Or, you can simplify the system with one global merchant of record. 

When Excire became a popular enough product line that it was being sold in both Europe and the U.S., Managing Director Mathias Martinetz and CTO Thomas Käster knew their current online checkout setup — having one solution for Europe and one for the U.S. — was not efficient. 

“And we had a lot of manual work,” Mathias says. “Basically, each and every sale had to be manually organized and given to our tax advisor.”

And if they wanted to continue scaling their business and expanding into more countries, they needed a better system. 

That’s when they discovered the merchant of record model and, subsequently, FastSpring.

Completely switching online commerce systems can be daunting, especially when switching from one type (such as a very basic online checkout or web shop system) to another (such as a comprehensive merchant of record). But Mathias and Thomas did their due diligence, and they’re glad they found FastSpring.

Here’s what they did to ensure they’d find the right merchant of record (MoR) and have a successful transition.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Excire Needed a Simpler Payments and Taxes System

Excire is an award-winning line of photo and video management software products that help photographers organize, find, and cull their photos at lightning speed. With Excire Foto as a standalone product or with Excire Search as an Adobe Lightroom plugin, photographers can leverage meta data and AI for keyword search, facial recognition, grouping shots, image analysis, and more.

As the product line grew in popularity and the team was able to move from only selling Excire in Europe to selling it in the U.S., they found themselves with two separate shop systems. 

“As we were growing and wanted to grow more, we were looking for a solution that would allow us to have only one shop, but that could also be used around the world,” Mathias recalls. 

Thomas adds, “We encountered some technical challenges, which is to be expected when managing an ecommerce system independently. Additionally, we faced issues with our tax workflows, which were no longer sufficient to support the level of growth and scaling we had already achieved.”

They appreciated the value of offering localized currencies and payments to buyers, but as it was already unwieldy to have two online shops for two regions, they didn’t want to add more shops as they moved into new regions. They also knew they didn’t like managing all the sales taxes the way they had been, and that more growth would only make that even more difficult.

There had to be a better way, so they started looking around to see what other companies were using. 

Similar Software Companies Recommended FastSpring

Mathias and Thomas reached out to some contacts of theirs at another software company, and that company referred them to FastSpring. 

“The interesting thing for us is,” Thomas says, “if I see similar companies using FastSpring in the same way as we’d like to use it, that’s a good sign that FastSpring was the right decision for us.”

Without having to think for very long about it, they can easily list a handful of software companies in their industry who also use FastSpring, which makes them even more confident about their decision. 

Talk to Similar Businesses About THEIR Experiences

Besides just noting that many businesses like theirs were already using FastSpring, Mathias and Thomas recommend asking them for more information about what it’s actually like to use a particular payments platform or merchant of record. “Get their experience,” Mathias advises. 

Thomas adds, “In the end, you never know, right? When you decide to switch off an existing technical system completely and onto a completely new system, you never know if it will be the right decision.” So besides just observing what your own competitors are using, reach out to businesses you’re friendly with and “Talk a lot to the people.”

Pay Attention to the Responsiveness of Each MoR’s Team as You Begin Reaching Out

Excire was fortunate to have a very short list of possible ecommerce solutions, as FastSpring seemed like the clear winner just based on how many other companies were already using it. 

But if you have a few options on your list — or if you want to validate that the one you’re leaning toward is eager to meet your needs – you can learn a lot from how a possible vendor’s team responds to your initial inquiry. 

This may seem counterintuitive, as most people and organizations will be eager to ensure the first experience you have with them is excellent. And Thomas says that it’s not always easy to make a decision based on those first impressions. 

But he clarifies, “Even from a first impression, the FastSpring team does a better job than the competitors.” The Excire team had also approached an MoR company that had a team based in Germany, so Thomas and Mathias could speak with that team in their native language. 

“But the first contact with them was not as good as the first contact with FastSpring,” he continues. Besides the technical requirements he wanted to ensure were met, “The way the team took care was very important for the final decision to go with FastSpring.”

Define Your Needs Clearly and Communicate Them to Potential Vendors

Observing competitors, talking to similar businesses, and initiating contact with various vendors are all important parts of the external planning phase when evaluating a new ecommerce system, but there’s an important internal planning phase too. 

As Chief Technical Officer, Thomas is very hands on with the technical aspects of their various systems, so he knows how important it is to know what you need and communicate that to potential payments platforms. 

He explains it this way: “Summarize and describe your own necessities, or the aspects that are most important to you. Especially, what are the requirements of such an ecommerce system? When you explain it in the best way you can, then you’ll get the best, most concrete answer from the FastSpring team.”

There were several sessions back and forth between the Excire team and FastSpring as they worked through the technical details of what their team needed and how FastSpring could meet those needs. Thomas said those sessions helped them “come to the point where we were really sure about our decision to go with FastSpring.”

He continues, “I guess this is something every company needs to do on its own first: to check all the aspects that are important to them, and to communicate those aspects in a clear manner.” 

Besides wanting to combine their international payment systems into one simpler system that could continue expanding their global sales, Thomas and Mathias were also looking closely at competitive pricing, payment failure systems, ease of international pricing management, newsletter systems, subscription capabilities, and integrations. 

The Excire team also found FastSpring’s pricing better than the other merchants of record they evaluated.

Upgrade to a Merchant of Record Like FastSpring

It was looking at and talking to companies similar to Excire that tipped off Mathias and Thomas to the merchant of record model as the answer to their global payments and taxes question.

“That’s how we found out that the solution could be a merchant of record,” Mathias says. “So that’s how we got more into it and found out that there is an advantage: that all tax and currency related activities can be handled much, much easier than if we would do it on our own.”

Switching from separate systems for different regions to one global solution would be an upgrade, but finding an ecommerce model that also managed sales taxes and VAT for Excire sales would provide an even greater improvement to their operations.

FastSpring has also made many of the smaller, day-to-day management tasks easier. For example, Mathias says that “We can easily define prices worldwide; that’s quite smooth. And it was helpful to implement a subscription model, right, Thomas?” 

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Thomas adds.

When Excire initially launched on FastSpring in 2023, they ran into some challenges with email and analytics integrations. The FastSpring team worked hard to meet Mathias’ and Thomas’ needs, prioritizing additional help for the Excire store integrations and finding ways to meet their needs.

