Alessio Alionco. He’s the founder and CEO of Pipefy, which is part of 500 Startups. He’s a passionate product manager.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Lean Startup
What CEO do you follow? – Jason Lemkin
Favorite online tool? — Yesware and Salesforce
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Alessio would tell himself to be aggressive with his goals

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:56 – Nathan introduces Alessio to the show
02:12 – Pipefy is a workflow cooperation software
- 02:21 – Alessio got Pipefy’s idea from his previous company
- 02:36 – Alessio uses a CRM to manage Pipefy
- 02:45 – Pipefy has a dozen of processes
03:12 – “We coordinate people’s work”
03:36 – Pipefy provides guidelines for a smooth, business process
03:48 – Pipefy is more of a people coordination solution and Zapier is similar to IFTTT
04:00 – Pipefy charges per user, per month
04:10 – Average customer fee is $200/month
04:20 – Pipefy started at the end of 2014
- 04:26 – Pipefy had its beta
- 04:36 – Pipefy released pre-signups in April 2015
- 04:51 – Pipefy became one of the most voted products of the day
05:23 – There was no revenue in 2015
05:32 – Pipefy started charging in August 2016
05:47 – Pipefy now has more than 400 paying customers
06:00 – Average MRR
06:54 – Pipefy offered a special price for customers who renew their subscriptions
07:00 – Pipefy has more than 60K customers who use them for free
- 07:24 – Only a small portion of the customers converted
- 07:40 – SMBs don’t have business processes in place and aren’t willing to pay for one
- 08:06 – Pipefy wants to focus on companies that are close to being considered enterprise companies
08:42 – Pipefy has raised a seed round of $2.2M
- 08:50 – Some of the investors are Zendesk’s founders, Valour Capital, Redpoint Ventures, FundersClub and AngelList
- 09:06 – Pipefy has raised a total of $2.6M
09:13 – Team size is 33
- 09:32 – 27 are in Brazil and 6 are in San Francisco
- 09:55 – Pipefy is still hiring more people
10:00 – CAC
- 10:30 – Overall CAC is around $900 per company
10:50 – LTV is still hard to predict
11:34 – Pipefy’s per seat pricing
12:10 – Pipefy negotiates deals with companies with over 10K employees
12:33 – 2017 revenue goal
12:50 – “It’s really a huge funnel to raise the seed round”
- 13:00 – The series A dynamic is completely different
13:26 – 2016 total revenue
14:00 – Pipefy is aiming for a $200K MRR which is 10x the growth
16:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The best time to switch to a paid version of your product requires careful consideration to ensure the conversion takes place.
Some SMBs rely on free business software and services for their processes—therefore, you may need to adjust your target audience.
Be aggressive with your goals and just go for it.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

633: Pipefy $2.6M Raised, $50k MRR, Helping 400 Customers Organize Processes with CEO Alessio Alionco

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders