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Joost de Valk

Partner, Emilia Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderinvestorexecutiveengineer@jdevalk ↗LinkedIn ↗joost.blog ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗

He is the founder of Yoast and creator of the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, which was acquired by Newfold Digital in 2021. Through his investment firm Emilia Capital, he invests in and advises early-stage open-source, web technology, and digital marketing ventures.

17statements → 13claims → 6claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 3.88/5average certainty → 1.35/5average debate potential → 2said about them ↓

6 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 7 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

13 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, and 7 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Joost argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Joost de Valk: Yoast hit 1M users before launching paid tier
“I started out with a free plugin and had a million users and then decided maybe I should make some money from it.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 1:56 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire

Everything Joost de Valk said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
De Valk: Matt Mullenweg and Automattic cannot afford to acquire Yoast
“I don't think he can afford us, first of all.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 14:02 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
De Valk: Yoast suffered 70% annual churn under manual renewals
“For far too long, our term was of like, 70%.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 9:55 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Insight
Joost de Valk: Free tiers should include essentials, paid tiers save time
“We have a pretty strict rule within the company on everything that we think every, every side on the planet needs to do the basic works we put into our free plugin and then stuff that saves you time we put into the premium plugin.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 6:00 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
De Valk: Yoast subscription churn dropped to roughly 15%
“The first bunch of people that signed up to a subscription are now over a year in, and for them we only have, like, 15%.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 10:07 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
de Valk: Yoast spends zero dollars on paid marketing
“Zero. We don't spend money on marketing.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 11:27 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Supported
Joost de Valk: Yoast hit 1M users before launching paid tier
“I started out with a free plugin and had a million users and then decided maybe I should make some money from it.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 1:56 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Supported
Joost de Valk: Consulted on SEO for eBay, Facebook, and The Guardian
“I was working for some of the biggest brands on the planet. I've done SEO for eBay, the guardian, Facebook. So I let the migration from guardian co UK to the guardian.com.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 2:52 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Joost de Valk: Yoast has 200,000 to 300,000 paying premium customers
“No, it's closer to two, 300.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 5:20 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Supported
Joost de Valk: Yoast runs on 9 to 10 million websites
“There's about nine to ten million sites.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 6:30 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Supported
Joost de Valk: Microsoft and The Next Web run Yoast software
“I mean, there are sites like thenextweb.com or microsoft.com that run our software, where there's hundreds of people working on that site, and it's only one site.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 7:07 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Disclosure
Joost de Valk: Yoast did $12M in annual revenue with 100 employees
“We're now at last year we did about ten million euros. So about twelve million dollars in revenue. There's about a hundred people here.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 7:42 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
De Valk: Yoast grew roughly 60% year-over-year for five years
“We've grown about 60% year on year for the last five years.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 9:12 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
De Valk: Most Yoast growth comes from new users
“Most of that growth is new users.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 9:27 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Not checkable as stated
de Valk: Yoast operates at approximately a 25% profit margin
“More like 25.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 13:02 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Disclosure
De Valk: Co-invested in companies with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg
“We, we've invested in companies together.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 14:39 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Supported
De Valk: WordPress plugin repository takes zero cut on plugin sales
“No, there's no financial model there. So all that has to go through Yoast.com.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 15:15 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire
Assertion Supported
Joost de Valk: Yoast Premium costs 89 dollars per year
“Ah, they are paying 89 dollars a year.”
Joost de Valk May 9, 2020 ▶ 4:19 1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire

The other half of the tape: Joost de Valk's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Andrea Volpini 2

Every mention by year

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0112021episodes it came up in
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2021 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
1750 With $12m in ARR Yoast CEO Says Wordpress Couldn't Afford to Acquire May 9, 2020 10m
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