Thomas says of their more recent subscription launch, “This kind of integration was very easy.” He says that their integration requirements may be more complicated to fulfill than some companies’, but that the communication between FastSpring and their licensing vendor has been “really easy and robust.”

Partner With FastSpring to Simplify Your International Software Sales

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? 

FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, gaming, and other digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. 

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post How Excire Simplified Their International Software Sales (and Taxes) With FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

As the VP and General Manager of the Stardock Software division, Brad led his team through this process and has learned some valuable lessons about doing it as strategically and easily as possible. 

FastSpring is proud to have been a big part of supporting that process for Stardock, and Brad had some great things to say about how easy we made it for them. We asked him to share his process tips for anyone who might be considering or actively planning the same transition themselves.

Here are Brad’s top recommendations: 

• Have a committed partner like FastSpring to handle the subscription infrastructure so you don’t have to, including:
  • Choosing a partner that’s making the same investments in subscription management that you are.
  • Letting FastSpring handle the subscription infrastructure.
  • Integrating customer-facing subscription management tools on your own site.
• Start small with an incremental approach.
• Communicate frequently and clearly with customers about the transition.
• Prepare for renewals with value adds to reduce churn.
• Design the transition plan that’s right for your company.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your SaaS business? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital goods businesses, including subscription management, payment localization, VAT and sales tax management, consumer support, and more. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

5 Tips for Making the SaaS Transition Easier

1. Choose FastSpring for Subscription Infrastructure and Long-Term Partnership

Stardock Software first started using FastSpring in 2018 to help them sell their software products, and they’d always had a relatively good experience with how FastSpring handles sales of one-time software purchases. 

Luckily, FastSpring was able to make the transition to subscriptions very positive, too — about as simple as replacing a few SKUs on their site (more on that below).

This was a relief, since the technology behind subscription management for software purchases can get very complex very quickly, with many scenarios that need to be accounted for and multiple technological components that need to be covered. 

“Most people would not think about all the intricacies that have to happen” when switching from a single transaction to a subscription, Brad explains. “As an example, you have a product that was previously purchased once, and it worked forever. Now you suddenly purchase a product, and it has a time box on it that is tied to a subscription — which means that product now has to stop working if a user stops paying for it. So that gets complex. And then, what do you do if they’re offline? What do you do in all these different scenarios? There’s a real dividing line here, which is where FastSpring came in.” 

When Brad and his team started planning to test the SaaS business model in spring of 2023, knowing that FastSpring already had the infrastructure to support subscription sales meant that Stardock Software didn’t need to build their own, search for a specialty tool or service, or worry about that part at all, really. 

“The worst thing that can happen is, you make the switch to subscription, and then your technology fails to make the switch effectively. And we were only able to do this because we had confidence that FastSpring’s subscription model would support our endeavors.”

“We were only able to do this because we had confidence that FastSpring’s subscription model would support our endeavors.”

FastSpring is proud to have been a key part of Stardock’s business ecosystem as they tackled an initiative that’s driving major growth for their business. 

Choose a Partner Making the Same Investments In Subscription Management

Brad admits that Stardock will always be in a position that keeps them from being “married to any single vendor,” and they know FastSpring isn’t the only merchant of record or subscription management tool on the market. 

“But at the same time,” he explains, “we knew that with moving to a subscription model, we had to bet on a partner who was making the same level of investments that we were making. And the conclusion was that FastSpring was on that path of continued investment and wasn’t just collecting the paycheck every month and doing nothing.” 

“We had to bet on a partner who was making the same level of investments that we were making.”

Brad was able to see where FastSpring was making those investments, as product updates rolled out and as future timelines and roadmaps were shared with Stardock by their Customer Success Manager, Danica. He says that helps, because “it’s like, ‘Okay, if we’re going to go subscription (which again, ratchets up the stickiness factor for FastSpring), then we’ve got to make sure FastSpring is going to be here for the long run, too.’” 

Brad went on to describe Stardock’s relationship with FastSpring as “symbiotic.” “Because the better we do, the better FastSpring is going to do. We’ve got to make sure that everybody’s winning, and things with FastSpring just felt aligned.”

Let FastSpring Handle the Subscription Infrastructure

“You have two technical components to this,” Brad clarifies. “You have the subscription side (the actual financial transaction that must occur), and the mechanism that keeps that information updated. And then you also have the actual app itself. So this is where we really started getting deep into FastSpring, because FastSpring already had the subscription components.” 

Because Stardock and FastSpring were growing together through this subscription technology journey, Brad saw FastSpring’s earlier iterations of the subscription management tools. That was already enough to make switching on subscriptions a much simpler process than it would have been without FastSpring. 

“At the time, it was a little more bare bones, but it had the infrastructure in place to actually allow us to do this. Because at the end of the day, you can’t just turn on a subscription — the whole plumbing pipeline has to be there,” he reiterates. “And so we connected with FastSpring, explained our scenario, they helped us with the documentation and helped us work through some edge cases, and then we were able to wire it up through already deployed FastSpring infrastructure on our end.” 

This turned out to be about as simple as setting up a new product SKU on their site that was marked as a subscription, outlining the attributes of the subscription (in their case, annual as opposed to monthly), and setting the price on the product. “There are a few other options in there,” Brad says, “like, ‘How do you want to communicate to the customer that things are about to renew?,’” but it was overall a simple process.

“Nothing in life at this magnitude is painless, but it was able to be done relatively quickly to pivot our business from a modeling perspective,” he assures us. “And that was the biggest value unlock: that we didn’t have to go through and reinvent the wheel on subscriptions for our flexible storefront at the end of the day.”

“That was the biggest value unlock: that we didn’t have to go through and reinvent the wheel on subscriptions for our flexible storefront at the end of the day.”

FastSpring’s subscription management features include:

• Trial management (with or without payment method, and free or paid trials).
• Recurring payment processing.
• Plan management tools for businesses or their customers to manage the details of their subscriptions.
• A subscription overview dashboard with insightful metrics.
• Correspondence automation.
• Churn reduction and dunning management (automatic retrying of failed renewal payments and related email communications). 

