François de Kerret believes Zeffy could have reached profitability after one round
François de Kerret · After I passed, this startup grew 30x in 3 years to $10M+ ARR. Here's how he did it—& what I miss... · PMF Show · Nov 28, 2024 · at 28:37
François de Kerret is the co-founder of Zeffy, a non-profit fundraising platform that stopped raising outside venture capital after becoming profitable.
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“Probably I wish we could probably even have done it after one round if we were more serious in this focus.”
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More from François de Kerret
Zeffy's zero-fee model prevents incumbent copying due to their high-margin addiction
“Other fundraising platforms are structured with higher cost and sales motion. They have a higher margin on each non-profit, so they do more money on the fundraising, but it's also, I think, An addiction because now they are structured with higher costs, more s…”
Raising unneeded capital distracts founders and risks adding misaligned board members
“It's actually a very conservative strategy because you'll take this money that you don't need, so you're preventing a risk that you don't know is necessary. But you do two things. First, as a founder and funding team, you spend a lot of time raising money and …”
Zeffy exclusively hires inexperienced fresh graduates to maximize their learning curves
“For junior, we like them to be just out of university. So the more junior is the role, the less experience we want because we want to Get them at a role where they will learn as much as they will bring. So maybe it's not really clear how I'm saying this, but i…”
François de Kerret: Zeffy's tip-based model thrives in North America's tipping culture
“And we thought, okay, but if it works in Europe, where people leave maybe one euro for a 200 euros meal here in Quebec and in America, it will work for sure. And it's exactly what nonprofits are asking for, a free platform.”
Zeffy acquired 30,000 non-profits by scaling Google Ads to $500,000 monthly
“And those three years, well, a lot of things happened that if I'm summarizing, we just scaled Google Ads from 5000 dollars a month to half a million a month, and it just brought traction and 30,000 non-profits.”
Pre-seed founders should seek advice from Seed founders, not Series D veterans
“When you're pre-seed, just spending time with seed or series A founder to understand how they build their motions. And I will spend more time with them and less time with, I don't know, series D advisors, outstanding advisors who don't really know this.”