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Jul 28, 2019 · 19m · top-founders

1464 GDPR Compliant Analytics Hits $3.6M in ARR, Raising Soon

Maciek Zawadziński · 10m spoken Nathan Latka · 6m 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 episode of The Top Entrepreneurs, host Nathan Latka interviews Piwik PRO founder and CEO Maciek Zawodziński to examine how the privacy-focused, GDPR-compliant analytics platform scaled past $3.6 million in ARR. Zawodziński details the company's financial metrics, hybrid funding model leveraging agency profits from Clearcode, and strategic go-to-market expansion across enterprise markets.

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 39% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 4.6 Guest teaching 3.2 Guest disagreement 1.2 Nathan pushing back 3.6
05100:0010:000:54–5:55 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Executive Overview of Piwik PRO's Business Metrics Nathan does instant mental math to test whether the stated customer count and ACV match the monthly revenue figure (400 customers * $25k ACV = $800k/mo). Maciek clarifies that the $25k ACV only applies to the 100 enterprise accounts, correcting Nathan's assumption.5:55–10:38 · Nathan as informed peer 5/10 Bootstrapping with Clearcode and Strategic Fundraising Nathan probes how Maciek transitioned from the agency business model to SaaS and digs into the exact capitalization split between agency profits and VC investment. Maciek explains that Clearcode is continuing to fund Piwik PRO with $1-2M per year rather than a one-time lump sum.10:38–14:32 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 SaaS Churn, Net Retention, and CAC Payback Horizons Nathan drills down on unit economics including gross revenue churn, net retention, and CAC payback horizons. Maciek shares detailed cohort churn rates and acknowledges that conservative European spending habits have kept CAC payback relatively short.14:32–16:53 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Customer Acquisition Channels, Team Size, and Global Offices Nathan pushes for non-standard growth tactics beyond standard inbound marketing and paid ads, prompting Maciek to highlight localized European partner networks. Nathan also verifies whether headcounts represent the software product or total combined operations.16:53–18:49 · Nathan as informed peer 2/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Standard Famous Five rapid-fire segment with light, amicable exchanges, including a brief humorous clarification when Maciek corrects Nathan that he has two cats rather than two children.0:54–5:55 · Guest teaching 5/10 Executive Overview of Piwik PRO's Business Metrics Nathan does instant mental math to test whether the stated customer count and ACV match the monthly revenue figure (400 customers * $25k ACV = $800k/mo). Maciek clarifies that the $25k ACV only applies to the 100 enterprise accounts, correcting Nathan's assumption.5:55–10:38 · Guest teaching 4/10 Bootstrapping with Clearcode and Strategic Fundraising Nathan probes how Maciek transitioned from the agency business model to SaaS and digs into the exact capitalization split between agency profits and VC investment. Maciek explains that Clearcode is continuing to fund Piwik PRO with $1-2M per year rather than a one-time lump sum.10:38–14:32 · Guest teaching 3/10 SaaS Churn, Net Retention, and CAC Payback Horizons Nathan drills down on unit economics including gross revenue churn, net retention, and CAC payback horizons. Maciek shares detailed cohort churn rates and acknowledges that conservative European spending habits have kept CAC payback relatively short.14:32–16:53 · Guest teaching 2/10 Customer Acquisition Channels, Team Size, and Global Offices Nathan pushes for non-standard growth tactics beyond standard inbound marketing and paid ads, prompting Maciek to highlight localized European partner networks. Nathan also verifies whether headcounts represent the software product or total combined operations.16:53–18:49 · Guest teaching 2/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Standard Famous Five rapid-fire segment with light, amicable exchanges, including a brief humorous clarification when Maciek corrects Nathan that he has two cats rather than two children.0:54–5:55 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Executive Overview of Piwik PRO's Business Metrics Nathan does instant mental math to test whether the stated customer count and ACV match the monthly revenue figure (400 customers * $25k ACV = $800k/mo). Maciek clarifies that the $25k ACV only applies to the 100 enterprise accounts, correcting Nathan's assumption.5:55–10:38 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Bootstrapping with Clearcode and Strategic Fundraising Nathan probes how Maciek transitioned from the agency business model to SaaS and digs into the exact capitalization split between agency profits and VC investment. Maciek explains that Clearcode is continuing to fund Piwik PRO with $1-2M per year rather than a one-time lump sum.10:38–14:32 · Guest disagreement 1/10 SaaS Churn, Net Retention, and CAC Payback Horizons Nathan drills down on unit economics including gross revenue churn, net retention, and CAC payback horizons. Maciek shares detailed cohort churn rates and acknowledges that conservative European spending habits have kept CAC payback relatively short.14:32–16:53 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Customer Acquisition Channels, Team Size, and Global Offices Nathan pushes for non-standard growth tactics beyond standard inbound marketing and paid ads, prompting Maciek to highlight localized European partner networks. Nathan also verifies whether headcounts represent the software product or total combined operations.16:53–18:49 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Standard Famous Five rapid-fire segment with light, amicable exchanges, including a brief humorous clarification when Maciek corrects Nathan that he has two cats rather than two children.0:54–5:55 · Nathan pushing back 5/10 Executive Overview of Piwik PRO's Business Metrics Nathan does instant mental math to test whether the stated customer count and ACV match the monthly revenue figure (400 customers * $25k ACV = $800k/mo). Maciek clarifies that the $25k ACV only applies to the 100 enterprise accounts, correcting Nathan's assumption.5:55–10:38 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 Bootstrapping with Clearcode and Strategic Fundraising Nathan probes how Maciek transitioned from the agency business model to SaaS and digs into the exact capitalization split between agency profits and VC investment. Maciek explains that Clearcode is continuing to fund Piwik PRO with $1-2M per year rather than a one-time lump sum.10:38–14:32 · Nathan pushing back 4/10 SaaS Churn, Net Retention, and CAC Payback Horizons Nathan drills down on unit economics including gross revenue churn, net retention, and CAC payback horizons. Maciek shares detailed cohort churn rates and acknowledges that conservative European spending habits have kept CAC payback relatively short.14:32–16:53 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Customer Acquisition Channels, Team Size, and Global Offices Nathan pushes for non-standard growth tactics beyond standard inbound marketing and paid ads, prompting Maciek to highlight localized European partner networks. Nathan also verifies whether headcounts represent the software product or total combined operations.16:53–18:49 · Nathan pushing back 2/10 The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions Standard Famous Five rapid-fire segment with light, amicable exchanges, including a brief humorous clarification when Maciek corrects Nathan that he has two cats rather than two children.