All of this was in addition to the standard features and tools FastSpring already provides, including:

• Global payments for easily transacting across borders.
• Tax compliance, include calculation, collection, and remittance of VAT and sales taxes.
• Customizable checkouts that are localized to customers and branded with your company branding, plus they’re available as embedded, popup, or a hosted FastSpring web storefront to accommodate your business needs.
• Fraud prevention with intelligent alerts and fewer chargebacks.
• Reporting and analytics, including subscription, revenue, and chargeback dashboards to help you track recurring revenue from your new subs.
• Developer tools like a JavaScript library; FastSpring’s REST API; webhooks; and integrations and connections with third-party systems including marketing analytics tools, CRMs, DRMs, BI tools, and more.
• And much more.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your SaaS business? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital goods businesses, including subscription management, payment localization, VAT and sales tax management, consumer support, and more. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Integrate Customer-Facing Subscription Management on Your Own Site

Besides handling subscription sales and management on the back end, FastSpring also provides account management tools for Stardock’s customers to manage their own subscriptions on the front end. 

Brad recommends taking advantage of an embedded subscription management portal to provide a totally seamless experience to your users. 

FastSpring’s Embedded Payment Management Components are an embedded same-page subscription payment management experience (including adding, updating, and deleting payment methods) that enables your customers to manage their subscription payment methods without leaving your account management portal. 

You can create, customize (and brand), embed, and test the payment management component on your own site to give your customers the best experience possible while managing payments for their new subscriptions. 

FastSpring can act as an end-to-end subscription solution via our subscription API, ranging from getting subscription data, updating account information, and showing proration previews of estimated proposed plan changes to customers — all within your portal.

2. Start Small With an Incremental Approach

FastSpring having the subscription management technology handled meant that — besides being able to focus on software development instead of on the tech needed to sell their software — Brad and his team were able to focus on other nuanced facets of making the switch beyond the technical specs, such as which products they wanted to switch over to the subscription model first.

He recommends that you start small and cascade any learnings to additional products as you add to your subscription offerings. 

“Our model was ‘Start small, risk small,’ and then ‘Move big, risk big.’ And by that time, it was no longer ‘Risk big,’ it was ‘Manage big.’”

“Our model was ‘Start small, risk small,’ and then ‘Move big, risk big.’ And by that time, it was no longer ‘Risk big,’ it was ‘Manage big.’”

While Stardock had multiple products with multiple support add-ons already, Brad outlined that they started the subscription experiment with one support add-on for one product, and for one specific subtype of their customer base. “What we started with was actually support and maintenance of a specific product. As an example, we sell Fences®. Fences® sells a lot to enterprise customers. Where we started trialing it was, Fences® the product remained a single point of transaction, but we introduced an option that would allow you to purchase annualized subscription maintenance and support for a reduced cost.” 

Essentially, you can apply a few filters to your products, add-ons, and user types to get a relatively small experimental group. “We just started on one particular product that we knew sold in volume with one particular scenario, which was only business, and then one particular type of customer who’s like, ‘I’ll take the discount for the renewal.’”

Once you start to see those first subscriptions begin to flow in, you can gauge whether it’s flowing as expected and make adjustments as needed, Brad says. “You compare and contrast, like, ‘How many people are choosing the subscription?’ And then you just amplify things up. You go to another product, and go to another product. And then you try a primary product. And then you try the big suite,” which for Stardock is Object Desktop™, containing all of their apps. “That was the big switchover once we had confidence.”

Starting small helped Stardock avoid any large upfront risks as they began testing the benefits of SaaS. 

3. Communicate Frequently and Clearly With Customers

Communicating business model and/or delivery model changes to your customers can be a real struggle, and they can greatly affect the user’s experience and relationship with your company and your product. Brad recommends you put a lot of strategy and care into how and when you announce upcoming changes.

“It distills down into reducing risk, not from a technology perspective, but from a communication issues perspective. There’s no way to mitigate all possible communication issues, and marketing is always the last thing you put out,” he says. 

“It distills down into reducing risk, not from a technology perspective, but from a communication issues perspective.”

“There are a lot of challenges from the perspective of marketing, communication, educating the end user, unlocking value, and creating expectations that what you’re doing is better for everybody involved,” Brad outlined. “Because it’s really easy for people to hear ‘subscriptions’ and think, ‘Oh, the business just wants to suck more money out of us.’ And that’s not the path we tried to take, but that’s always the narrative that’s going to be pushed, from a client perspective, onto you.” 

Brad further explains that “Anytime you move anybody’s cheese, they get really upset. People will say, ‘I’ve been a customer for 20 years, and suddenly you’re changing your business model! Why are you doing that? Is it because you hate money?,’” he quotes, implying that customers may threaten to stop using the product.

He says challenges like those are evergreen and will continue to come up, so being proactive about communicating changes is key to working through the change with your customers, especially long-term ones. 

Stardock’s “Start small, risk small; move big, manage big” rollout model really applied to customer communications. 

“If you try to go out the gate with a really high value, then the marketing messaging must really be on point to the dollar value you’re trying to charge for your SaaS service or product.”

But since Stardock had started their SaaS transition with a small subset of products, they were able to test communications and evaluate customer feedback in a very manageable pipeline before transitioning to their larger core products. “Because once you put your core product out there in that model, the amount of inbound communications you get is a lot,” Brad tells us. “And to try to manage that, we needed to be prepared.”

Those inbounds from customers can come from anywhere, he says. “From every possible direction — you get it from your forums, you get it through email, you get it through social media, you get it through phone calls, you get it everywhere, because people are trying to figure out what you’re doing. And you learn real quick — and I mean real quick — where your communication wasn’t clear or effective.” 

But thanks to the small-to-big transition plan, those learnings get applied to the next larger product you roll out on subscription, and the communication bumps you may experience at first are only with a relatively small subset of customers. For the next round, now you know where, when, and how additional communications need to be posted. 

4. Prepare for Renewals With Value-Adds to Help Reduce Churn

Because Stardock opted to offer their subscription software on an annual pricing model instead of monthly — and because they launched subscriptions a little under a year ago, not just to new customers but also to all existing customers at the same time — Stardock’s first big renewal period is yet to happen. But it’s quickly approaching.

“For us, the big question for 2024 can be summed up in a single word: churn,” Brad explains. “We have expectations and some modeling that suggest where things should land. But this will be the year for us to determine how we approach subscriptions going for year two and effectively beyond.”

Despite the possibility for churn, he says they feel they’ve added a lot of value to their SaaS products. Besides having FastSpring’s retention-supporting features such as churn reducing dunning management as part of their tech stack, Stardock is releasing new apps and services for their subscription products to add to the real and perceived value of their products to customers. “We’ve tried to increase the value from our perspective, and we’re going to learn real quick whether or not we’ve increased the value from the user perspective.”

