Canny
Capture feedback to inform your product decisions
Over $1.4m in annual recurring revenue
I still remember the days we were making no money, so this boggles my mind.
9-person team (hiring for 10!)
We added more stellar people to the team and we’re still all remote.
0 retreats
More of a lowlight but we’re so looking forward to when we can safely travel again.
Raised $0
Still no plans to change this!
Check out our full review of year 4:
Canny hit $1m ARR last week! It's a huge milestone for us 😊
- Launched just under 3.5 years ago
- Fully bootstrapped, no money raised
- Fully remote
- No outbound sales
- Team of 7 (now 8 since 2 days ago and #9 starting next week!)
I'll probably write a blog post about it so let me know if there's something specific you'd want to hear about.
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Wow! What are your biggest customer acquisition channels?
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Good question… and something we should have a better grasp on! Everyone currently comes inbound. Typically, through Google or our organic channels (good content, Powered by Canny, etc.)
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I'm relieved to see that you can grow to a $1MM business and still not have a good grasp on this question!
People often ask me this too, and I never have a good answer. I'm just building features customers ask for, marketing on the blog, email, twitter etc, and it seems to be doing ok. I can't point to one particular channel where all the customers are coming from.
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I discovered you guys via "Powered by canny"
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Congratulations Sarah! Could you speak to how you manage your people?
- How do you find and gauge quality people?
- What's your onboarding been like?
- Have you been intentional about instilling a culture and if yes, how?
- What are your processes for managing communication and morale?
- Have you had to let people go, and if yes, what was your tipping point and how did you handle it?
- Stories where you got any or all of the above wrong and your iteration to the right thing would be helpful.
My other question is how much of your customer acquisition flow do you attribute to your market positioning being right vs. the daily effort?
- This is not to say getting market positioning right is easy. It's just that sometimes we are advised to focus on customer development to the point where it is missed that you can make market competition so much easier for yourself by just positioning yourself right. I have noticed this is often especially the case when founders aren't 100% sure where they are getting customers from which means they are riding a strong wave and not having to paddle like crazy for every acquire. I am curious how much you think this played a role for Canny, and if it was intentional on your part, how did you go about positioning it?
Another question is around your DevOps. How do you work (sprints, less structured)? What's your stance and management of technical debt, and keeping things stable enough so turnaround without breaking everything isn't crazy?
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Hi Richa, these are great questions, thanks! Some of these can definitely be their own blog post.
Some quick thoughts:
Managing people:
We're still very new to this stuff so a lot of it isn't intentional. We rely on our instincts a lot here. Our only intention is to be self-aware, check in with people, and adjust as necessary. Relevant posts:
First hire to first fire
How we’ve managed to attract top talent to our early-stage startupCustomer acquisition:
Before we brought on our marketers, we didn't really think of it as proper positioning. We are very familiar with the space we're in so we were, again, able to rely on our own instincts a lot. We're product people so, in the early days, we neglected marketing (don't do this). These days, we do things that will pay off in the long run vs. daily spikes.
Relevant post:
Building your brand by telling your storyDevOps:
We're very unstructured. Everyone is responsible for their own projects and timelines. I think it works well while we're small so we don't overthink everything. This might change as we grow. Technical debt is more a question for my co-founder Andrew who runs engineering. Will have to get his take on that.Hope this is helpful for now!
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🔥 Awesome milestone! Congrats!!!! 🥳
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Thanks Jen!! Love seeing you kill it with Lunch Money 😍
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Congrats @sarah this is super inspiring. (I too discovered you via ClickUp's "Powered by Canny" btw)
Would love to know more about the following:
- what role was your first hire?
- as CEO what does your day to day look like and what parts of the business are you still working in that you plan to remove yourself from via either software/systems or new hires?
- which of your hires do you feel are better suited to be "in-house" vs "ok to outsource"
- what's your number 1 piece of advice for indiehackers building digital products as they reach for 1MM ARR?
Thanks Sarah and keep rocking!!!!! 🚀
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Wow, that is simply amazing. And the product really looks amazing (was looking into an option for this and Canny looks perfect). Congrats!
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Thanks YuanHao!!
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Congrats! I remember watching one of your early presentations at Stanford!
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Thank you! That feels like forever ago! 😂🙈
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We integrated Canny in our web app last week and already we are seeing high engagement and meaningful requests by our customers leading to interesting facts about our customers.
I believe the key to the success is the Canny UX -- we integrated our user accounts with Canny so our customers could immediately post without having to login, and overall the UI is very user-friendly.
Glad I found you guys on IH and congratulations with the milestone! 💪
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Thanks for your support and for being a customer! As our designer, I'm glad to hear you enjoy our UX 😊
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Congratulations Sarah and Canny team!
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Congratulations Sarah and all Canny team!
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Congrats Sarah! Huge fan of the tool, use it on Clickup's feedback page and love the simplicity/ease of use.
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Thanks so much! Love hearing about good experiences on the user side 😊
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This is a really amazing milestone @sarah. Have been following the journey of Canny for a long time. More power to you.
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Thank you so much for the support and for following along! 😊
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Wow, this is amazing. Congrats! 🎉
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Thanks Chris! 😊
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Congratulations!! This is a really great accomplishment and I'm so happy for you!!
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Thank you so much!
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Hello Sarah!
My congratulations! Want to say thanks for a great product. We are using your app to collect feedback from our customers!