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

0:00 · Nathan 91.5% · guest 8.5%0:00 · Nathan 91.5% · guest 8.5%3:00 · Nathan 35.3% · guest 64.7%3:00 · Nathan 35.3% · guest 64.7%6:00 · Nathan 29.4% · guest 70.6%6:00 · Nathan 29.4% · guest 70.6%9:00 · Nathan 20.9% · guest 79.1%9:00 · Nathan 20.9% · guest 79.1%12:00 · Nathan 21.1% · guest 78.9%12:00 · Nathan 21.1% · guest 78.9%15:00 · Nathan 19.9% · guest 80.1%15:00 · Nathan 19.9% · guest 80.1%18:00 · Nathan 68.1% · guest 31.9%18:00 · Nathan 68.1% · guest 31.9%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 5:09 Premise correction on blended ACV

Maciek pushes back against Nathan's mathematical calculation of $800k monthly revenue, explaining that the $25k ACV was only for enterprise accounts and not the entire customer base.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 5:09 Nathan challenges monthly run-rate consistency

Nathan refuses to take the initial customer and ACV figures at face value, multiplying 400 accounts by $25k to point out an inconsistency with the reported monthly revenue.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:18 Explaining two distinct customer cohorts

Maciek educates Nathan on Piwik PRO's bifurcated customer structure, distinguishing high-ACV enterprise on-prem accounts from lower-priced SMB cloud accounts.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 14:16 Synthesizing unit economics and payback logic

Nathan synthesizes Maciek's metrics into clear monthly ACV and payback horizon terms, showing a firm grasp of enterprise SaaS capital allocation strategies.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Executive Overview of Piwik PRO's Business Metrics 6525 Nathan does instant mental math to test whether the stated customer count and ACV match the monthly revenue figure (400 customers * $25k ACV = $800k/mo). Maciek clarifies that the $25k ACV only applies to the 100 enterprise accounts, correcting Nathan's assumption.
Bootstrapping with Clearcode and Strategic Fundraising 5414 Nathan probes how Maciek transitioned from the agency business model to SaaS and digs into the exact capitalization split between agency profits and VC investment. Maciek explains that Clearcode is continuing to fund Piwik PRO with $1-2M per year rather than a one-time lump sum.
SaaS Churn, Net Retention, and CAC Payback Horizons 6314 Nathan drills down on unit economics including gross revenue churn, net retention, and CAC payback horizons. Maciek shares detailed cohort churn rates and acknowledges that conservative European spending habits have kept CAC payback relatively short.
Customer Acquisition Channels, Team Size, and Global Offices 4213 Nathan pushes for non-standard growth tactics beyond standard inbound marketing and paid ads, prompting Maciek to highlight localized European partner networks. Nathan also verifies whether headcounts represent the software product or total combined operations.
The Famous Five Rapid-Fire Questions 2212 Standard Famous Five rapid-fire segment with light, amicable exchanges, including a brief humorous clarification when Maciek corrects Nathan that he has two cats rather than two children.

Statements from this episode (12)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO derives 70% of revenue from on-premise deployments
“It's 70% on-prem and 30% cloud.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 3:29
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO serves over 100 enterprise and 300 mid-market customers
“We have over 100 enterprise accounts. We call them some of the customers that are, like, corporates, governments financial institutions, and so on. And we have around, like, 300 medium-sized businesses, customers.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 4:40
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO's average enterprise contract value is $25,000
“So it's actually the ACV across the enterprise account that is 25 K.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 5:19
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO generates over $300,000 in monthly revenue
“So in terms of monthly revenue, we are doing over 300,000.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 5:34
Disclosure
Piwik PRO bootstrapped for four years using software agency profits
“We bootstrapped the company for the first four, four and a half years. It was bootstrapped by actually ClearCode, which is a software house. So it's a healthy business that is bringing profit every month. And we basically put all this money into the developing…”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 6:03
Disclosure
Adblock Plus backer Tim Schumacher invested in Piwik PRO
“We have a private angel who is Tim Schumacher, who is behind Adblock plus, which is like very great because this is the privacy space and it works very well because he's insider. Plus, we have a private equity fund that does not have the term of the fund, so t…”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 10:18
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO's enterprise churn is under 5%, while SMB reaches 15%
“The medium sized business cohorts that we actually like is Tweeted as our legacy business there. We have very high trend, like probably like 10, 15%, but in the enterprise cohort is under, under five percent.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 11:16
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO's net revenue retention is between 95% and 97%
“It will be closer probably to nine, 95 to 97.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 12:39
Disclosure
Piwik PRO is willing to spend up to 2x ACV on CAC
“We will be willing to spend as much as one and a half or two times a year, the yearly contracts value, because we know now that this enterprise accounts have very high lifetime value.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 13:08
Disclosure
Upfront annual payments mean Piwik PRO hasn't touched 2017 funding
“If I think, for example, for the fundraising that we did in 2017, we had so many upfront payments for subscription, 12 months of Subscription that we haven't touched this money”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 13:44
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Piwik PRO gets 80% of customer acquisition from inbound marketing
“So, 80% is inbound. It's of course supported by paid marketing, but now that we got certain scale, we are growing the partner channel and the outbound channels.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 14:46
Disclosure
Piwik PRO and its sister agency employ roughly 190 people
“I mean, in total we are a 190, but there are still a couple of common roles in the company like finance, HR, and so on.”
Maciek Zawadziński Jul 28, 2019 ▶ 16:12
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