5. Design the Transition Plan That’s Right for Your Company

Back when Stardock had begun planning a SaaS transition for their products, Brad says they heard a few different things within the industry about the absolutely best way to do it. One particularly common piece of advice was to “go cold turkey” and launch everything as SaaS all at once. 

“The best way I can describe my job is trying to decide what advice is bad advice,” he told us. “And I would say that was bad advice.” 

That hard-won sense of discernment is how Brad and Stardock landed on the small-to-big rollout plan, which really worked well for them.

But he recommends that any software company evaluating if and how to make the switch to SaaS should decide what’s best for their own company, without just listening to the loudest chatter in the industry. 

“Every company is unique in what their clientele will expect and/or tolerate.”

“There was no company that we talked to who had gone through similar things, that had the same experience as us, and nobody after us will, either,” Brad assures us. “Every company is unique in what their clientele will expect and/or tolerate.”

Partner With FastSpring

Ready to explore how your SaaS or software business can benefit from FastSpring’s continued commitment to subscription management product development?

FastSpring is a merchant of record that provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital products businesses, including subscription management, global payments, fraud prevention, VAT and sales tax management, consumer support, and so much more. 

Set up a demo or sign up to check out the platform yourself.

Related Reading

• Visit our Subscription Management product page for more info and links to our documentation.
• Read more about how FastSpring helps SaaS businesses move subscriptions on our SaaS solutions page.
• Hear from many more satisfied FastSpring customers on our Case Study page. 
• Check out our Dashboards documentation page for detailed info on our subscription, revenue, and chargeback dashboards. 
• Wondering about how SaaS renewals might go? Read SaaS Churn: Myths, Benchmarks, and Strategies to Retain More Revenue for benchmarking data and five tips for reducing SaaS churn.
• Still not sure you fully understand dunning management? Read more about what our dunning management features do to help reduce failed payments and involuntary churn.
• Wanting to sell subscriptions with a sales team? Check out FastSpring’s Digital Invoicing and Interactive Quotes. 
• Running a startup that’s focused on getting a great valuation? Listen to our podcast episode on What Brands Look for When Considering Acquiring Software Companies.

The post Navigating Your Transition to SaaS Subscriptions: 5 Insights From Stardock’s Experience With FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Bee Ovi Negrean has used the word “flawlessly” to describe how FastSpring’s merchant of record use case has worked for SocialBee (more on that below!).

After adopting FastSpring as their merchant of record, SocialBee even saw 2x year-over-year growth in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) after their first year with FastSpring.

However, as SocialBee utilizes many different ways to package and monetize their software as a service subscriptions, they began discovering new ways to test the FastSpring platform’s capabilities.

Here’s how FastSpring not only rose to the challenge but continues to impress Ovi and the SocialBee team, especially with:

• A dedication to listening to customers’ needs and providing communicative customer support.
• An actively involved leadership team that gets to know customers personally.
• Our continued focus on developing and improving a great product, especially features and tools for subscription management to support SaaS businesses.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Why SocialBee Chose FastSpring as a Merchant of Record

FastSpring’s function as a merchant of record has always been very important to SocialBee. When they wanted to expand their business to new global marketplaces, knowing that FastSpring handles VAT and taxes made FastSpring an easy choice.

“FastSpring, for us, has always solved the problem of not having to worry about VAT and taxes, as well as the core of simply getting money from our customers,” Ovi explained. “And that use case always worked flawlessly; there wasn’t any problem.”

It worked so well that SocialBee was able to double their MRR year over year.

But it takes a lot more than facilitating payments and managing taxes to make a merchant of record function within a business’ online environment, and SocialBee was going to ask FastSpring just how much it could do.

SocialBee’s Specific Business Needs

SocialBee was selling their SaaS product as a subscription with many different options and add-ons when they switched to FastSpring in 2018. Any one of those options and add-ons might not be that complicated on its own, but when stacked in many possible combinations, it created complex product and subscription needs.

“Our setup may have been a bit more complex, or stranger, than most of FastSpring’s other customers,” Ovi said.

Plus, SocialBee needed many subscription-specific features such as pricing proration for customers who change their subscription mid-payment period.

Because of that setup, SocialBee helped FastSpring discover a lot of edge cases and bugs that, while completely normal for any software company like FastSpring to work through with their users, were still annoying for SocialBee to work through. “For most customers and most use cases, things just worked. But the things that didn’t work were irritating and kept us from being 100% happy.”

So they reached out to FastSpring.

FastSpring’s Support and Product Development

Ovi said that the way FastSpring has handled SocialBee’s needs has made obvious FastSpring’s dedication to great support and to providing a great product.

Support From Customer Success Managers

The first thing that impressed Ovi was how communicative and attentive SocialBee’s customer success manager (CSM) Gareth has been.

“Since our new manager [Gareth] came in, he has been very on point, creating a list of all the issues we had and following up weekly to find out what was being done on the FastSpring side to solve those issues,” Ovi said about FastSpring’s support. “But we’re also being told expected delivery dates and what progress has been made. We’re also able to let them know which issues are a priority for us and which are less important.”

In particular, there was one incident in which an issue SocialBee was experiencing was time-sensitive thanks to a pricing increase they implemented.

“Gareth was there to very quickly support us, and something that could have been a blocker — or that could have delayed our related marketing campaign — wasn’t a blocker anymore, because they knew how important it was for us to have it solved.”

Support From FastSpring Leadership

The FastSpring leadership team has also been very active in SocialBee’s success, making it clear to SocialBee that FastSpring is really committed to their partnership.

Before Gareth was assigned as their CSM, SocialBee was reached out to by Chief Customer Officer Mansoor Bajowala. Ovi appreciates how some of the newer executives at FastSpring have really made it clear how dedicated FastSpring is to their customers’ success.

“We’ve had very good communication with [CSM] Garreth, but also with the leadership team at FastSpring,” Ovi said. “We saw not just lip service that you would do things, but that you actually did them.” 

Product Development and a Subscription Focus

Because FastSpring’s support and leadership teams have been so active with SocialBee, it’s been easy to have their needs communicated to the teams at FastSpring who can fulfill those needs.

