Welcome Lukas Sigel, the strongest growth since July 2021 and relief for Ukraine: welcome to our Open Startup Report for March 2022.
Contents
March at Friendly in the Numbers
- 💳 MRR: CHF 12,517 | ~$13,441 (+6.5%)
- 💵 One-time revenues (consulting): CHF 1,530 | ~$1,623 (-)
- 💸 Costs: CHF 18,876 | ~$20,266 (+37%)
- 🧾 Profit and Loss: CHF -4,829 | ~ -$5,121 (+139%)
- 👩 Active customers: 79 (-)
- 💔 Monthly customer churn: 5% (+290%)
- 👋 New Trials: 5 (+150%)
- 🔎 Website Visits: 2,683 (-2%)
- 📮 Emails sent (Automate): 484,879 (+21%)
- 📈 Pageviews tracked (Analytics): 878,730 (+3%)
This is what moved us in March:
Welcome Lukas Sigel!
Since March, Lukas Sigel has been strengthening us as Customer Happiness Manager. I already know Lukas from a previous collaboration with my agency Wortspiel and have come to appreciate him as an approachable and conscientious person.
At Friendly, Lukas does everything in his power to make our customers successful with our software. The computer science graduate has been working in IT for over 10 years and completed a CAS as a frontend developer while working. In his spare time Lukas organizes concerts and looks for new talents for the big stage in Switzerland.
Lukas started in March on a freelance basis. As of May, he will be employed on a permanent basis with a 20% workload.
Strong rise in revenue and costs
Our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) increased significantly by +6.5% in March to CHF 12,517 (~$13,441), our strongest growth since July 2021 and the seventh consecutive month of revenue growth.
Furthermore, for the first time we have additional one-off revenue from consulting. Previously, we had also supported customers in areas that went beyond pure product support – without charging money for it.
To put our finances on a sounder footing, we are now changing that. Thus, in March, we charged separately for activities such as the creation of e-mail templates or on-site workshops. This brought us additional income in the amount of 1,530 Fr. (~$1,623).
Our costs increased massively in March by +37% to 18’876 Fr. (~$20,266). This was mainly due to more investments in our team:
- Lukas Sigel is a new member of the team as Customer Happiness Manager (currently still accounted for as “Freelancer”, from May he will be a permanent employee).
- We doubled the salary of our developer Brady Cargle from $1,000 to $2,000 per month.
- The demand for Friendly Analytics increased. As a result, our external analytics expert Peter Boehlke worked significantly more for us, which also drove up our freelancer costs significantly.
In addition, because of the terrible situation in Ukraine, we have decided to make a donation of 500 Fr. for humanitarian aid (see below).
And last but not least, since March we finally have an IT liability insurance as well as a legal protection insurance to safeguard us as a company in the long term. Together, these cost an additional $208 per month.
Our loss increased by a whopping +139% to -4’829 Fr. (~ -$5,121) due to these additional expenses. This means that we will hold back on further investments for the time being in order to continuously reduce the loss again.
Once again for March we are sharing all of our costs including salaries. Here they are:
Stand with Ukraine
In March we donated 500 Fr. for humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
For all those who would like to follow our example: Donations can easily be made via the Swiss Red Cross (SRC) website by credit card, bank transfer or Paypal. The Swiss Red Cross then forwards the money directly to their sister organization in Hungary:
Knies Kinderzoo becomes a Friendly customer
Knies Kinderzoo is one of my fondest childhood memories. I was impressed by the giant whale made of stone. And on my birthday, dolphins pulled me in a tiny boat through a seemingly endless pool.
I am therefore personally particularly pleased that Knies Kinderzoo is now one of Friendly’s customers. The team at Kinderzoo uses Friendly Automate as its Swiss solution for CRM and marketing automation.
More than 30 years after my first visit, I always enjoy going to the children’s zoo with my own children. And climb with them on the same whale made of stone.
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