Oct 4, 2021 · 19m · top-founders
TakeTask is Clickup for Deskless Workers Grows 80% to $2m ARR
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this interview, TakeTask CEO Sebastian Sarzynski discusses building a task management platform tailored for deskless enterprise workforces, scaling to $2 million in annual revenue, and preparing for a Series A funding round.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 25% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 5.3 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 1.5 Nathan pushing back 3.7
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:38 Sebastian corrects Nathan's ESOP addition
Sebastian directly rejects Nathan's math, clarifying that the 8% ESOP pool is carved out of the founders' 70% share rather than added on top.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 11:06 Nathan rejects 'no valuation' claimWhen Sebastian suggests there was no valuation because they used convertible debt, Nathan immediately interrupts to demand the cap on the note.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 3:13 Sebastian reframes deskless worker use casesSebastian corrects Nathan's oversimplified peanut-shelf stocking example by explaining complex enterprise tasks like AI-assisted competitor price scraping and timestamped food safety audits.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 11:38 Nathan models convertible note dilution mathNathan instantly converts the $170k note at a $5M valuation cap into a precise 3.5% equity dilution figure to show the founder the true cost of capital.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positioning TakeTask as Productivity Software for Deskless Workers | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Nathan frames the product against desktop tools like ClickUp and Basecamp and offers a hypothetical retail scenario. Sebastian gently redirects Nathan's peanut-stacking example to actual enterprise use cases like AI price auditing and compliance timestamps. | |
| Enterprise Pricing, Cloud Deployments, and Large-Scale Implementations | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Nathan converts the pricing model into standard SaaS metrics and ACVs ($60k/year). Sebastian explains why TakeTask relies on dedicated Azure cloud instances and enterprise deployments rather than pure self-serve SaaS. | |
| Startup Inception, Crowdfunding Roots, and Historical Revenue Growth | 6 | 3 | 1 | 4 | Nathan dissects TakeTask's revenue mix, catching that nearly half of their 1.2M revenue is professional services and implementation rather than pure recurring subscriptions. Sebastian explains that clients effectively pay for bespoke feature development. | |
| Fundraising Background, Valuation Caps, and Series A Objectives | 7 | 2 | 2 | 6 | When Sebastian claims there was no valuation on their convertible note, Nathan immediately pushes back to demand the valuation cap. Nathan then calculates the implied dilution percentage on the spot. | |
| Cap Table Structure, Employee Stock Options, and U.S. Flipping Plans | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Nathan interrogates the cap table, tracking ownership stakes between co-founders, ESOP, and early crowdfunding investors. Sebastian clarifies how the option pool fits inside the founder shares and outlines their future US flipping plans. | |
| The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Standard rapid-fire closing sequence covering books, sleep, and entrepreneurial advice with full alignment between host and guest. |
Statements from this episode (19)
TakeTask has a global contract with Shell across four countries
“Now we have a global contract with Shell. We are implementing it in, in already in four countries.”
TakeTask charges 8 to 22 euros per user per month
“Most of the clients get in the, you know, the advanced plan, which is the medium one, which is 15 euros per user per month. We have some clients with a lower plan, which is eight euros and some of them with the highest one, which is 22 years plus Azure cloud c…”
TakeTask averages 4,500 euros per month per customer
“The average deal is about four and a half thousand euros per month.”
TakeTask built a COVID quarantine app for 9 million Polish citizens
“Our biggest actually client is the Polish government. This is a funny story. It's a, We deployed a COVID monitoring home quarantine monitoring application. So there are like nine million user accounts up to date.”
TakeTask grew revenue from $100K in 2018 to $1.2M in 2020
“It was like a hundred K, something like this the total revenue. The next year we had 250. And last year we have 1.2 million.”
TakeTask expects to reach $2M in revenue by the end of 2021
“So we actually have the same revenue as we had last, the total last year. So we should end up with something like two million.”
TakeTask charges $5k to $70k for enterprise software implementations
“Like the minimum charge is about five to 7000 dollars but we have clients with bigger implementations that can be 50 or 70,000 dollars.”
Charging clients for custom features validates demand and funds development
“So it's a good way to check if the feature is, is, is important for the client, but also it gives you funds to found a feature.”
TakeTask tests SMB SaaS product with eight retailers for year-end rollout
“So we should be ready with this till the end of the year. We are now testing it with eight small retailers.”
TakeTask has raised $1 million in total capital
“How much total capital have you raised today? A one million.”
TakeTask plans to target a $10M+ valuation for its next round
“We will probably go for something like 10 plus million with the next round.”
TakeTask plans to raise $2M to $3M in its next round
“We'll probably go for like two or three million.”
TakeTask targets $500K MRR within the next two years
“We need money for another one and a half, two years, you know, to get to a point of something like 500, K month recurring revenue.”
TakeTask co-founders expect to retain over 50% equity post-Series A
“Yeah, me and my founder and my co-founder, we own over 50%. So what we should end up after the A round, it would be slightly above 50%. So after the A round, we would Probably have like 52, 53, something like that.”
TakeTask carved an 8% ESOP pool from the founders' 70% stake
“No, it's like in total, it's something like eight percent... So this, you know, the ESOP is together with, you know, in the 70%.”
Sarzynski: TakeTask cap table has a 5% Polish VC and ~80 crowdfunding angels
“We have one, a Polish small seed VC Owning something like five percent. And then the rest of it is owned by different angel investors, because with this crowdfunding, we had over 100 people. Now it went down to something like 80”