Claiming a $20k/mo piece of a crowded market

Maciej Cupial dropped everything he had — $300k — on building a product. He wouldn’t do it again. Real growth came when he went broke, hunkered down, and focused on his customers.

I caught up with him to learn from his experience. He told me how he grew to $20k/mo in an industry crowded with 800-pound gorillas. 👇

Claiming part of a red ocean

James: Building a scheduling product puts you in a crowded marketplace with established players.

Maciej: Yeah, building a product in a "red ocean" often raises questions. People ask why I would create a product in a market flooded with competitors.

James: So why did you?

Maciej: I believed that by building a product and engaging directly with customers, I could pivot in such a way to carve out a niche for myself amidst the giants. I was right.

James: Tell me about that niche.

Maciej: We target small to mid-sized businesses (5-150 employees). Primarily psychotherapists, therapists, lawyers, and tutors. They use Calendesk for scheduling, managing customers, subscriptions, and invoicing.

And I think our biggest advantage is that we're focusing on the local market here in Poland. Being visible in Poland is much easier than breaking into English-speaking markets.

James: Interesting. Is niching down the only way you're able to compete?

Maciej: The big players don't offer what we do - exceptional onboarding, support, and flexibility in configuration.

Moreover, I realized that business owners seek more than just a simple calendar, like what Calendly offers. That's why we developed an entire infrastructure for subscription management and the option to build a custom website that wraps the booking system.

People don’t even realize they're using Calendesk. This allows our clients to present a professional appearance to their customers, achieving our ultimate goal.

James: Sounds like a missed growth opportunity.

Maciej: Only a small percentage of companies choose to remove the Calendesk branding completely. Many keep our footer. Additionally, we include a footer in email notifications indicating they're sent by Calendesk, so that also helps us attract new customers.

But if a customer prefers not to show that their system is built on Calendesk, they have their rights to do so, and we completely support their choice.

James: How did you identify the right niche to double down on?

Maciej: Our target formed around the customers who came to us via ads.

We didn't intentionally target these customers, but when they arrived, we focused on meeting their needs.

Now, if someone from a different industry requests a feature, we typically decline since they aren’t our target market.

Having too many different types of customers can be overwhelming, so we prefer to focus on at most 1 to 3 target groups and really listen to what they need.

Beating the big players

James: How else are you beating the big dogs?

Maciej: I think it's key to offer something big companies don't, like personalized services. We give demo calls to customers of any size. Big companies don’t usually do that.

The idea is to do things that don't necessarily scale well, stay close to your customers, and tailor the system to their needs. As you grow, you can start saying “no” more often, but in the beginning, it's all about doing what makes sense and setting yourself apart from the big players.

James: What’s a good example?

Maciej: Recently, a big client wanted their logo in the admin panel instead of ours. Why not? It took me 30 minutes to do, made the customer happy, and likely kept them with us for the long haul.

Would a giant in the industry do that? I doubt it.

James: What else?

Maciej:

• Stay really close to your customers through email, chat, and demo calls.

• Don’t be cheap - set your prices higher than the big companies.

• Don’t worry about what the big companies are doing, just focus on improving your product and listening to what your customers need.

• If English isn't your first language (or you know other languages), concentrate on your local market. Use your native language and build an app tailored to your country.

• Use ads to target less expensive keywords that the big companies might overlook.

• If you're short on funds, find potential customers on LinkedIn or with a simple Google search. Then, just send them an email or give them a call.

James: Tell me more about setting your price higher than established companies.

Maciej: If you aim to offer something that the big players don't, you can't afford to go below their price.

When you're serving thousands of customers at $5/mo, you can't provide top-notch support at that scale. And those customers often demand excessive support.

Every year, we've increased our prices without seeing a significant uptick in churn. Our customers aren’t troubled over an additional $10. What they value is exceptional support and effective problem-solving.

So filter out customers seeking cheap solutions and send them to the big companies.

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Doubling down on one product

James: Let’s back up. Where did this all start?

Maciej: I started working with computers 20 years ago, learning stuff like PHP, JS and later iOS, Python, DevOps, and many other things. I tried building lots of different businesses.

James: Did any work out?

Maciej: One did, but I sold my shares to my cofounders.

I also flipped 15 apartments quite successfully.

James: Why did you sell your shares?

Maciej: After three years of working on the project, I came to realize that the business's foundation was shaky. We were completely reliant on delivery companies, negotiating prices with them and then tacking on an additional fee for our customers.

The instability came from these delivery companies having the power to terminate our contract at any moment — a frequent issue that forced us to constantly seek new partners.

Plus, customers held us responsible for delivery issues caused by those companies.

James: Not great.

Maciej: I didn’t want to be a part of such an unpredictable business environment and I didn’t feel like there was any room for personal growth.

James: What did you walk away with?

