Our revenue increased +6%, our employment contract lit LinkedIn on fire, and Handelszeitung wrote about Friendly: welcome to our Open Startup report for September 2021.
Contents
September at Friendly in the numbers
💵 MRR: CHF 10,370 | ~$11,147 (+6%)
👩 Active customers: 75 (+4%)
💔 Monthly customer churn: 6% (-32%)
👋 New Trials: 6 (-14%)
🔎 Website Visits: 3’754 * (+46%)
📮 Emails sent (Automate): 478,217 (-37%)
📈 Pageviews tracked (Analytics): 563’575 (+11%)
💸 Costs: CHF 13,120 | ~$14,104 (+7%)
🧾 Profit and Loss: CHF -2’750 | ~ -$2,956 (+11%)
* Sampled due to a temporary tracking problem on our website
This is what moved us in September:
Back on track for growth
After a first-time decline in our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) in August, signs are pointing to growth again. Our MRR increased by +6% to CHF 10,370 (~$11,147) in September.
At the same time, our costs increased by +7% to CHF 13,120 (~$14,104). This was due to additional investments in hosting and advertising. This increased the loss by +11% to -2’750 CHF (~ -$2,956).
Our next goal is to become and remain profitable. In June, we had already achieved this for one month.
When we have achieved that, we will strengthen our team again. And maybe pay yours truly a small salary for the first time.
Once again for September we are sharing all of our costs including salaries. Here they are:
In our last Open Startup report we had published the employment contract of our new employee Kathrin.
I shared this employment contract again as a post on LinkedIn.
With that, I apparently stirred up a hornet’s nest. Until then, no post of mine had even come close to attracting as much attention.
As of today, there are over 338 likes and other reactions, 65 comments, and over 66,306 views (!):
Reactions ranged from harsh criticism (“PR stunt,” “data protection problem”) to suggestions for improvement (“more vacation”) to praise and enthusiasm (“innovative approach,” “more than fair salary,” “this is how it should be everywhere”).
The “success” of this posting has two causes for me: Controversy and innovation.
For one thing, it confirms an old advertising adage: it’s better if a few people think you’re really cool and a few think you’re really dumb than if you’re okay to a lot of people.
Although most of the contract was already known (our salaries are already in our Open Startup reports) it was apparently a big provocation for some people to see an employment contract publicly on the web.
On the other hand, we benefit from the novelty aspect, of course. To my knowledge, we are the only Open Startup in Switzerland. And apparently no one in this country has ever shared a real employment contract and put it up for discussion.
“Transparent Balance Sheets”: The Handelszeitung wrote about Friendly
The Handelszeitung wrote about Friendly – on a whole page!
In September, Switzerland’s largest business platform reported on Friendly as an example of an Open Startup under the title “Transparent Balance Sheets”.
Friendly Automate 4.0: the 8 most important new features
In September, Friendly Automate was released in the new version 4.0! This was the biggest upgrade in Friendly’s history so far.
In this article we present you the most important new features.
Friendly at Mautic Conference Europe
On November 8th and 9th, the Mautic Conference Europe will take place in Belgium! This is the biggest on-site event around the open source project Mautic, on which Friendly Automate is based.
Our Joey Keller will be there and is looking forward to inspiring conversations and a beer or two in the evening.
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