Hitting $10K MRR in less than a year
When Tim and I started Koalify at the end of 2023, we never imagined we’d reach $10K MRR in under a year. As the graph below shows, the real acceleration didn’t come until September 2024, thanks to key improvements in our product and processes. More on those key changes later on 🚀.
Reaching this 5-figure milestone means a lot to us. It validated that we’re building something valuable and gave us the freedom to work full-time on Koalify while supporting our families. Both of us welcomed newborns in 2024, so for those of you with kids, you can imagine how intense it’s been—starting a company and raising a baby with a toddler around 😅.
Why growing with HubSpot?
When we launched Koalify in early 2024, we needed a platform that could provide a 360° view of our customer interactions while enhancing the overall customer experience. We required tools for our website, blog, email marketing, knowledge base, and a CRM to track prospects and customers. HubSpot quickly stood out as the ideal choice, offering the flexibility to manage everything from marketing to sales and service on a single platform.
We knew from the beginning that HubSpot wasn’t the cheapest option, but its ability to scale with us and save time by consolidating multiple tools made it worth the investment. Time is our most valuable resource, and HubSpot enabled us to focus on what truly mattered: creating value for our customers with a better product and educational, insightful content.
And obviously, As a product built for the HubSpot ecosystem, choosing HubSpot was a no-brainer—we needed to drink our own champagne. But even if we weren’t building for HubSpot, we’d still have chosen it for its ease of use and quick implementation. ⚡
Starter Customer Platform
⏰ January - February 2024
💰 19.65/month (235.75 billed annually with a 50% promotional discount)
We began with HubSpot’s free plan for a few weeks in late 2023. To remove HubSpot branding from our emails and website, we upgraded to the Starter Customer Platform early in 2024 as there was a temporary 50% promotion running.
During this phase, we focused on:
- Building our website and hosting our blog: It was my first time using HubSpot's CMS features, but building our website and blog was surprisingly easy. In just a few hours, I had the first version up and running.
- Integrating forms with HubSpot CRM: HubSpot's form builder helped me streamline our lead collection as it was directly integrated with our website and CMS.
- Sending out our first Newsletter: I sent our first unbranded newsletter on March 6th to 70 subscribers, as keeping everyone updated personally was becoming challenging and time consuming.
Adding Service Hub Professional
⏰ March 2024 - September 2024
💰 134.4/month (403.2 billed quarterly with a custom discount for 2 seats)
As our user base grew, so did our need for better support and follow-up tools.
In March, we added Service Hub Professional, and this upgrade was a game changer.
Here’s what we implemented:
- Dedicated Knowledge Base: Initially, our “how-to” content was on our blog, but moving it to our knowledge base significantly improved the user experience.
- Streamlined follow-ups for trial users: I began using HubSpot sequences to manage the growing number of inbound trial installs more efficiently.
- Custom Reporting: Service Hub Professional enabled us to create tailored reports to track installs, sources, and trial conversions directly in HubSpot.
Since we only needed two seats, I negotiated a custom deal with our account manager, which allowed us to upgrade faster than if we’d paid full price for five seats. There are still many features of Service Hub Pro that we’re not using, like tickets, because our support requests are limited and we prefer personal communication with our users to enhance their customer experience.
That said, upgrading to Service Hub Pro has been well worth the investment. The knowledge base, in particular, has been instrumental in scaling support and onboarding. We’ve incorporated much of this content into our email nurture flows, enabling touchless conversions (more on that later). Since it’s fully integrated with HubSpot CRM, we also gain valuable insights into how trial users interact with our knowledge base articles and videos.
Adding Marketing Hub Professional
⏰ September 2024 - January 2025 (time of writing)
💰 367.10/month (billed monthly with a 75% discount on Marketing Hub Pro)
By the second half of July, our free trial sign-ups had accelerated significantly (+150 per month), and following up through HubSpot sequences was no longer ideal. We needed a more automated way to nurture our new trial sign-ups. Additionally, we were hitting our 1,000 contact limit and would have needed to upgrade to at least 2,000 contacts. This led us to consider upgrading to Marketing Hub Professional.
The list pricing was a too expensive for us at that time so we looked for solutions and found out that we met the criteria for HubSpot for Startups which resulted in a 75% discount on our newly added Marketing Hub Professional.
Here’s how Marketing Hub Professional helped us to grow better:
- Automated Nurture Flows: We replaced manual sequences with automated email workflows, freeing up a lot of time for me personally.
- Trial-to-Paid Conversion Boost: The nurturing flows improved our trial-to-paid conversion rate from about 13%-14% in July and August to over 20% after the implementation of our nurture flow.
- Higher Contact Limits: As our contact database grew, we needed more than the free-tier limit of 1,000 contacts. The upgrade to Marketing Hub Professional came with an extra 1,000 marketing contacts included.
What We’ve Learned Growing or SaaS to $10K MRR on HubSpot
These are my key takeways using HubSpot to grow from $0 to $10K MRR:
1. Less is More
You don’t need to use every feature you purchased. Focus on what improves your customer experience and saves you time. For example, we chose not to use tickets and instead prioritized personalized email communication to maintain a closer connection with users.
2. Understand Before You Automate
Start by learning your customer’s needs and refining your processes before automating. We began with email templates, progressed to HubSpot sequences, and only introduced automated email nurture flows after months of insights and learnings.
3. Knowledge Base as Bottom-of-Funnel Content
Knowledge base articles are invaluable for users who want to understand how things work (like HubSpot Admins or Developers). In 2024, we focused heavily on creating and refining our knowledge base to address this needs. We even reused this content in our nurture flows and in LinkedIn posts.
In conclusion, HubSpot has been a crucial tool in our growth, giving us the solutions to streamline processes, support customers, and scale effectively.
I hope these insights inspire and guide you on your own journey to reaching $10K MRR with HubSpot!