Kyle Racki discusses founder compensation after raising early-stage capital.
Disclosure
Proposify Bloated to 100 Employees on Just $5M to $6M Revenue
“We hired enough people that we were eventually around, you know, a hundred people or so, and for, you know, at the time, I think only a five or six million dollar business.”
Insight
Mid-Market Proposal Software Buyers Prioritize Control and Management Over Aesthetics
“The customers who bought Proposify to send beautiful proposals and get faster sign-off, that messaging didn't really resonate with the mid-market, because they're like, we have cool PowerPoint decks, like, we know how to send proposals. What they really wanted…”
Disclosure
Proposify Burned $400,000 Per Month While Generating Under $10M in ARR
“At one point, we were actually burning 400 K a month, which, you know, depends on your size, right? That might not seem a lot if you're a hundred million ARR, but if you're under ten million, that's a lot of money to be burning.”
Disclosure
Kyle Racki Left Departed VP Roles Unfilled, Resuming Product and Marketing
“My VP of product quit, my VP of marketing quit. I didn't replace them. I just got in and started running product and marketing again just like in the early days.”
Disclosure
Racki: Proposify prematurely hired 10 to 20 sales reps before downsizing
“We had raised the first time we had raised the round. We kind of did the classic mistake where you know, you go and hire a VP of sales with big company experience. They go and hire, you know, 10, 20 reps very quickly. Without much of our go to market or our po…”
Disclosure
Racki: Proposify focuses all product and engineering teams on enterprise accounts
“So essentially the whole company is aligned around this higher touch segment. We don't, you know, we don't break out engineering teams or product teams to say, well, you guys go after the low segment and you go after the high one. Everybody is building for the…”