How Qela App Powered a Ukrainian Volunteer Movement to 12,000 App Users and Is Now Launching to Western Nonprofits (Interview with CEO Tamara Tachynska)

Introduction and Overview of Qela App

Nathan Latka

00:00Guys, tomorrow launched an app called qela app, which is helping a very large democratic volunteer group in Ukraine raise hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to support the cause in Ukraine. She says, wow, if this is working so well in Ukraine, I want to take this prototype and create a version to sell to Western nonprofits or nonprofits in Europe. And so she's looking to take this to market at $350 per month with her three co

00:22founders. We will see what happens next so far fueled by a $50,000 loan from a friend and a $50,000 investment and a $10,000 grant as well. Hey, folks, my guest today is Tamara Tajinska. She's building an app called qela, which is and she's doing this because she's a communication strategist and manager from Kyiv, Ukraine. In the past decade, she's been working on various projects from healthcare and politics to education and culture, both in the private and

00:48public sector. Qela is supporters motivation management app. So take your volunteers, take your supporters, how do you engage them? That's what she's working on. Tamara, you ready to take us to the top?

Tamara Tachynska

00:58>> Yeah. Okay,

Nathan Latka

01:00great. Maybe tell us a story right now of a company that's using you to manage their volunteers, their supporters.

Origin Story: From Standalone Prototype to SaaS

Tamara Tachynska

01:09>> Actually, the story of qela app began before full Russian invasion in Ukraine. And before that, it was just standalone solution for one Ukrainian liberal movement. And it was like our prototype. And just before the invasion, we decided to turn this standalone solution into SaaS solution for every democratic community in the world. Unfortunately, the worst posed a bit our work, but we just, you know, pull our thirst together and continue to work. And I'm happy to announce

01:45>> that we are going to launch The US and European market very soon. And what it is about? It is about the revolutionary way to communicate. Leaders and supporters should communicate differently. And the main point is to share the power with supporters, to see them not only like, you know, like your employees, but as your co decision makers, as your shareholders, and so on. This is their main

Nathan Latka

02:19So, to be clear, is this for companies that want to empower employees or this is for organizations that want to empower volunteers and supporters?

Tamara Tachynska

02:28>> It could be both, but mostly and first of all, it's for organizations that want to empower their supporters and volunteers, donors and so

02:36>> on.

Nathan Latka

02:37Okay, so can you maybe name two or three organizations that pay you today?

Tamara Tachynska

02:41>> Actually, it's Ukrainian organization and we are it's not a big of them. So it's it's it I cannot say it's some some movement like democratic acts in Ukraine and some students organization, but it's not like we are launching the market fully. We

Who Qela Serves: Organizations, Volunteers, and Supporters

Nathan Latka

03:01So are you tomorrow? Are you pre revenue? It's okay if you are. Are you pre revenue today?

Tamara Tachynska

03:04>> Yeah. Yeah. Pre revenue. Yeah. We have some mean, we have some tractions, but it's not like a full market presence.

Nathan Latka

03:11So what is traction? How do you define traction today?

Prototype Results: User Growth from 2,000 to 12,000

Tamara Tachynska

03:15>> Actually, we got some, actually the prototype was used for three years. So, it has some results. We saw how much the number of volunteers and supporters increased. For instance, for that organization, it was six times increasing from 2,000 to 12,000 users of the app. And the donation increased, their donation increased and just like from $18,000 to $40,000 per month. So we saw how it worked And after that we got some grants for developing and after that

Nathan Latka

03:56How much?

Grants and Funding Raised

Tamara Tachynska

03:58>> It was €10,000. And after that we raised some like friends and family investment. It was about $100,000 So it allowed us to develop the solution. And now we are like trying to, because in due to the martial law in Ukraine, the political activities in Ukraine stop. So, we cannot just sell it fully in Ukrainian market because it's forbidden to

04:32>> the rally are forbidden and so on. So we have to focus on the market outside of Ukraine and

04:41>> then Understood.

Equity Structure and Co-Founders

Nathan Latka

04:42To When you raise the $100,000 what percent of the company did you sell?

Tamara Tachynska

04:49>> It was not like some of them it's like

04:57>> my friend, we have some specific like

05:04>> agreements on it. It was not like for sharing some some some

Nathan Latka

05:09Tamara, what's the incentive? How did you get this your friend doesn't give you money for free, do they?

Tamara Tachynska

05:15>> It's No, he wants It's it's it is a loan.

Nathan Latka

05:20Oh, okay.

Tamara Tachynska

05:21>> Yeah, it will be like, it's a loan we will

Nathan Latka

05:26So you still own, you still own a 100% of the company then?

Tamara Tachynska

05:30>> No. Another part of this 100 was for 5%. $50,000 was sold for 5%.

Nathan Latka

05:41Okay. And 50 ks was a loan?

