StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Pierce Ujjainwalla

Co-Founder & CEO, Knak · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutivehostoperator@marketing_101 ↗LinkedIn ↗knak.com ↗

Pierce Ujjainwalla is a Canadian marketing technology entrepreneur who founded Revenue Pulse and co-founded Knak, an enterprise email and campaign creation platform. Before launching Knak in 2015, he spent his career managing marketing automation and operations at companies such as IBM, Cognos, and Marketo.

20statements → 13claims → 2claims resolved → 3.95/5average certainty → 1.15/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 11 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 11 assertions · 7 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 11 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 Pierce 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

Prediction Held up
Ujjainwalla: A major tech giant will acquire Marketo
“I do think one of the giants will acquire a marketo at some point. I'm not sure if it'll be Adobe, but I think we will see some kind of consolidation happen.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 18:38 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Pierce Ujjainwalla on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

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

Disclosure
Knack prefers bootstrapping via Canadian government grants over raising venture capital
“We are still happy being bootstrapped. I think Canada has actually some amazing programs to help fund startup companies. IRAP is one of them. So we're able to access capital that way.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 15:27 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ujjainwalla predicts Knack will achieve 100% year-over-year revenue growth in 2020
“What we're seeing in our pipeline and how we're seeing our deals close, we're keeping that same number again, and that's going to put us at again, a hundred percent year over year growth.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 17:18 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Prediction Held up
Ujjainwalla: A major tech giant will acquire Marketo
“I do think one of the giants will acquire a marketo at some point. I'm not sure if it'll be Adobe, but I think we will see some kind of consolidation happen.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 18:38 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Knack maintains net revenue churn under two percent among enterprise customers
“Whereas our enterprise customers, we've got net revenue turn of under two percent now.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 5:08 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Knack retains between 100 and 600 customers after dropping low-tier plans
“So we still are in the hundreds of customers. Okay. So that's what I can tell you. Okay. It's not 600 anymore. Yeah. It's significantly less than that, but north of a hundred.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 6:43 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Knack's 100% YoY revenue growth is driven by ASPs exceeding $6,000
“Well, last time we spoke, we said our ASP was 6000 a year. So 500 a month. And yes, I can confirm that our ASP is significantly higher than that, which is what's allowing us to grow at a hundred percent year over year.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 9:02 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Disclosure
Knack grew entirely via inbound marketing until early 2020
“So up until two months ago, we've been a hundred percent inbound. So everyone that we've sold to has come to us through our website in an inbound manner. So up until a couple months ago, we hired our first outbound reps.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 10:01 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Knak's platform saw email creation double month-over-month early in the pandemic
“We actually looked at our platform's data last month and saw that We had double the amount of emails that have ever been built before month over month.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 12:12 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ujjainwalla claims no customers churned from Knak due to COVID-19
“We're happy to discuss that, but at this point, no one has tuned because of this.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 12:57 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ujjainwalla: Revenue Pulse grew YoY revenue by 90% last year
“We raised year-over-year revenue by 90% last year.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 2:36 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Disclosure
Ujjainwalla: Enterprise and mid-tier plans drive 80% of Knak revenue
“I would say sort of our self sign up business is about 20% of our revenue right now. Then we've got kind of a mid tier plan. That's about 6000 a year. That accounts for probably another 30 to 40% and the rest is enterprise revenue.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 6:45 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Disclosure
Ujjainwalla: 90% to 95% of new Knak customers pay upfront annually
“Probably 90 to 95%.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 8:02 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ujjainwalla: Knak has scaled to over 600 customers
“So we've got over 600 customers on NAC.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 8:37 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ujjainwalla: Knak is growing at 70% year over year
“So NAC has been growing at 70% year over year.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 10:00 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Disclosure
Ujjainwalla: Knak is completely bootstrapped without outside capital
“No, this is bootstrapped.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 10:51 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ujjainwalla: Knak generates over 100% annual net revenue retention
“Yeah. Yeah. Now in terms of revenue. Okay. Absolutely.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 17:08 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Disclosure
Knak initially focused on Marketo before expanding to a broader market
“When we started NAC, it was really about helping Marketo customers with it, but the more we got into it, we realized this is a way more widespread issue than just Marketo.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 2:35 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Knack generates growth via integrations with Salesforce, Pardot, and Oracle
“We're seeing growth Salesforce marketing cloud, Pardot Oracle responses. And then we're also just discovering all these new platforms, a lot of in-house platforms that our enterprise customers work with.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Apr 11, 2020 ▶ 3:46 1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID "
Disclosure
Ujjainwalla: Revenue Pulse maintains 40 to 50 active clients
“So we have at any given time around 40 to 50 active clients.”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 2:07 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth
Assertion Supported
Ujjainwalla: Knak launched as a $99-a-month self-serve subscription
“So it was initially a 99 dollars per month credit card signup form. You could do everything through our website”
Pierce Ujjainwalla Jun 4, 2019 ▶ 4:12 1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth

The other half of the tape: Pierce Ujjainwalla's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 1 episode on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 4

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0021412022episodesmentions
0112022episodes it came up in
0020.5412022episodesmentions per episode
2022 4 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
1722 "How $2m+ Enterprise Email SaaS Tool Plans To Survive COVID " Apr 11, 2020 11m
1410 Bootstrapped Enterprise Email Marketing Firm Breaks $3.6m ARR, 70% YoY Growth Jun 4, 2019 10m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 2,600 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more