Plus, they’ve seen how dedicated FastSpring has been to developing out new features and focusing on where the market is going, such as more and more subscription tools and analytics.

“People don’t like to hear about software platform issues, even though all of them have them,” Ovi explained. But he has seen FastSpring’s commitment toward ironing out the inevitable issues that come with any software product. “We saw how many early bugs we reported one by one went away,” he continued. “Those issues were solved, and the platform keeps getting better and better.”

Now, as FastSpring has added more and more features geared toward subscriptions, including a subscription analytics dashboard, SocialBee is happier than ever.

“I think we were about 80-20 happy with FastSpring in the past. Now, I’d say we’re 95%-98% happy.”

Partner With FastSpring

Are you ready to explore how your SaaS, software, video game, or digital goods business can benefit from FastSpring’s continued commitment to customer satisfaction?

FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or sign up to check out the platform yourself.

The post FastSpring Support and Subscription Management Continue to Impress SocialBee appeared first on FastSpring.

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Built a seamless shopping experience with a popup checkout that allows customers to purchase directly from their website.

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“As a startup with only two or three people, it would be absolutely impossible to go international without this kind of platform.” 

Since choosing FastSpring as their merchant of record provider, TestDome has seen a lot — including steady growth around 30-40% per year pre-pandemic, hiring market fluctuations in the last few years, and in 2023, launching a new live interviews feature and reassessing their test questions to help them stay ahead of the AI curve (more on that below). 

Now as a successful international business, TestDome has been with FastSpring through all of it, and even when other payment platforms launched intriguing new products, Mario never saw a good reason to leave FastSpring.

Here’s why.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Selling Software Internationally With FastSpring

Croatia is a relatively small country with a population of only 4 million people. “We do less than 1% of our business in Croatia, so it’s not really a big market for us,” added TestDome’s head of customer success and sales Igor Novosel. Selling internationally is key to their business model.

The Croatia-based company was started around the time Croatia joined the European Union, but the country also wouldn’t start using the euro until 2023. Mario explained that “having a bank account in Croatia and explaining to someone in the US to send money to Croatia was impossible.” 

Plus, because transactions to purchase TestDome at the time were only a few hundred dollars, that was often too little for international wire transfers.

As Mario also pointed out, TestDome is in the knowledge business, which can be valued differently in different countries. They wanted to be available in as many countries as possible where their product might be highly valued — especially in the US, UK, Australia, and other English-speaking countries.

It was paramount for TestDome to have a partner to help them easily scale across borders and take many kinds of payments from many different places, but there weren’t many options available to them at the time.

“Now, Stripe offers it. Braintree offers it. Paddle offers it. There are 10 local competitors that offer a merchant of record. But 10 years ago, there were like zero! So for us at that time, we were actually quite happy that you existed — it wasn’t about choosing; it was like, ‘Great, at least there’s one!”

And with so many merchant of record options available on the market today, why has TestDome stayed with FastSpring all these years? 

Mario and Igor cite FastSpring’s comprehensive merchant of record model, our commitment to developing our product to keep up with business’s needs, and our outstanding support as reasons why they’re so happy with FastSpring.

TestDome’s Long Standing Partnership With FastSpring

FastSpring seemed like the only option even available to TestDome at one time, but the relationship has proven to be a real partnership that has withstood the test of time — and competitors.

There were only two instances when TestDome was tempted to look at other options besides FastSpring, and in both cases, FastSpring was the clear and easy winner. 

This was bolstered by the excellent service and support FastSpring has provided throughout the years, both to TestDome and to their consumers.

FastSpring Support Goes All the Way to the Top

Igor has been with TestDome for seven years and has been working with FastSpring for most of his tenure there. Much of what he does involves customer support, including handling requests for refunds, customers contacting them because they used the wrong credit card, and similar issues. 

“Working with FastSpring support, these issues have been very easy to solve. Our customers have been quite happy with the service.”

When issues get more complex, such as a customer making a refund request to TestDome while also submitting a chargeback with their card issuer, FastSpring’s support team really steps up. “I’m quite happy with the cooperation and all different kinds of support — not only when a customer needs support, but when we need support,” Igor explained. “We can always count on someone to provide a solution to us.” 

Igor said they haven’t had any major issues using the FastSpring platform. The only non-minor platform issue he could think of in all his time at FastSpring — involving an API change — he was only willing to describe as “non-minor,” not “major,” and it was solved relatively quickly. 

“They’re always there,” Mario added. “There are always things we can suggest to improve, but that’s normal. That’s not something I can ‘complain’ about.” 

In fact, quite the opposite — Mario has personally experienced the commitment FastSpring team members have to helping businesses that use FastSpring. 

“When we recently had an executive business review meeting with our customer success manager Gareth, your CEO David Nachman was present.” 

Mario said David surprised them with the amount of suggestions and thought he put into their interactions, beyond just information related directly to FastSpring.

“After that call, he sent me an email offering his help and advice, because before FastSpring, he had worked at a company similar to TestDome. We had a whole call where he gave us an extremely valuable piece of advice. The willingness to help and support was not limited to Support — it went all the way up to the CEO.”

FastSpring vs. Stripe

When Stripe was first made available in Croatia, TestDome looked into it as an option, out of curiosity. “It’s one of the most popular in Silicon Valley crowd companies,” Mario said.

But Stripe didn’t do everything FastSpring does. 

“Then we would have two or three extra problems. And when you start adding third parties, or Stripe’s own add-ons, or whatever, then it’s not a 2% fee anymore — then it’s more like the FastSpring level fee. 

“And then we’d be switching for no reason, from an integrated solution with one company to a solution split by three different service companies, which just makes things more fragile and more risky for us at the same cost!” 

It didn’t make sense to leave FastSpring just because Stripe was the new hot thing on the market.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

A More Modern User Experience Right Here

The other time TestDome considered looking elsewhere for a merchant of record payments platform was when they were looking at their sales motions from a user experience perspective.

Since TestDome has been with FastSpring since their early days, at the time of this UX analysis, they were using the original version of FastSpring, referred to as our Classic platform. While it offers many of the same great features that adopters of our newer version know and love, it didn’t have as many modern updates to compete with the slicker user interface Stripe was then advertising. 

“This started making a problem for us, because people would get confused,” Mario explained. “When they clicked the link to buy, suddenly the URL changed — everything changed. We didn’t follow the color scheme… It was confusing.” 