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Thanks for your support Nikita, I'm so happy to hear Canny is helping your team!
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Amazing! I'm a user and didn't know you were on here. Big congrats Sarah & team.
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Awesome, thanks Joseph!
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Wow, that's amazing. Keep the momentum going! @sarah
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Thanks Tony, will do our best! 💪
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Nice one Sarah! Very motivating to see you can make that much and more while completely bootstrapped and remote 👏
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Aw I'm so glad to hear that. If I can do, you can do it 😊
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Congratulations, Sarah. We're a happy to have contributed a small amount (of subscription dollars) to you reaching that milestone and love the product. Wishing you all continued success and great product feedback.
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Thanks for your support Tom! Don't hesitate to reach out if we can improve Canny for your team 😊
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Congrats Sarah! I was part of the YC SUS #1 and got to know about you guys. Love the Canny blog. Great to see the progress you guys have made so far 🚀
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Yaay love seeing SUS people in the wild! Thanks for following along on our journey 😊
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Amazing!!
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Thank youuuu 😊
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Congrats! Here's to 2 mil!
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Yessss! 🚀 Thanks Nikola!
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Congrats Sarah! It's an inspiration for all indiehackers like me.
I see Canny has other co-founders. May I ask how many co-founders you have and what your role is?-
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Thanks Bugra, I'm so happy to hear that! Yes, I have one co-founder, Andrew @a13n. We are both product people—me a designer and him a software engineer. Pretty solid combo for getting us off the ground. It was just the two of us for a while until we could afford to start hiring.
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Definitely it's a great combo, congrats again!
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Canny's success and that it is a bootstrapped company itself is already adding value to this community. Plus, they have written tons of blogs about their journey from the start. It's exactly what this community needs.
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Thanks! That's what milestones are for? 😅 Not sure where else this shows up but I just posted it to our company profile. I'll likely write a blog post about it in a bit so lmk if there's something you want to know.
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I've learned a ton from Sarah and her journey with Canny. She's been an active participant on IHs for a couple of years at least. I'd argue she gives back more than most. Your criticism is misdirected.
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I mean ... they are busy building their business? You can't expect a 1m ARR company with 7 employees just to be producing free content and spending time on IH without an ROI. It just does not make business sense.
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Some highlights from this year:
Ended our nomad journey
After living and working from 27 cities in 16 countries, Andrew and I are now settled in Toronto. Check out this post if you’re curious about this decision.
Over $750K annual recurring revenue
We have aggressive goals this year so this’ll be an interesting number to keep an eye on for next year.
7-person team
We’ve added more brain power to the team to push Canny forward even more. We all work remotely and love it.
4 retreats
We’ve gone on four amazing team retreats and are planning our fifth! I recently wrote about how we plan retreats.
Raised $0
Still no plans to change this. We’re proud to have bootstrapped Canny to where we are today.
Here are some of the lessons we’ll be taking with us into year 4.
https://canny.io/blog/year-three-lessons-bootstrapped-startup/
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congrats! You guys are very inspiring! How has Covid 19 effected you guys? How are revenue kept up? also from Toronto! Are you guys planning to have an office in the city? Or staying remote
I joined Indie Hackers over two years ago when I quit my full time job to start Canny. Since then, I've listened to many podcasts from some truly amazing founders. I love how insightful they are and how they take you on the founder's journey.
When I got the email from Courtland to go on the podcast I was a bit shocked, to be honest. I even left it in my inbox for A MONTH (sorry Courtland) before getting over myself. I was nervous! I'm not a natural speaker and everything "public" gives me anxiety.
I guess that's something else I've learned. The stuff that takes you out of your comfort zone are often the most rewarding. I never imagined I'd be on the other side: giving advice and sharing my story on the IH podcast. This is definitely a milestone for me.
I hope those of you that listen take something away from it ❤
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Just listened to it. Great episode. :)
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Thank you so much Peter! Glad you enjoyed it
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Just heard the episode. Congratulations! 🙌
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Thank you Anita!
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This is awesome!! Looking forward to listening to the interview :D
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Thanks Jean!! :D
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Been following since I found u guys through expo. Nice work :)
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That's so awesome! Expo has been with us basically since the beginning!
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Really great interview. Sounds like a good journey you guys are on!
I'll definitely look into how I can use Canny.
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Thanks Nicolaj! We'd love to have you :)
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Great Interview Sarah! Keep up the good work @ Canny!
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Thanks so much Yannick! I'm glad you enjoyed it
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Awesome. We just started using Canny and love the product so far.
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That's so great to hear! Don't hesitate to reach out if we can help you get set up :)
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Listening now! Great interview, it's nice hearing your background story!
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Thank youuuu
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This is awesome! Been following the Canny story for a long time , happy you made it to the podcast!
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Aw thanks so much for following along 😊
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Hahaha! Looking forward to listening!
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I hope it's helpful!
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We've been on Indie Hackers pretty much since the beginning and have read many awesome interviews. It feels great to add ours to the list! I hope you find something helpful through reading our story.
Feel free to ask questions, we're happy to help where we can!
Our third official Product Hunt launch—complete with a fun video!
This changelog product helps round out our product offering.
- Collect feedback
- Plan your roadmap
- Share updates (via your changelog!)
We ended up being the fifth product of the day!
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Congrats, that's great!
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