, it was, like, one one domain, three domain, 10 domains, and unlimited domains. So right now, we are charging it based on domains, number of domains, and page views. We are testing the new pricing model. We also recently changed like, added a new free plan. It's going well right now.
Nathan Latka
02:21And and so when you look at your current customers, what are they paying you per month on average?
Nathan Latka
02:27>> So we have lifetime customers and monthly customers right now. We launched on AppSumo. I would love to let tell you that story too. So we have around, I would say, 15 to around, like, 16 monthly customers who are paying on average $50.50 dollars per month. And we have around
Emir Atli, CEO
02:53>> it was a bit more than thousand lifetime customers.
02:56Okay. Tell me about the AppSumo deal.
02:58>> Uh-huh. So as I mentioned earlier, we we started working on a product analytics tool last year in May. We worked on it for, like, eight months, and during those eight months, we needed an existing data or dataset. So we needed to integrate our product into a SaaS company's product to get some data because the
03:23>> product that we were building was about giving insights about who is converting well and why are they converting, basically. And I contacted the founders, but none of them agreed to integrate the product. It's understandable. But then we launched this hockey stick on Product Hunt and AppSumo to integrate our Product Analytics tool and get some data so that we can build the Product Analytics tool, it wasn't nothing serious. Then it started getting traction on AppSumo and Product
03:55>> Hunt. And we launched it on AppSumo in August last year, and we made around $1,000 until February.
04:05Then thousand?
04:07>> $1,000. Yeah. And then we started I started working on sales, and we started focusing on hockey stick. And then in one month, we made around $150,000 on AppSumo in sales. And then they like, we were on the marketplace side, and then they, like, offered us to, like, be on the select side of my of AppSumo. And then we we were on the select side for another month. So we were on AppSumo for two months. Now it's
04:39>> ended, we are solely focusing on monthly revenue.
04:43So when you were on the marketplace side of AppSumo and you had a $150,000 in sales, how much of that did you get to keep?
04:51>> We we kept around $9,090,000 dollars.
04:55Okay. So you kept it around 90,000 there. And then you moved over to the other side where you did your own exclusive deal. So you weren't in the marketplace anymore. How many did you sell when you were not in the marketplace?
Nathan Latka
05:06>> On the select side, on the front page, we sold the same amount, but we kept only the 30% of the sales. So we made around $40,000, I would say.
05:19Okay. So on the marketplace marketplace side, you made 90,000, and then on the select side, you made 40,000?
05:25>> Yeah.
05:26Okay. And and so how many total buyers did you have from AppSumo?
Emir Atli, CEO
05:31>> I don't know the number, but we sold 3,000 codes.
05:35Okay. 3,000 codes. So now fast forward a couple months. Are those 3,000 folks converting to monthly plans? Are they the users you wanna go build a big company around? Are they good users? How would you how would you analyze them?
05:50>> So nine nine hundred of them, like, around around we have around a little bit more than thousand lifetime users. So 900 of them enter hockey sticks dashboard monthly. Around 400 of them enter dashboard weekly, so it's a good number for a lifetime deal. We are not like they're also they also know that, like, we don't build the product for them because they won't ever convert into a monthly customer. But since we first launched the Epsomo deal,
06:24>> we've like, we added a lot of new features to Akceg, and they were the like, their feedback was the, like, biggest source of inspiration for us. And since then, we really developed the product, and it made the like, our cold outbound and marketing much easier. So it was really beneficial for us.
Nathan Latka
06:46If you if you if you built the updated features based off the feedback from the AppSumo, the thousand AppSumo users, why have only 16 of them, one six, converted into a paid plan? I mean, if you listen to them and built what they wanted, wouldn't a lot of them be converting to paid?
Emir Atli, CEO
07:01>> Do you mean, like, monthly?
07:03Correct.
07:03>> Monthly. Mhmm. So we don't we we haven't offered any, like, monthly plan for lifetime deal customers yet. We are we will test it, I I guess, next week. We will roll out two new features. One is, like, revenue dashboard and one is automatic funnels. We will test it and see how it will go.