Tamara Tachynska

05:43>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

05:44I see. Okay. So then you own 95 percent, the other investor owns 5% and that's the cap table today?

Tamara Tachynska

05:51>> No, I have a co founder. I have a couple of co founders. The major co founder, he is a tech guy. He provides all the infrastructure for the development and all the team and

06:01>> so on.

Nathan Latka

06:02How many co founders do you have?

Tamara Tachynska

06:04>> I have three co founders. Okay. Actually, one of them the tech guy, another one is one of the author of the idea of qela app. And the other one is one of the investor.

Nathan Latka

06:19Oh, 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

06:42your 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

07:06get a different valuation. A VC is gonna pay a different valuation, Private equity firm is different. If you're gonna do a minority sale, that's different. And if you sell the whole business, that's a different valuation. You can see all those when I hover over here, right? So the teal is what a VC would pay. Yellow is what private equity And red is if you sold the whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is

07:28not built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founder share with us on the show. So traction 1,200,000 seed round 3.7 raise. They sold 22% of their business. Go in here and filter by the event. Maybe you only wanna see companies that have sold the whole business. Well, here are a bunch that have been acquired the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're

07:54going out right now and you're raising your seed round. We'll go in here and look at all this recent seed deals that went down, what they raised, what valuation they raised at and what percent that they sold. There's never been a larger dataset of SaaS valuations than what you can get now inside of Founderpath. And we're thrilled to bring it to you. All right, we're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second. But

Pre-Revenue Status and Social Mission in Ukraine

Nathan Latka

08:16if 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 the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into

08:42the interview. Did you guys just split equity evenly at the start or did you guys have to debate that a little bit?

Tamara Tachynska

08:49>> No, we didn't split evenly because it was like, we understood what's impact of each of us.

Nathan Latka

09:00So you kept more, right?

Tamara Tachynska

09:02>> I kept more.

Nathan Latka

09:05That's the way to do it. Okay, very cool. So I guess my question is everyone listening right now is rooting for you. They want this to succeed, but in order for you to build a sustainable application, once the grant money and the $50,000 sort of runs out, you've got to figure out a way to make money on this thing. It sounds like you've added a lot of value to this group that's increased donations. They have thousands

09:26of supporters on your platform. Why haven't you asked them to pay yet?

Why Ukrainian Organizations Use Qela for Free

Tamara Tachynska

09:33>> You know, in Ukraine, you know, volunteering in Ukraine now is saving our country actually. So it's our like social mission. So, we are ready to provide our service for free for some organization if it's like meets our values and it's very, very crucial for, for instance, for surviving our country because volunteering in Ukraine now, now this organization that used our prototype, they are raising like almost $200,000 per month and they've spent this money for supplying Ukrainian

10:09>> army. Anything that needs tactical medicine and so on and so on. So, I believe that some organization all over the world are more like, can afford us more than Ukrainian organization these days.

Nathan Latka

10:27So which country are you going to get your first paying customer from?

Tamara Tachynska

10:31>> I'm looking to, I'm looking for US customers. I'm actually, we are looking for some probably non profitable organizations who are organized some human rights or climate crisis response or some student self government organization. Because I believe that our app allows to again, just build very strong community, very loyal community and a big community and,

11:06>> like teach people to be involved and to keep interest in and retain this interest for very, very long time.

Strategy for Landing First US Paying Customer

Tamara Tachynska

11:13Because we

11:14>> believe we see the problem that a lot of volunteers just quit this volunteering job and they lose interest.

Nathan Latka

11:21But Tamara, how do you convince a US based nonprofit to use your application? Right, like are you going to fly over here and store knock? I mean, are you going to get that first customer?

Tamara Tachynska

11:31>> First of all, I'm going to, we already part of Allianzio Democracy Foundation fellowship at the Fighters for Democracy, so we have some public PR and we have some visibility for, like, for fight for democracy, this is the first one. The second one, I know that a lot of non profits use CRM system, task managers, but they don't work as we do. They just don't communicate with supporters on our way. So, I believe we will improve and

12:11>> we will just try to attract clients.

Nathan Latka

12:16I mean tomorrow, I guess just to be really specific, everybody wants to shine a spotlight obviously on what's happening in Ukraine right now. It's a great time for you to use Western media to promote qela app for free, right? I imagine a headline in the Wall Street Journal, the secret app Ukrainian volunteer organizations are using to raise $2,400,000 annually. And then it's a backlink to qela app, right? Why aren't we seeing that kind of press coming

Media Opportunity and Honest Product Differentiation

Nathan Latka

12:40out?

Tamara Tachynska

12:44>> The difference between the prototype that this organization are using and the our actual product, there is a difference, we add something. So, I want to be like fair, I like to be honest that they are, it's like much more, we are providing that much more solution, much more features in our solution. So it didn't come to my mind to use this

13:13>> a pitch.