And because TestDome is a B2B SaaS company, it was even more confusing to sophisticated buyers who expected a smoother experience.

So they reached out to us — and found out that FastSpring was running an unpromoted beta of its new Contextual platform, a same-page pop-up checkout version of FastSpring that came with many additional features, such as a customizable consumer experience, a consumer account management portal, and more. 

“We realized that’s what we needed! We were on board before it was a public product, because your development on the FastSpring side was pretty much aligned with the development of our needs and wants,” Mario said. 

“Basically, every time we’ve wanted to change something, FastSpring was already ready for it.”

FastSpring’s dedication to continually improving and upgrading its products proved to TestDome that we’re a long-term partner to their business.

Are you still using the FastSpring legacy Classic platform (Springboard)? To take advantage of our Contextual platform, its subscription and pricing capabilities, B2B offerings, and advanced reporting tools, just open a ticket with our support team here: https://community.fastspring.com. 

Read how Walls.io saw their quarter-over-quarter revenue go up 11.87% when they switched to Contextual! 

A Two-Way Partnership

Besides TestDome using FastSpring, we’ve also utilized TestDome’s app to assist us with hiring for a web development position. For a recent open role, one of our internal hirers actually found TestDome via Google search as a high-quality option for hiring testing — before realizing TestDome is one of the many software businesses that uses FastSpring for their online software sales!

We utilized some of the questions and answers TestDome offers for WordPress development (which we validated — they were great), and we added our own custom questions. We were especially impressed that the coding testing features allow candidates to submit code that’s scored automatically, making the platform easy to use. The notifications and candidate management features were also very user friendly.  

If needed, we hope to use TestDome again in the future for similar candidate proficiency testing.

Staying Ahead of AI’s Influence on Business: “Work Is About to Change”

As TestDome’s business continues to grow, another market change they’re growing with is the influence of AI on the remote testing industry. 

TestDome’s primary service has been pre-employment screening testing that helps hirers find the best candidates for a job. Applicants complete tests online — such as work-sample tests — and can be sorted based on what skills hirers are looking for. 

TestDome even includes features like cheating protection for testing, while allowing the option for online resources to be utilized during the test if that’s something the position calls for in everyday work.

However, with the growing popularity of AI services such as ChatGPT, even complex answers about work-related scenarios could be composed by such services, and a lot of people aren’t yet sure how they feel about that. 

Mario explained that currently, if a candidate is given a test, pastes a question to ChatGPT, and then pastes the answer back, many may feel like this is cheating. Most candidates don’t want to cheat, and they are aware that if they get the job, they will have to use that information which they otherwise don’t know offhand. So candidates usually won’t use a service like ChatGPT during a test.

That said, hirers may still want to ensure candidates produce the knowledge or the solution themselves.

The Short-Term Plan

As part of their short-term plan to stay ahead of this new curve in how knowledge is measured, TestDome is improving their existing testing services and rolling out a new product feature.

To improve their existing testing, they’re evaluating their current question base to understand which questions are more effective and which are less effective, adjusting or removing those less effective options, and highlighting to their users which questions are “safe” to use in relation to ChatGPT and AI services. 

They’re also improving the current proctoring offering that’s already part of the TestDome platform.

Additionally, TestDome is launching a service for live interviewing as part of a skills test, which allows hirers to interact with candidates live via video or chat during the assessment. 

This will allow hirers to proctor the test themselves, with both a live conversation and the testing occurring at the same time.

Mario explains that wanting to further strengthen testing standards now “is just the first reaction we expect from our users, so we’re trying to cover that ground so they have a solution with us, whichever direction they choose as a first step.

“But then there’s a longer step, about understanding how the work will change, and making a proper assessment for that time.” 

The Long-Term Plan

Even though some may consider the use of AI “cheating” right now, working in totally closed environments is not always how work happens, especially as our access to resources continues to expand.

“The moment when these kinds of AI models become part of the development environments we use, such as in Microsoft Office as they recently announced, then it will not be cheating anymore — it will just be a new way of doing things.”

For example, squiggly red lines under misspelled words in Microsoft Word are just standard features of the software product today, all because Microsoft eventually incorporated a dictionary into the app. And that probably doesn’t feel like cheating to most people.

“Work is about to change,” Mario said. “What is changing is the actual work from which we take a sample, to make a test, to select a candidate. We need to change how skills are tested and identify new capabilities candidates need to have to perform well in future roles a few years from now, when AI has been propagated to all our daily tools.”

So besides evaluating their current question base, TestDome is also focused on learning how to create new tests based on what will be important in this new era of work. “Then we can create tests to identify candidates that are capable of doing the work in a new way on a new level.” 

As with all future-looking technology and information, this isn’t always easy. “Unfortunately, this is not something that’s crystal clear,” Mario said. “No one can tell you right now how software developer work will look five years from now. It’s very much a guessing game.” He laughed. “We’re not just trying to guess — we’re trying to first decide how we will guess. We’re one step before guessing.”

But with a strategic plan in place, TestDome is in a good position to continue their pattern of strong growth, even as work — and hiring — continue to evolve.

Partner With FastSpring

FastSpring is proud to have been a key part of TestDome’s success thus far, and we’re excited to see where TestDome takes its business into the future as AI continues changing the nature of work.

If you’re looking for a merchant of record to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

More articles related to selling software internationally: 

How MapTiler Doubled the Number of Countries They Sell in Using Strategic Partnerships: Senior technical writer Tom Armitage suggests searching for partners using social media, making it easy for potential customers to use your software product with their website or app with freemium options, and more.

More SaaS Fees Pricing Strategies to Offset Stagflation: How to adjust your pricing plan for selling software online in a tough market.

How Dopple Is Defining an Emerging Market: Founder and CEO Justin Scott shares marketing strategies, how to listen to your target audience, and more about launching a whole new software market segment.

Why Your Data Doesn’t Make Sense: 5 Things I Learned From Narrator Co-Founder Cedric Dussud: The former engineering director of WeWork shares lessons he learned there, including why metrics often don’t add up and why you should focus on projects that attract new customers.

The post Why TestDome Considers FastSpring a Real Partner for Selling Software Online (Plus: Is Using AI Cheating?) appeared first on FastSpring.

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I chatted with Tom Armitage, MapTiler’s Senior Technical Writer, about how MapTiler uses strategic partnerships to grow its global customer base. 

