Oct 20, 2020 · 18m · top-founders
Unstack CMS All In One Hits $10k MRR, Adding $2500/mo, 16k Uniques from ProductHunt Launch
Grant Deken · 10m spoken Nathan Latka · 5m spoken Frank Bien · 4s spoken Eric Yuan · 4s spoken Vivek Bhaskaran · 2s spoken
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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, Unstack founder and CEO Grant Deken details how his no-code CMS reached $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue across 200 customers. He explores key acquisition channels, pricing evolution, capital management after raising a $1 million pre-seed round, and product-led team operations.
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 36.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 5.1 Guest teaching 2.4 Guest disagreement 1.1 Nathan pushing back 2.6
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:20 Grant defends venture capital funding model
Grant defends taking outside venture capital for category creation despite knowing Nathan's outspoken preference for bootstrapping.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 11:20 Nathan calls out Grant's venture funding hedgeNathan calls out Grant for offering a prolonged justification before admitting he raised a million-dollar seed round.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 10:20 Grant corrects Nathan's $20k MRR estimateGrant corrects Nathan's estimated $20,000 monthly revenue by explaining that historical blended tier pricing puts them at $10,000 MRR.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 6:51 Nathan cites Unstack's exact SEO performance and blog titlesNathan displays concrete domain research by citing specific keyword rankings and Unstack's exact top-performing 2019 blog article.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Background and Sale of Grapevine | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Nathan brings up the Grapevine acquisition numbers by Ideanomics, citing a $2.4M headline figure. Grant clarifies the total valuation was higher because Ideanomics already owned a major stake, and Nathan quickly recalculates the implied total valuation. | |
| Grassroots Growth and Referral Incentives | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Nathan demonstrates prior research into Unstack's SEO footprint, naming specific high-ranking search terms and an exact 2019 blog post title. Grant explains their dogfooding approach to content and affiliate marketing. | |
| Execution and Results of Product Hunt Launch | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Nathan highlights Unstack's Product Hunt performance metrics (3,300 upvotes and 16k page views) and asks for the direct MRR impact. Grant confirms the bump and shares secondary benefits like VC inbound and competitive PR. | |
| Pricing Architecture and Customer Scale | 6 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Nathan calculates revenue based on 200 customers at the $100 price point to arrive at $20k MRR, but Grant corrects him that actual MRR is $10k due to lower blended legacy tiers. Nathan also teases Grant for hedging his venture funding explanation. | |
| Burn Rate, Runway, and Cohort Churn Dynamics | 6 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Nathan quickly computes net burn ($30k from $40k gross minus $10k MRR) and calculates remaining runway around 8-10 months. When Grant notes elevated Product Hunt churn, Nathan provides industry context comparing it to AppSumo cohorts. | |
| Team Composition and Customer Experience Focus | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Nathan explores team structure, quota compensation models, gross monthly churn, and CAC. Grant details their focus on onboarding and expansion rather than standard inside sales quotas. | |
| The Famous Five Questions | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Nathan runs through the standard rapid-fire Famous Five questions, jokingly teasing Grant about hiring WordStream staff via his board member. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Deken: Ideanomics paid roughly $2.4M for remaining Grapevine equity
“They, so interesting thing about them, they had actually already owned a significant stake in the company. So the final price was a bit higher. But that was sort of what, you know, to buy out the company as a wholly owned subsidiary that was around the purchas…”
Deken: Unstack gives referrers a 30% lifetime recurring revenue share
“So there's a 30% lifetime recurring revenue share for customers that people refer to us now.”
Deken: Unstack's Product Hunt launch yielded 1,600 signups and heavy VC inbound
“Yeah, that's about right, actually. The interesting thing about product, yeah, so all that's true. We also got I don't know if I mentioned this in the article, it was like a lot of stuff, like a sub overwhelming amount of inbound VC interest from that.”
Deken: Unstack charges agencies $500+ monthly for licenses
“We have agencies who have kind of, you know local licenses that, you know, are kind of in the, you know, sort of 500 plus range a month.”
Deken: Unstack has around 200 customers
“Today we're still pretty early in our journey. We've got we're just around 200 customers.”
Deken: Unstack generates about $10k in monthly revenue
“So currently we're probably just about half of that, about 10.”
Deken: Unstack Raised ~$1M Pre-Seed Round Around June 2019
“So we put about a million dollars into the business around the time that we went full time, probably June, July last year.”
Deken: Unstack Raised Pre-Seed on Convertible Note with $5M Cap
“We actually did it as a convertible note. And in terms of that, we're like a five million cap.”
Deken: Unstack burns $40k per month gross
“We burn 40 grand a month right now. That's like gross. That's an offset, you know by our growing MRR.”
Deken: Product Hunt customer cohort churned significantly higher than other cohorts
“We did see that like the churn from that particular cohort was significantly higher than our overall churn from all other cohorts.”
Latka: AppSumo customer cohorts have very high churn and rarely convert
“I think the AppSumo cohort is always like the really high churn. I mean, they don't even convert to annual or monthly plans usually.”
Deken: Unstack operates with 10 people, including six in engineering and product
“So we're 10 total, seven are full time. We've got six of our 10 are engineering and product.”
Deken: Unstack's Gross Monthly Churn Is 3% to 4%
“So again, I think like overall I probably say like three to four percent monthly right now on, on the gross side.”