Maciej: At the time of my exit, our net revenue was between $500k and $700k annually. Owning 33%, I was making around $150k a year. However, as income and revenue were on a downward trend, I chose to exit without asking for a large sum, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for my cofounders. The entire situation was quite stressful for them too.

Wanting to be fair to my co-founders, who were willing to steer the business longer, I settled for about $150k.

Wasting $300k

James: What did you do with that cash?

Maciej: I invested it (plus the rest of my savings) into Calendesk.

James: How much money are we talking about?

Maciej: Over $300k.

James: Whoa.

Maciej: I wasted it by hiring people I didn't need and building a product I didn't fully understand.

I was so confident in my business experience that I overlooked tasks I could do myself, aiming to start as a cool startup focused on building something trendy rather than concentrating on what truly mattered.

James: Which was what?

Maciej: Engaging with customers and refining the product.

James: I take it you changed your approach?

Maciej: Yeah, the experience taught me a lot. Hitting rock bottom with bankruptcy and a failing project made me much more humble.

I decided to stop the project's development and let go of the team. I moved, isolated myself for over a year, and finished the project without incurring additional costs.

Being a technical person myself and having some credit cards were the only reasons I could complete it.

James: So what did you learn?

Maciej: I learned to be really careful with money. These days, I think twice before spending even $100. In the past, I wouldn't hesitate to drop $5k on something. I always look for ways to keep costs low, like making our own solutions or finding cheaper options

I also learned how not to make a SaaS product 😀. If I had to start over, I'd choose a way that costs no money at the start; only my time.

James: Even though you have money again?

Maciej: While it might sound odd coming from someone who spent $300k building a product, I'm convinced that having that much money led me to making more mistakes.

I could have done 90% of the things I spent money on by myself. Sometimes, having money at the beginning doesn't make starting a project easier. It just lets you waste time and resources.

Of course, it’s different when you have enough experience. You can leverage so many things with extra dollars.

Using upsells

James: Well you really turned it around. How’s it doing now?

Maciej: It’s at $13,433 MRR, with roughly $20k/mo total income.

James: Why the difference between your MRR and monthly revenue?

Maciej: We offer additional packages, such as SMS and email notifications, which customers can purchase to use as reminders or simply to stay in touch with their clients.

In our basic plans, we include a certain amount for free, but typically, this isn't sufficient for all the bookings, so customers often need to buy more.

James: Smart.

Maciej: Additionally, we provide extra help with configuration. Sometimes, this requires additional effort from our side, and our customers are willing to pay for that extra support.

Jump starting organic growth

James: Your target market isn't what most indie hackers shoot for. How do you reach them?

Maciej: Actually, they come to us now.

James: How did you manage that?

Maciej: Initially, we had no SEO visibility so we leveraged Google Ads, Bing ads, and Capterra to get some traction. That really helped us to attract our first customers and define our target audience. But after that, it was just a snowball effect.

Our customers were so happy with the system that they started spreading the word, and we gained many new customers through simple word-of-mouth.

James: That’s the dream.

Maciej: Of course, we haven't overlooked SEO and proper customer onboarding.

And we make it a point to reach out to every customer who signs up to offer our help. This pays off.

James: Anything else?

Maciej: For the first two years, we didn't take any revenue for ourselves, instead, we reinvested everything the company earned back into paid channels and SEO efforts.

And I think one of the coolest things we offer is a free demo call. Customers can easily schedule a video call with us, and we assist them with the initial setup to ensure they're using the system correctly.

This has been a significant advantage, especially since many of our customers aren't tech-savvy and often struggle with basic configurations.

James: Any growth tips for indie hackers?

Maciej: There's no magic here, we simply put in the hard work to ensure our product meets our customers' needs.

Communicate with customers

James: You’ve mentioned listening to your customers a few times.

Maciej: I was so confident in the beginning that I just built the product. I didn't bother speaking to customers while developing it. I figured people would automatically come and buy it.

THis resulted in us spending a lot of time on features that weren't necessary.

Now, we make sure not to develop anything unless it's been requested by customers, and we really take the time to discuss their needs with them.

James: So what’s the nitty gritty of staying in communication?

Maciej: We've added a second call-to-action on the website: "Schedule a call". We also send out onboarding emails inviting customers to get in touch with us. Later in the customer journey, we send out simple surveys to ask about the system, and we do that every three to four months. Many customers take the time to fill these out.

Plus, if a customer leaves their phone number, we make an effort to reach out and ask if they need help with setting things up or just to see if the system is right for them.

James: And support?

Maciej: I have a cofounder who holds 30% of the company and is responsible for managing customer support, customer success, the help center, and related areas.

Work hard and reach out

James: Any parting advice?

Maciej: Just don't give up. There's no problem that can't be solved (at least in IT, lol). I'll stay as long as it takes to resolve an issue.

It isn't magic, just hard work and reaching out to the right people when you need help.

James: Where can people find you?

Maciej: Find me on X or check out Calendesk.

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