1/ This weekend marked 7 years since I left my job
@meta
. In numbers:
💰 $3.3m ARR
🙏 583 paying customers
💕 16-person team
✈️ 8 team retreats
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
This was the first year where we didn't grow. Let's unpack 🧵👇
1/ Today marks 3 years since I left my job
@Facebook
. In numbers:
💰 $650,000 ARR
👩🏻💻 1,464 commits
💬 34 investor chats turned down
✈️ 27 cities in 16 countries
💕 5-person team
🎉 3 team retreats
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
1/ Today marks 4 years since I left my job
@Facebook
. In numbers:
💰 $1,180,000 ARR
🙏 760 customers
💬 46 investor chats turned down
💕 9-person team
👩🏻💻 3 remote team hangs
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
1/ Today marks 5(!!) years since I left my job
@facebook
(
@meta
?). In numbers:
💰 $2,200,000 ARR
🙏 1,100 customers
💬 68 investor chats turned down
💕 9-person team
👩🏻💻 8 remote team hangs
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
This week marks 2 years since I left
@Facebook
. In numbers:
⏱ 2,688 productive hours
👩🏻💻 1,129 commits
💬 25 investor chats turned down
✈️ 24 cities in 14 countries
💰 6-figure ARR
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
1/ Today marks 6(!!) years since I left my job
@meta
. In numbers:
💰 $3,500,000 ARR
🙏 607 paying customers
💬 102 investor chats turned down
💕 13-person team
✈️ 6 team retreats
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
The next year ahead is going to be tough 🧵👇
5/ Relationships are built in person and maintained online. Team retreats are valuable time and money spent for remote teams. They’re super fun too 🙃 We’re headed to Prague next!
@cannyHQ
hit $1m ARR last week! Huge milestone for us 😊🎉 I'll probably write a blog post about it. DM/reply if you'd like to hear about something in particular 💕
✅ Bootstrap to $1m ARR
✅ Do it with a small, remote team
✅ Do it without outbound sales
4/ Hobbies are good for the soul. Founders, it’s okay for you to find happiness outside your company. There are many benefits to stepping away and your baby will be just fine 💕
We're officially a team of 5 and they're all cooler than us 😊 I call that a success
Meet the new faces
@cannyHQ
:
Andre, based in Norwich, working on customer success
Dan, a nomad, working on engineering
Elen, based in Tallinn, working on marketing
SO stoked to have you all 😍
2 years ago tomorrow, we launched
@cannyHQ
on
@ProductHunt
2 years ago today, we said "wth, let’s just launch tomorrow"
Still one of the best decisions we’ve made
✅ Solve a problem
✅ Build a MVP, keep it simple
✅ Launch fast, fail fast, learn 🚀
1/ April was the first month
@cannyHQ
grew by over $100k ARR in a single month. It blows my mind that we can basically hire a new person every month moving forward 🤯 With that said, we now have FOUR roles up on tell your friends 💛 roles below 👇
2/ First and foremost, I'm so grateful that we're bootstrapped and profitable. Despite bad times, our bank balance grows each month, we don't have a board looking to fire us (sorry
@sama
😉), and not a single member of our team quit their job.
Overall, things are quite good.
It's been another year since we launched Canny 🤯 I'm so grateful for the team we have and I'm stoked for year four! Here are some things we learned this year 👇
Canny turned 7(!!) recently which is wild. I was really good about doing yearly reviews but year 5 and 6 really just flew by. I'm happy to be back for year 7 so check it out on our blog today 👉
8/ In personal news, after over four years in Toronto,
@a13n
and I are moving to Seattle! Hoping to lay down new roots in early 2024. Seattle friends, say hi! 👋 Emmy will love the emerald city 🌲
12/ It's gonna be a grind but I have no regrets quitting my full time job 6 years ago. Let's get back to it 💪
Twitter may be dying but show some love to the thread!
1/ Today marks 6(!!) years since I left my job
@meta
. In numbers:
💰 $3,500,000 ARR
🙏 607 paying customers
💬 102 investor chats turned down
💕 13-person team
✈️ 6 team retreats
🚀 1 startup,
@cannyHQ
✊ 0 dollars raised
The next year ahead is going to be tough 🧵👇
Happy International Women's day!! Today also marks 6 years since we launched Canny. I’ve been slacking on my year in review blog posts but here are 6 things I’m grateful for 🧵
10/ I considered not posting my yearly update this year. It's tough to say publicly that growth is rough. That said, transparency is a deep part of our culture, and you aren't an open startup if you only share the wins. Huge thank you to all past and current Canny customers 🙏
1/ The last month has been interesting
@cannyHQ
:
💵 March was our record for new revenue by 34%
❌ March was also the worst churn we’ve had in the last 10 months
💪 More churn in April but we’re staying ahead of it
We’re not good at tracking a lot of things but some thoughts:
1/ I wanted to put some thoughts down about
@cannyHQ
hiring our first designer. It’s a huge step for me personally because I’ve been doing all our design for the last 4+ years. I’m nervous but excited about passing on the reins 🥰
2/ This will be the first time we're leading a team through economic hardships. It's scary but we're all the more grateful that Canny is bootstrapped and profitable 💪
Here's what's up:
3/ This year, we almost doubled our team—which blows my mind 🤯 More and more it feels like
@a13n
and I need to step up as leaders. We asked the team for some feedback (positive & negative). Here are some of my takeaways:
@Veinq_
@levelsio
@facebook
@cannyHQ
Thanks! Techhhnically I started working on Canny during my last year at school 😅 but it was quite a different product back then
3/ We changed our pricing around the same time things were taking a turn for the worse. We lost around half our paying customers overnight but more than doubled ARPU.