07:26Okay. So so you're giving them all the new features for free right now if they have a lifetime deal? Mhmm. But anyone who comes to you new today has to pay $50 a month? Yeah. I see. Okay. How are you outside of AppSumo and Product Hunt, how are you getting new users today?
Nathan Latka
07:43>> Mhmm. So we are doing a lot of SEO and cold outbound. Cold outbound is going well right now. We have been testing it for the last three weeks.
07:54How does that work? Tell me how you outreach with somebody cold. Where do you use? Where do you do it?
07:59>> We are using Apollo to prospect and send cold emails. So we are prospecting based on the pain points of different personas. So we have three different personas. One is SaaS, e commerce and agencies. They all have different pain points for analytics. We are using different templates and adding the pain points in them. And when a template works better than others, we use that template and go forward with that. We book around one of my co founders
08:33>> and me, we are doing it full time right now. We are only doing sales right now and SEO. So we are each booking around five to 10 meetings per week.
08:48>> But we only started, like, three weeks ago, so right now it's starting to work better. And other than that, we are also testing some new tactics. So we are we will launch a new free survey tool next week on product content and everywhere else. So with that tool, it will be free, and we will have a branding, OKISEG branding. We will get backlinks and some brand awareness. Other than that, we are also publishing a lot of
Emir Atli, CEO
09:19>> landing pages for ecommerce and CMS platforms, things like analytics for ecommerce, analytics for WooCommerce, etcetera. It's easier to rank, And it gets, you know, like good traction because the people who are clicking on that are, like, high intent people. So we are also trying a lot of new things to scale the monthly revenue.
09:42This is great. And when people sign up for the $50 month plan, are they sticking, or or have you had any churn yet?
09:50>> We didn't have any, like, churn yet, but we were on the, like, we are focusing on monthly recurring revenue for the last month month, like, two months or so. So we didn't have any churn right now.
10:04>> But, like, I don't know if they will churn.
10:07Yeah. Well, this is great. You've gone from nothing to $900 a month, you know, very quickly in another two months. So it'll be fun to watch what you guys do next. Have you done this all bootstrapped or did you raise capital?
10:20>> It's all bootstrapped. We are not thinking about raising right now, but we are also, like, meeting with investors, but we don't think about raising right now.
10:30Yeah. So why why meet with investors if you're not thinking about raising?
10:36>> Because, like, it's our first, like, SaaS company. My co founders are 17, and our first developer, like, full stack developer, is 15 years old. So we want to learn how this works and, like investors reach out to us and just we just want to learn how they work and like, how the meetings go. So it's just about learning.
Nathan Latka
10:59Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You guys have a great team. I've heard big things for you. I can't wait to watch it. I'm I'm thankful you made time to come on the show. So let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
Emir Atli, CEO
11:11>> Predictable Revenue.
11:12Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
11:16>> Let me see you.
11:18Yum. Yep. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business?
11:23>> Apollo.
11:24Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
11:27>> Around six to seven.
11:29Six to seven. And what's your well, I mean, I usually ask married, single, or kids, but I'm gonna assume that you're not married and you have no kids. Right?
11:36>> Yeah. I live with my friends.
11:38Live with your friends. Okay. Last question. You're 18. So what's something you wish you knew back when you were 10 years old?
Nathan Latka
11:44>> I wish I had, like, I had known that entrepreneurship is really, really hard.
11:50Guys, there you have it. Hockeystack, they got their first revenue growth. The founders that are 15, 16, and 18 got their first growth launching on Product Hunt and AppSumo. They're a simple version of Google Analytics plus Hotjar put together. They now have a couple customers paying $50 a month. They went from nothing to $900 per month in revenue in under two months. They've done it all bootstrapped. We'll see what they do next. Amir, thanks for taking
12:12us to the top.
12:13>> Thank you.
12:16One 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
Emir Atli, CEO
12:40central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM 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 SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big
13:02fundraise, a big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you wanna take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You wanna 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
13:23that at nathanlacka.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. We gotta
13:41push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright. I'll be in the comments.
13:48See you.