1. Use Affiliates As Local Sales Partners

MapTiler maintains developer documentation in English — and as the primary business language throughout the world, this works well for most of its users. 

“But there are parts of the world that want to do business in a different way,” Tom explained. “Maybe the documentation for developers is great, but they’d like to be sold to by a salesperson that speaks their language.” 

This is when Tom’s team seeks out affiliates who can serve as local MapTiler experts. By understanding a region’s native language and culture, these strategic partners can be a one-stop shop for localized marketing and sales support.

MapTiler has seen significant growth in revenue in countries with active affiliate partnerships. For instance, since they onboarded an affiliate partner in Japan, their sales in the country have increased by over 300%.

Note: MapTiler Uses FastSpring’s Affiliate Marketing platform to easily track affiliate sales and pay out their partners. Learn more about how you can gain access to a network of 10K+ global affiliate partners and increase revenue in new markets.

2. Search for Partners at Global Events and Social media

MapTiler makes a point of being at developer-focused and other tech conferences to spread brand awareness. “We have a very active team of people that are out there making connections all the time: talking to people and telling them about how our wonderful cartography can improve their products.”

But the team also uses in-person events to find affiliates and form strategic partnerships with other companies. 

Conferences and other industry events are useful when you want to cast a wide net and see who is interested in working together. But when you’re looking for something specific, that’s where social media can also help.

“If we know that there’s a country that requires this level of service, we have a look for who might be able to offer that service to us. Sometimes they just come to us via our website, but we also spread the word through social media that we are looking for affiliations with companies.”

MapTiler maintains a partnership page on its website for interested parties and is always on the lookout for new partners.

3. Make Sure Your Pricing and Checkout Are Localized

If you’re using affiliates to increase sales in a local region, make sure that users can easily check out using their preferred language, currency, and payment methods. This will make your partners’ jobs a lot easier.

MapTiler uses FastSpring’s branded checkout platform to localize pricing and the checkout experience, including calculating and collecting VAT, GST, and sales tax. 

Per internal research, we found that displaying local currencies and payment methods can increase local conversions by up to 50%.

4. Identify Your Champion Users

“Every now and again, we get a champion user that really likes what we’re doing. They really get us, and we get them,” Tom explained.

This is especially useful when the champion user is an influencer in their market. “That will really help promote your products without it being any kind of paid relationship.”

MapTiler’s team encourages these champion users by making sure they’re well-supported on the product. But they also make sure that sharing and promoting is a two-way street.

“If they’re a blogger or something like that, then we’ll obviously be sharing and helping them spread the word about what they’re doing, as well.”

5. Make It Really Easy to Get Started

A big part of MapTiler’s success is how user-friendly the platform is. Tom’s team has spent a lot of energy creating support materials that make it easy for a new company to get started and for existing users to find new uses for the platform.

“You come on our website, you’ll find a lot of information about how to develop, integrate, and use the maps in your own services: loads and loads of code snippets and code samples. 

Using a product-led growth (PLG) model, there are free tiers for all three of MapTiler’s subscription offerings designed to offer “quick wins” for new users.

When you sign up for MapTiler Cloud, “there’s a code sample that you can drag and drop straight into whatever it is that you’re doing so that you can very quickly, very simply get started.”

If you are interested in adding maps to your website or apps, you can get a free trial.

Note: We make it easy for companies like MapTiler to sell around the world by taking things like VAT and sales taxes, fraud detection, and global compliance off their hands. Our platform includes branded localized checkout, subscription management, and so much more. Sign up for a free account or request a demo today to learn more.

The post How MapTiler Doubled The Number of Countries They Sell In Using Strategic Partnerships appeared first on FastSpring.

This perspective is why at least four employees have been with the company since the beginning.

In 2006, founded iOSXpert — now the largest partner of the Mac-based CRM and project management software Daylite. And for the past 17 years, Alf has grown the company without any external funding and maintained a strong employee retention rate.

Our former Director of Content and Community spoke to Alf about managing a happy team, how he’s grown his company without external funding, the history of developing in the Mac ecosystem, and running a consulting and software business.

Stream the full interview below or find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

Full Interview: Audio-Only

Full Interview: Video

Transcript

Nathan Collier 

Hey y’all. Thanks for joining me today. Hi. Hi. Introduce yourself, introduce iOSXpert, so that people know kind of a little bit of a context about what you do.

Alf Ruppert 

Yeah, my name is Alf Ruppert, I was named like the guy that everybody knows for the TV shows in the 90s, or what the late 80s. Thanks God I was named earlier. That name was not as cool kid at that time. Yes, we, at iOSXpert, what are we doing? We are more or less a business consulting company as a software consulting company that as there are many outside, but we are specialized in Apple users, helping Apple users. And this was the original thing that we created: iOS experts and meanwhile, we are more getting becoming more and more software company. As we are making an enhancement for a CRM tool that we are selling. It’s Canadian’s CRM tool. It’s quite well known by Apple users, it’s named Daylite and for this Daylite System, we are creating plugins and enhancements and additional services and selling them around the world. Meanwhile, in over more than 120 countries.

Nathan Collier 

And you are currently calling in from where in the world?

Alf Ruppert 

So we are based in Bendorf, nobody knows the small city close to Koblenz. Koblenz is the place where the Rhine and Moselle River are meeting. And Koblenz is between Frankfurt and Cologne.

Nathan Collier 

Okay, so you’re in Germany? Yes, yes. Okay, cool. You have been working on this company for a long time. So it looks like 2006. Is that right?

Alf Ruppert 

Yes, I have even to look it up to give correct answers around around that time.

Nathan Collier 

Yes. Your LinkedIn says April 2006. So yeah, but the the reason I asked that is, it’s pretty unusual for me to run into somebody who has been working on one project for that long. So I’m just I’m fascinated because 2006 is like, that’s way before iOS was even a thing. Like the iPhone is 2008. So take me back, like how did how did this project start? Like, how did you get started on this.

