How a Single Customer Email Solved Our Scaling Problem
After a big win at the DEMO conference put our business on the map, I figured the next step was obvious: hire more friends and scale our cold-calling efforts. I imagined that a larger team, combined with referrals and organic press, would multiply our revenue. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The results were pitiful, but the real issue was the work itself. My friends just couldn't hack it. The constant hang-ups, the swearing, and the endless stream of “no’s” wore them down. People I’d known for years quit on me, and I couldn’t blame them. It was a thankless, mind-numbingly slow job. You could spend a whole day making a hundred calls just to book a few demos, and most of those would cancel anyway.
Our growth was completely bottlenecked. Initially, I focused on restaurants because that’s where I first saw a need. But trying to get a restaurant owner on the phone is like chasing a chicken around a field—they’re stressed, short on time, and almost never call back. Even when they were interested, scheduling a meeting was a nightmare.
Eventually, we pivoted to other industries, like attorneys and professionals who were at their desks all day. This doubled our success rate, but we still faced the same fundamental problem: cold calling was just too slow. With competitors sprouting up like weeds, we had to scale fast or we’d be left fighting for scraps. I didn’t want to get into an expensive marketing war; we had a superior product and we put our customers first. But if you don't claim your spot at the top, someone else will. The clock was ticking.
The Search for a Better Way
Scaling is all about distribution. For most B2B companies, that means in-person sales, which is what our cold calling was meant to set up. But to become the world’s number-one mobile app builder, we needed to either sell online or build a global sales team. As a bootstrapped , we didn't have the cash for a massive salesforce. Selling online internationally seemed just as complicated, involving different languages and time zones.
For a while, we were stuck. But I don’t believe in leaving things to chance. Entrepreneurship isn’t about waiting for the right moment; it’s about creating your own opportunities through action. I was a nobody with no family fortune, but I knew what I wanted and was willing to work for it. To solve our scaling problem, I read every review, press release, and industry forum I could find. Ideas are free, and you find them by paying attention to what people are saying.
This is how I found the key to scaling Bizness Apps. It wasn't in a book or from a consultant. It came from a customer.
A Game-Changing Conversation
One of our customers, Raoul Corciulo, owned a web design company in Switzerland. He had used our platform to build a few apps for the Ramada hotel chain. This got me thinking: what if he had relationships with other hotels we could tap into? I reached out to see how we could help him build more apps.
We emailed back and forth, often relying on Google Translate since English wasn’t his first language. Then, Raoul suggested something that would completely change the course of our . He asked, “Could you white-label the template?”
My first thought was, After a quick Wikipedia search, the implications hit me. It was the perfect solution. We could license our app-building technology to Raoul, he would put his own branding on it, and he’d sell apps to his existing hospitality clients. We would simply get a commission on each sale. This was the key to turning a great idea into one of the most imaginable.
Why spend all our energy building relationships with individual businesses when we could sell to the people who had those relationships? It was the ideal distribution strategy. Almost overnight, our gained a global presence without us spending a dime on international expansion.
From Bottleneck to Hypergrowth
Raoul became our first reseller, and this model became our engine for growth. Instead of selling one app at a time for $39 a month, we started selling reseller packages for $300 a month to digital agencies all over the world. These agencies already had hundreds of customers and were eager to add mobile apps to their services. It was the perfect way to transform a small operation into a genuine powerhouse.
This reseller program enabled thousands of entrepreneurs and marketers to launch their own , helping small companies get online with powerful mobile apps. For many, it was a path from a side project to a full-time career. We didn't pay anything upfront and didn't need to raise venture capital. Yet, we had a global salesforce working for us around the clock.
On the back of this model alone, our went from essentially $0 to $5.6 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in just three years. By 2014, we had grown 5,000 percent and were named the 58th fastest-growing company in the U.S. by Inc. magazine.
I’d learned that the best way to grow is to ask questions. I asked Raoul how I could help him, and his answer gave us our reseller model. Inquiry opens doors you never knew existed. Start by talking to your customers, your team, and your network. Ask them what they love, what they complain about, and why they do the things they do. That curiosity is what turns an idea into a real business, and for us, it was the key to unlocking massive scale.
