Apr 29, 2020 · 20m · top-founders

1740 $5m Raised and $600k ARR When Fiverr Acquired, Did Common Holders See Any Cash?

Leif Abraham · 9m spoken Nathan Latka · 8m spoken

0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this interview, Nathan Latka speaks with AND CO co-founder Leif Abraham about scaling a freelance management SaaS platform to $600k ARR through viral marketing and partnerships, navigating a $5 million venture-backed exit to Fiverr, and transitioning the product into a free ecosystem land-grab.

Chapters · click to jump

2 statements ▾

AND CO shifted to a free model after Fiverr acquired them open →

Fiverr and Upwork compete for just 6% of the freelance market open →

1 statement ▾

AND CO raised nearly $5 million before its acquisition open →

1 statement ▾

Founders must shield employees from distracting acquisition talks until deals close open →

3 statements ▾

AND CO launched PR content stunts every six weeks to drive growth open →

AND CO reached nearly 60,000 users before its acquisition by Fiverr open →

AND CO grew its user base by 600% post-acquisition open →

2 statements ▾

AND CO achieved a 6-7% free-to-paid conversion rate before acquisition open →

Value-add features drive freemium conversion better than usage limits alone open →

1 statement ▾

Facebook ads are highly ineffective for acquiring freelance users open →

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 46.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.5 Guest teaching 2.4 Guest disagreement 1.6 Nathan pushing back 3.3

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

Sharpest disagreement ▶ 17:31 Push and pull over deal waterfall realities

Abraham resists disclosing financial terms while maintaining an exit must work for everyone, prompting a direct clash when Latka denies that premise.

Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 17:33 Latka rejects the assertion that exits must pay common stock

Latka forcefully counters Abraham by explaining founders can sell without common shareholders getting anything if liquidation preference clears first.

Biggest teaching moment ▶ 4:07 Abraham explains the offline freelance market dynamics

Abraham reframes the conversation around market capture, explaining to Latka why Fiverr needed offline workflow software rather than short-term SaaS subscription revenue.

Nathan holds their own ▶ 16:44 Latka details liquidation preferences math

Latka demonstrates sharp financial modeling acumen, breaking down the 1X preference on $5M raised against a $600k ARR run rate.

the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each

Topic	Nathan as informed peer	Guest teaching	Guest disagreement	Nathan pushing back	Why
Podcast Updates and Request for iTunes Reviews	0	0	0	0	Introductory monologue and housekeeping where the host addresses review feedback and previews the guest's metrics before the interview begins.
Post-Acquisition Operations and Freelancer Workflow	6	5	2	4	Latka challenges Abraham on why they switched to a free model, implying it was due to struggling revenue. Abraham educates Latka on Fiverr's strategic rationale regarding offline-to-online marketplace acquisition.
Founding AND CO and Capital Raised	5	2	1	3	Latka drills into fundraising history, cap table specifics, and remote team structure while Abraham provides factual operational details.
HostGator Website Hosting Sponsorship	2	1	1	2	Segment starts with a sponsor ad read followed by a brief discussion about communicating M&A negotiations to employees.
Growth Hacks, Content Stunts, and Scaling	6	4	3	4	Latka attempts to back into customer counts and conversion economics, mishearing 60,000 as 6,000 until Abraham corrects him. Latka then probes the freemium paywall structure.
Scaling via Distribution Partnerships	6	4	1	3	Latka asserts that turning the tool free made sense given low MRR, while Abraham explains how distribution partnerships like Envato drove bulk customer acquisition.
Liquidation Preferences and Deal Realities	8	2	4	8	Latka aggressively pushes on liquidation preference waterfalls and whether early employees with common stock were wiped out. When Abraham states an exit must work for everyone, Latka directly refutes him.
The Famous Five Fast-Paced Questions	3	1	1	2	Standard rapid-fire closing questionnaire with minor audio hiccups regarding age and family.

Statements from this episode (10)

Disclosure

AND CO shifted to a free model after Fiverr acquired them

“So in the past, it was a pure, just SaaS subscription software that we had there. And since we joined Fiverr, we made the product entirely free.”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 3:47

Assertion Supported

Fiverr and Upwork compete for just 6% of the freelance market

“And the other drivers really is that if you look at the freelance market in general, is it like Still happens outside of online marketplaces. And so the Fiverr and the Upwork and so are really competing within these existing six percent right now.”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 4:46

Disclosure

AND CO raised nearly $5 million before its acquisition

“Yeah, we raised close to five million dollars altogether.”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 7:36

Insight

Founders must shield employees from distracting acquisition talks until deals close

“And so people were aware, but I think it's also very important for you as a founder to make sure to not, you know, make people immediately start thinking of, okay, You know, what would it be if this exit would happen? You know, what that means for me, et ceter…”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 9:56

Disclosure

AND CO launched PR content stunts every six weeks to drive growth

“What we did was we always try to launch something we call like a content stunt within every, basically like every six weeks. And that basically means something that is talk worthy enough for us to either get some PR, to have some, you know, viral effect value …”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 10:45

Assertion Not checkable as stated

AND CO reached nearly 60,000 users before its acquisition by Fiverr

“So before the acquisition, we got to close to 60,000 users.”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 11:53

Assertion Not checkable as stated

AND CO grew its user base by 600% post-acquisition

“And then since the acquisition, we've grown that by about 600%. And so we're now close to 250,000 users.”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 12:01

Assertion Not checkable as stated

AND CO achieved a 6-7% free-to-paid conversion rate before acquisition

“In the past, we had, like, so back in the day, we had conversion rates of six, seven percent from free to paid.”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 12:37

Insight

Value-add features drive freemium conversion better than usage limits alone

“I honestly think that these are most often better conversion drivers than for example, limits. Like limits are good to bring someone to, like to force someone to the moment of having to make a decision. But I think what will really bring people over the hump i…”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 13:42

Insight

Facebook ads are highly ineffective for acquiring freelance users

“When you try to like when you try to acquire freelancers, right. You kind of really want to bulk acquire as much as possible. You want to go into places where you can basically just like, you know, grab multiple people at once and don't try to pick people up o…”

Leif Abraham Apr 29, 2020 ▶ 16:22

1740 $5m Raised and $600k ARR When Fiverr Acquired, Did Common Holders See Any Cash?

How this conversation actually went

Statements from this episode (10)

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