From $7k to $25k: My Second Year Of Non-Technical Founder In Review

Ever looked back at your work and thought, “I could’ve done that better”?

That’s how we I feel about WP Umbrella sometimes.

I take a look back every now and then and, honestly, sometimes I'm a bit embarrassed about how my company was doing things six months ago — But I don’t let pride or ego get in the way. I just always give it my best shot, learn as I go, and keep moving forward.

What about you? What is the one thing you could have done better in your last job and why?

This is how I wrap up the final stage of our job interview process. It's my way of ensuring that the person I'm about to bring into our team aligns with the spirit of our small, fast-growing, and sometimes a bit messy company that I've been nurturing over the past couple of years.

I encourage this mindset in our team: to be honest, transparent, and to constantly seek ways to improve, not just in what we deliver, but in how we evolve as professionals and as a company.

This year marked a significant shift for me and my co-founder. We evolved from a duo of independent indie hackers cherishing their independency to a unified team of five, all working towards a common goal: build the best wordpress management tool in the world for agencies and WordPress developers.

So this year, my journey has been about much more than just expanding our monthly recurring revenu. For those of you running your own businesses, you’re familiar with the challenges that come with scaling a company.

For me, though, it was an entirely new experience.

Growing a Team

When I look back at what we achieved this year, I can think of of the innovative features we launched and the memorable WordCamps we attended, but also our growth in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). However, our most significant achievement has been to start building a team capable of scaling WP Umbrella.

Thomas, our CTO and fellow co-founder, and I made the decision not to take any salary for ourselves yet and to end our unemployment benefits. Instead, we used that money to help our team grow.

In March 2023, I proudly welcomed our first team member, a talented junior full-stack developer. Sadly we had to part ways after 28 days. The issue? We hadn’t clearly defined our needs. We looked for a junior team member with potential, but this approach proved misguided and revealed a lack of clarity in my vision.

The backend of WP Umbrella is complex and unexpectedly low-level, posing a challenge in writing code scalable across thousands of websites. This is a skill set beyond the reach of a junior developer.

This experience was a tough but invaluable lesson. It reshaped our hiring strategy, leading to three subsequent hires who significantly accelerated our development pace while maintaining excellent customer service.

But team growth isn’t just about recruitment. It involves building a strong knowledge base, establishing rituals, and refining processes. Throughout the year, we frequently updated our project management approach, transitioning from Linear to Trello to Notion.

Finally, we consolidated everything on GitHub, organizing our work in two-week sprints, a common practice in the industry. What sets us apart is that our entire company, not just the tech team, uses GitHub. This transparency ensures everyone is aware of each other’s work.

In my opinion Github has one of the most powerful project management tool of the market that goes way beyond tech team.

We’ve also developed a public salary grid to align team members and foster a shared sense of purpose.

I'm still learning about HR, but I'm dedicated to keeping things fair and simple. I think this approach is key to why our team seems to enjoy working at WP Umbrella, which is something I’m really proud of.

At the end of the day, a company is about people working together and trusting each other. I trust my team completely, and I’m grateful that they trust me just as much.

We will hold our first start-up retreat in June for the WordCamp Europe, and I’m so excited about it!

From 80k to 300K+ ARR in 12 Months

2023 began with WP Umbrella’s Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) at $7,062, roughly an $80,000+ Annual Run Rate. We wrapped up the fiscal year surpassing $25,000 in MRR, which equates to about a $300,000 Annual Run Rate.

Our user base also saw impressive growth, expanding from 479 paying customers (plus those from AppSumo deals) to over 1,300.

Meanwhile, our average revenue per user increased from $14 to $18 per month, and we anticipate this figure will rise even further next year with the release of our team member, safe update and public API feature.

Additionally, our monthly churn rate has significantly dropped and now stabilizes around more or less 3%.

This is a testament to the efforts we’ve put into making WP Umbrella a more robust and reliable platform.

I'm proud of these business metrics and optimistic about maintaining this upward trajectory in the coming year as we continue to enhance WP Umbrella, and probably start to do some real marketing.

I’ll delve more into these future plans later in this post.

Building WP Umbrella: A Community-Driven Approach

As the CEO and Chief Product Officer at WP Umbrella, my approach to product development is anchored in two fundamental beliefs:

1. User-Centric Development:

Our users are essential to the evolution of WP Umbrella. Their feedback, needs, and experiences are the driving force behind every feature we develop and every improvement we make.

It’s not just about building a product; it’s about fostering a community where each member contributes to the product’s growth. We mean it and we try to reflect this in every thing that we do.

2. We’re crafting a tool for developers that shouldn’t feel like a typical developer’s tool:

We aim to create a tool for developers that breaks away from the norm in WordPress. It should be user-friendly, easy-to-use and not intimidating. Our goal is to bridge the gap between advanced functionality and intuitive design, ensuring that WP Umbrella is both a robust and accessible tool for developers of all skill levels — and trust me, this is not a piece of cake when you build an all-in-one solution.

To truly integrate our users into WP Umbrella’s development, we need more than just passive users; we need active participants. This means engaging with a community of users who are not only using our product but also invested in its improvement.

In November, when we shifted our roadmap visibility from Notion to Canny, the change in user engagement was striking. It was more than just numbers; it was about the quality of the interactions. Users were not only suggesting new features but also discussing the potential impact of these features, sharing their personal experiences, and helping us prioritize what matters most.

The level of engagement we saw in November was enlightening. It reinforced the idea that WP Umbrella is not just a tool but a platform shaped by its user community. This feedback loop has become a cornerstone of our development process, providing us with invaluable insights.

This direct line of communication with our users does more than just inform our development decisions; it energizes our entire team. Knowing that real people are benefiting from our work and are eager to see it evolve gives us a sense of purpose. It’s a reminder that what we’re building has a tangible impact on our users’ professional lives.

We’re not just building a product; we’re trying to cultivate an ecosystem where every user has a stake in the success of WP Umbrella and I think it's what Indie Hackers should do.

Entrepreneurship is not a sprint; it's a marathon, and I've come to realize just how fortunate I am to have this incredible community alongside me.

They are the wind at our back, the fellow marathoners who make this journey not just about reaching the finish line but about enjoying every step of the way.

Build a community for your product.