Cleeng received a €14M acquisition offer during a 2019 cash crisis
Gilles Domartini · From (almost) bankruptcy to $20M ARR / $2M profit within 3 years · Jul 27, 2023 · at 7:17
This episode carries Gilles Domartini's own address, with nobody on the show putting questions to them. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.
Gilles Domartini, founder and CEO of Cleeng, describes facing severe financial distress 18 months after raising venture capital, leading investors to propose selling the business.
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“Actually, we have an offer on the table to acquire the company for fourteen million euros.”
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“One of the investors, the one that came in actually in 18 we are facing a few challenges in in 19, and they tell us, look guys we'd like to do an exit at the time where we started to spend like crazy.”
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“I don't want anymore to rely on investors because it creates the wrong behavior as you build your organization.”
Domartini: Software is easy to stretch across verticals, but sales is hard
“It's easy to stretch a software
but actually it's hard to stretch the sales and to stretch the experience and just, and the marketing and this type of activities.”
Domartini: Tiered pricing eliminates renegotiation friction when clients overperform
“Big benefit of this is that you don't need to renegotiate a contract if your client is overperforming. This is always a huge amount of time and a bit of frustration, frustration also was for the client because he's overperforming. And now he's saying, oh, but …”