Here's the industry B2B SaaS growth rate in our MRR range:
5/ I did a lot this year, personally. The highlight being my Twitch stream. The community has blown my mind with support and it really does feel like I have co-workers around the world. If you don’t know about productivity streams, come hang out!
5/ We know teams were priced out by our pricing change last year. While we have a generous Free plan, we think there is room for more features at a lower price point. Stay tuned!
6/ We’ve done a good job at fostering an environment where people aren’t afraid to try and fail at things. I think this is important as some of the best ideas come from taking risks 🔥
Just published our year four in review! 😱 Big themes for us this last year: navigating the pandemic, making better use of our time, and personal highlights 💕 oh and our dog Emmy 😊🐕
11/ I can see why so many successful companies are built during economic downturns. You have to build something truly amazing to succeed. The grind continues! 💪
4/ 9-person team. This was the same number I shared last year but we had several team changes this year. We’re coming to terms with the fact that we’ll always be recruiting for Canny. Speaking of, we’re hiring!
2/ Some thoughts from the year below but TL;DR
1. Cracked $2m ARR, 1k customers, thoughts in new blog post
2. We're hiring
3. I stream on Twitch
4. I started a podcast about myself
4/
1. Last year's ARR was reported at a big spike during a (not so great) pricing change.
2. We feel the impacts from the economy. SaaS is on the chopping block when money is tight.
Here's what we're doing about both those things:
@cannyHQ
has 1,000+ paying customers!! 🎉 We are grateful for all of you! 🙏
1st 250 customers: 2 years 2 months
2nd 250 customers: 1 year 1 month
3rd 250 customers: 7 months
4th 250 customers: 6 months
ARPU is on the up and up too 🙌📈
I'm on another podcast episode! I don't enjoy listening to my own voice so you'll have to tell me what you think 😅 Thanks for having me
@andybaldacci
🙏
6/ A couple weeks ago I decided to start documenting my life in audio format. I wasn’t sure if I was going to publish it but what the heck. I’ve put it up on Patreon because monetizing this will keep me accountable. It’s $2/mo to support my ramblings
I had this post sitting in my drafts for a while. Our opinion has changed a bit since then but the premise is still the same:
❌ Not all big companies are a fit as our customer. Here's why:
3/ Canny did well this year—we cracked $2m ARR and over 1k customers! We didn’t celebrate this publicly but I just published a blog post with some thoughts about moving upmarket
4/ Canny Free means more people using Canny. Especially during this time, we hope we Canny Free is helpful while budgets tighten up.
Thank you to everyone who has been using Canny and sharing Canny! 🙏
happy international women's day to all the wonderful women in my life and happy 7th birthday to
@cannyHQ
! 🥳 currently writing my year in review—coming soon to the blog
👀
7/ We're working to demonstrate how Canny provides an ROI via helping your team be more efficient. read: resources are tighter than ever, make sure people are working on the right things by using Canny.
How bad will the recession be?
After analyzing revenue data from 27.2k companies: it's worse than we thought.
- B2B getting hit hardest since '08
- Consumer $$ tanking
What should you do?
- 6 ways to not lose in recessions
- 4 ways companies win in them
Thread time 🧵
If your team isn't using video for launches, you're missing out! No excuses:
💰 Spent $12 on the props
📱 Filmed on iPhone
☀️ Naturally lit
📹 Edited in-house
🎤 Recorded in-house
🏠 Hosted for free
@wistia
11/ Pre-pandemic, we relied on team retreats for team bonding. We’ve been filling in the gap with online hangs but we can do more to make sure everyone feels connected 🎃
9/ With everything going on, it's even more important for our team to be on the same page. That's why we're still investing in team retreats like our recent one to Mexico City
Canny Autopilot is launching on Monday!! We're chatting all things Autopilot in a webinar on Tuesday, May 14th at 2pm ET 🥳 join us and get some free credits 👉
This week, I'm hosting a charity stream to fundraise for
@projecthopeorg
and their efforts in Ukraine. I am personally donating and Canny will be matching donations to the campaign. We have raised $1,200 so far and counting! Please join us in donating:
7/ We have some big plans for the next year, including a WAY overdue pricing change. We’re hoping to finally reunite on a team retreat and, of course, continue to hit our goals 💪
I'm not going to pretend like things aren't tough right now but we've built a solid foundation these last 6 years and will come out stronger on the other side. Sending energy to all of you! 💪
Such a fun chat with
@GuillaumeMbh
talking about getting customers, pricing, feedback, and more 🤩 Love what him and the team are doing featuring bootstrapped companies like ours 🥰🚀
12/ Overwhelmingly the team thought we could take more time off 😅 I find it hard to detach myself but people notice when I’m stressed—which isn’t good for anyone. Maybe I just need to hide it better 😉
5/ People feel like they have a seat at the table 🙋🏻♀️ I love this but I’m also wary about this changing as we scale. Growing the team slowly will help.
@cannyHQ
’s roadmap prioritization features are officially leaving beta today! 🔥 Our team used to prioritize our roadmap in spreadsheets. It worked alright until it didn’t.
I wrote this post about how we prioritize
@cannyHQ
today 👇