Nathan Latka

13:14Well, I found you. I mean, look, I'm gonna do everything we can to promote the heck out of you, but I wanna see you even do more. And I just feel like this is such a great story. And I understand why you don't wanna charge Ukrainian organizations for your software, but I also know you'll be out of business at some point if you can't figure out a way to generate revenue that isn't grant money or loans,

13:31right? And so I wanna see you succeed and sell around the world.

Tamara Tachynska

13:34>> Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. Of course, of course. I think this is like very unusual situation. I never wanted to be like non profit business, yeah. We are for profit, we want to make money and we, but we want to like to create a win win situation. So we want to leave the solution will be affordable for every community.

Pricing Model for Western Market Launch

Nathan Latka

13:58So what's your pricing gonna be? What are gonna launch at?

Tamara Tachynska

14:01>> It will be like, it will depend on the number of users up to 100 users. It will be free just to touch the ground and just how it works Up to from 100 up to 1,000 users, it will cost like $350. So it's not like that much.

14:22And

14:25>> after 1,000 up to 2,050 it will be like $7.50 and after that I believe it will be some customized

Nathan Latka

14:35Got it. Then how many folks are using, like how many unique organizations are using the tool today even if they're free?

Current State: One Prototype Organization

Tamara Tachynska

14:44>> To be honest now, this tool, nobody, because it's like, we are testing it, the new version, the prototypes.

Nathan Latka

14:51Tamara, how many folks are using a prototype?

14:52>> I'm trying to give you some credit right? You have a massive organization in Ukraine using Now you to raise hundreds of

Tamara Tachynska

14:58>> it's just one organization.

Nathan Latka

15:00Okay. Got it. So you've got the one organization that you're powering with the prototype. You're getting the new version together to launch in the West and maybe in Europe to get your first paying customers at hopefully $350 a month.

Tamara Tachynska

15:10>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

15:11All right. On that note, let's wrap up here with The Famous Five Tomorrow. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Tamara Tachynska

15:16>> Oh, it's hard to say.

15:25>> I can say what I'm reading now. Right. I am reading now the Masters of Scale. This is a book about like startups.

Nathan Latka

15:34Of course.

15:35>> Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Tamara Tachynska

15:40Say again, please?

Nathan Latka

15:41>> Is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Tamara Tachynska

15:46>> Actually, I'm

Nathan Latka

15:51You can pass. Yeah. Okay, number three. What's your favorite online tool for building qela app?

Tamara Tachynska

15:58>> Actually, are using now Microsoft Azure tool. This is our platform that we are using for building.

Nathan Latka

16:06>> Understood.

16:07Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Tamara Tachynska

16:11>> How many hours I sleep?

Nathan Latka

16:12Yes.

Tamara Tachynska

16:16>> It depends on sirens alert in Kyiv actually. Are

Nathan Latka

16:20you in Kyiv right now?

Tamara Tachynska

16:22>> Yes, yes.

Nathan Latka

16:23Can we see out your window? Do you have a view? Can you move I the

Tamara Tachynska

16:27>> have a very nice view from my window.

Nathan Latka

16:29Oh, interesting. So are you like West, north, south, East of Kyiv?

Tamara Tachynska

16:33>> It's South Of Kyiv and you can see the stripe on my window which prevents it from crashing from the heat wave if it occurs.

Nathan Latka

16:45Oh, interesting.

Tamara Tachynska

16:46>> So I prefer to sleep eight hours per night.

Famous Five: Books, Tools, and Life in Kyiv

Nathan Latka

16:51Got it. Yeah. Alright. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids?

Tamara Tachynska

16:56>> Single, no kids, but I have a very nice dog.

Nathan Latka

16:59Oh, that's great. Okay. And can I ask how old you are?

Tamara Tachynska

17:02>> I'm almost 40.

Nathan Latka

17:04Okay, so 39 years young. Something, last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Tamara Tachynska

17:11>> Secondly, wish

Nathan Latka

17:12Something you wish you knew when you were 20 years old.

Tamara Tachynska

17:19>> That I will be so brave. That I will be so brave. Yeah, yeah. I know it's that's it for me.

Nathan Latka

17:25Guys tomorrow launched an app called qela app, which is helping a very large democratic volunteer group in Ukraine raise hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to support the cause in Ukraine. She says, wow, if this is working so well in Ukraine, I wanna take this prototype and create a version to sell to Western nonprofits or nonprofits in Europe. And so she's looking to take this to market at $3.50 per month with her three co founders.

17:48We will see what happens next so far fueled by a $50,000 loan from a friend and a $50,000 investment and a $10,000 grant as well. Tamara, thank you for taking us to the top.

Tamara Tachynska

17:59>> Thanks for having me.

Nathan Latka

18:01One 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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