WHAT WE LEARNED FROM OPEN SOCIAL IN 3 YEARS, MOVING FROM AN AGENCY TO A PRODUCT COMPANY
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The document outlines the journey of Open Social from inception to a successful SaaS product, highlighting their mission to build community-focused software and the transition from agency work. Key metrics for success such as monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and customer acquisition cost (CAC) are emphasized, alongside the advantages of SaaS over traditional development. Open Social's future aims include expanding into new industry segments and improving product offerings based on user value.
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM OPEN SOCIAL IN 3 YEARS, MOVING FROM AN AGENCY TO A PRODUCT COMPANY
- 1. What we learned from Open Social in 3 years, moving from an Agency to a Product company. DrupalCamp Kyiv 2019
- 2. ! co-Founder GoalGorilla (2008) ! co-Founder Open Social (2016) ! co-Founder THX Project (2018) ❖ Former board of Dutch Drupal Association ❖ Current board of Dutch Startup Association Introduction Taco Potze
- 3. GoalGorilla, creative Drupal shop since 2008 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- 4. Why Open Social? “We want to build better software, innovate faster and deliver more value to our clients.
- 5. Open Social builds communities on a mission, since 2016
- 6. Drupal distribution * drupal.org/project/social Open Social is not simply software but a collaborative project Using open-source technology, it’s flexible and powers more than 1.000 active installations.*
- 7. ! United Nations (8 platforms) ! Greenpeace International ! SAP ! Victim Support Netherlands ! CTBTO ! Foraus our clients Companies using Open Social Clients in Europe, United States and Australia ! Holmesglen Institute Australia ! European Aviation Safety Agency ! DigitalSwitzerland ! Friends of the Earth (Milieudefensie) ! Pachamama Alliance ! Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
- 8. So, how did we do it? getopensocial.com
- 9. open-SaaS
- 10. 21 SaaS Software-as-a-Service Offering: - Easy out-of-the-box setup - Smooth automated updates incl. new features - Hosting (cloud), maintenance, support and services Billing: - Setup fee + Monthly fee - Additional services
- 11. ! Deliver more value to your clients ! Lower initial setup cost ! Faster deliver times ! Less time of client needed ! No acceptance periods ! Better tested software, less bugs ! More time spend on UX and design Winning Why SaaS beats custom development? ! Other people use it too, less risk ! Crowd co-development ! Specialism as company ! Additional value adding services ! Stricter security guidelines and certifications ! Marketplace for modules / extensions
- 12. Our secret sauce Technology Moss: continuous integration & automation - Quality Assurance - Security - Performance - Backups Primate: Automated SaaS Cloud setup and release system Basic SaaS Enterprise SaaS (extended) API Brand/Layout THX Open-source Proprietary Single tenant
- 14. Doing agency work is easy. You sell the client a dream. You start building and they pay you all hours made, probably each month covering all your cost plus a little profit.
- 15. Building a product is hard. You sell the client a final product. You start building for 6-12 months, they pay you only a fraction of the cost.
- 18. 21 3 benefits Raising money pre-Seed <200k EUR Seed < 1M euro Series A >1M euro
- 19. Funded Open Social with a successful pre-seed crowdfunding campaign. 10% equity for 200k euro + 300k euro out of pocket
- 20. Watch our product video Watch now
- 21. Open DIY Public Big tech Closed adoption challengers Social software landscape Players, problems and pain Privacy concerns and lack of data ownership Lack of domain expertise, costly and time consuming Vendor lock-ins, not customizable bad services and expensive Not customizable, limited, no data ownership
- 22. Product/Market fit After non-profit we are now moving into the Business market Opportunities to expand target segment towards new industries and software domains Extranet; Events and Knowledge Management Vertical Industry NGOs Government Collaboration Courses (e-learning) Gamification 3.0 Business Initial target segment Source: Credence Research “Enterprise Social Networks and Online Communities Market, June 2018 Product/market-fit in ‘17-’18 helped to identify key areas of expansion Crowd Innovation
- 23. 4 Key Metrics to measure success
- 24. MRR = Monthly Recurring Revenue Usually your monthly SaaS fee, your client pays you every month or every year. Ideally this price goes up each month or year when you deliver more value to your client (usage, features, interactions). ARR = anual recurring revenue In US your company could be worth 100 x MRR.. So a 500 EUR/month client adds 50.000k to your company value..
- 25. Churn % How many clients stop paying for your product every month? Needs to be as low as possible. But too low and you might charge enough. Lock them in (for example with data) vs. Open
- 26. CAC = Cost to Acquire a Customer Say your cost are 10.000 euro a month for marketing and sales and that gives you 2 new clients. CAC = 10.000 / 2 = 5.000 euro How many months to recover CAC? 5.000 / 500 euro = 10 months, in general <1 year
- 27. LTV = Customer Life Time Value ARPA = avr. Monthly recurring Revenue per Account = MRR
- 28. How are we doing with Open Social?
- 29. MRR = Monthly Recurring Revenue 2017 2018 2019
- 30. Churn %
- 31. CAC = Cost to Acquire a Customer Cost are 12.000 euro a month for marketing and sales and gives us 1 new clients. CAC = 12.000 / 1 = 12.000 euro How many months to recover CAC? 12.000 / 1.000 euro = 12 months
- 33. LTV = Customer Life Time Value Not usable for Open Social, yet..
- 34. Timelime GoalGorilla <> Open Social 2015: Preparations and crowdfunding 2016: Invested 500k into Open Social 2017 - 2019: Increase Open Social clients, decrease GoalGorilla clients. 2020: Raising additional Investment
- 35. 21 3 Open Social 2016-2019 3 key learnings Have enough funding for product development AND sales & marketing. Focus on MRR growth!! Recurring Revenue Build your tech to scale. Setup and maintenance time should be close to 0.
- 37. Thank you for your attention! Get in touch with our founders on [email protected] And technical questions to our VP of Product [email protected] Updates @OpenSocialHQ Relevant links getopensocial.com Open Social website drupal.org/project/social Drupal Project page demo.getopensocial.com Demo environment goalgorilla.com/en Agency Website thxproject.com DAICO THX Website