Alf Ruppert 

So I always love to use the Mac. My very first job, real job was in a company back then in the 90s, end of the 90s. They were creating ERP software for Mac users. And this was totally strange, because you had to sell it to people in this world that time as Mac would cost you 10,000 German marks that time. And while a PC was around four or 5000. So it was very exotic, that you’re making business on Mac machines, not only using them for a creative world, even using them for real business properties. And I love that very much. And then there was this big ERP dying, which was shot after the first ecommerce new academy scene was going down for 2000 2001. And even at that, at that time, I had a company trying to establish a ecommerce solution based on the Apple database. And we had to shut down too, and then I was deeply searching to get my knowledge out and make something meaningful with all that knowledge that I had was Macs and with business things. And this is why I struggle to say when I started my business, I think in 2004 or five, I started I had a lot of free time because I had just lost my job it is big ERP going word was going down in Germany. So I put everything I knew on the internet it was my first website I created for myself it was it was a tool called rapidweaver which made me open up the internet from the other side for me. So I published everything I knew about business software on the Mac. And out of this there came it’s everything started because then I search for a new product to sell and found Daylite and get in contact with the Canadian guys and I often say it was a really cool thing I made it out of the internet because if I even know I’m at that age today even though the time before the internet it was the internet was really a game changer for me because the time before it was unsinkable that you’re doing business with a Canadian company that getting in touch wisdom and starting communication, but that ends up in the real meeting and then working together.

Nathan Collier 

Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago that like what we’re doing right now with me. I’m sitting in the US, you’re sitting in Germany like this just didn’t, this would have been an international like long distance phone call at like $3 a minute or something paid to some telecom company. It’s interesting. So you had you publish all your content on the internet? This is 2014 classified right in there you, you in did you pick up consulting clients? Or was it was it straight to software?

Alf Ruppert 

It was just, I had to have this niche knowledge about business workflow stuff and ERP systems and based on a Mac. So I wrote everything down, I knew if it ends up that I have my own history just safe for me, then I can take a look at years later. But it turned out that people contacting me and say, Oh, you have knowledge there, I never knew that. You’re the first one who has all this knowledge in one place. And aside from that, I always try to find a job back care getting paid for what I do. For this knowledge, and for working on a Mac, and on my way, searching for an opportunity, I found the CRM software and I was already always a product guy. So I need something I’ve fallen off and I can sell it easily. I’m not that guy, who’s what every one a lot of salespeople tell you, I can sell software, the next day cars or whatever, no, I have to fall in love with the thing I’m doing. And I found something and this was Daylite because it’s an attractive way very much. And I could see the benefit for customers. And so it slowly turned out it was the first one of my products recommended and to my consulting clients, and then it was that product that I recommended. Okay, and started growth.

Nathan Collier 

So you started, you started consulting, and then you were recommended this product and then eventually started building, building software to even make that product better. So you’ve really gone the full spectrum with this particular product.

Alf Ruppert 

Yes, it started because I know the very first piece of software we did for Daylite was to connection for phone systems, so that you can push a button and then call out or if somebody’s calling in, you can see which customers calling in. And the problem was, I have no clue in software development. So I just had this idea. And I had even no money to do it. So I found a developer made a deal with him and say I will sell it and you will participate if you trust me. And we did this together. And it was huge success.

Nathan Collier 

I remember when that was happening because I was I was working at a company right around, you know, or 2010 around that time when that whole like making calls out of your computer tied to a CRM that was pretty new during I mean even I mean, that was after it had already been on the market. But I mean, if you go back to 2006 2007 2008 like that, yeah, that was just not a thing that people did. Like the way that we do it. Now we take it for granted now.

Alf Ruppert 

Yes. Now the usual thing, but still not on still on the Mac, you have hurdles today because,  on Windows PCs, there’s a there’s TAPI API. So it means it’s standard that the operating system has a phone connection, which the Mac doesn’t have. And funnily enough, the first iPhone didn’t have a too. So you weren’t able to utilize your iPhone from your Mac.

Nathan Collier 

Yeah, if people forget like, and it’s hard to remember like it’s even the original iPhone launched with native apps and no app store like and that was that way for several years. So the iPhone as we know it today was not even the iPhone of 2008 and the iPhone of 2008 was revolutionary. So very interesting. So So you thought you find this product Daylite? What at risk of Daylite not a paid sponsor, right, like so. But you love this product? Like what was it about that product that really caught your attention and made you think like, this is great, like I want to work more on this.

Unified a couple of things. So it is not only it’s not only a tourist book, it is only it’s an integrated calendar and you can linking things together. Even it grabs your email. So that was was annoying. And if you see the standard tools on the Mac, even if you’re on a very low level, you compare it to Outlook and outlook. We have one application where you have your address books, your calendar and your emails. Even it’s worse linked, but it’s it’s one application on a Mac, it’s at least three applications. And Daylite does exactly that. put all these together. And then at project management and at opportunities for making estimates and doing sales stuff and all this is linked up together and you only need one solution which Jaya, it has changed, I think, as a special specialist in that area would say, this was my maybe attracted me because it was the idea of the 90s. And beginning 2000s, that you have one solution that covers everything, right? Meanwhile, the world has changed. And there are millions of apps and small services. And so even my idea of has changed in that way that I say today, I would say you need a central application, maybe like the digital hub: how Steve Jobs mentioned the iMac. And then you have attached things around, but you need one central application. And that’s the idea how we handle it. Today, we stay like we have Daylite is at the center that we have our enhancements. And a lot of the enhancements are relying on that that we are connecting different systems. It means we have a online booking system called Acuity that we integrated into Daylite, which is one of our plugins. And I liked this idea. Because if you have a clever integration of a couple of things, so it seems to the user that it’s one application, but there are several applications, then you can easily change to get better stuff. Because our work is so quick. Maybe in one year, there’s a way better solution for offering appointments online, and then we just have to connect this one. And if you can stay with the central application tailored.

Nathan Collier 

I love that. So so this is so this nice transition into so the last time we talked, it’s been a couple of months, you we talked just very briefly about some of your just the way you think about business. And I think you’re starting to get a little bit of it there. So like what are some of the core like philosophies that you that you use to sort of guide your your business making decisions, because, again, 16 years, or however long however many years, it’s been to working on this project. It there’s a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, they build something, and then they sell it and they move on to the next thing. And they never they don’t like that that’s and there’s a whole there’s all well, and that’s great. Like that’s a whole, you can do that as a career. But you’ve chosen to sort of build one thing and stay with it for this long period of time. So what what what keeps you what keeps you focused on that kind of thing? And what are the sort of principles that you’ve used to make business decisions over the years.

So I always was attracted to. So there’s one important thing that made me an entrepreneur, I totally don’t like all these politics that you do have to do in bigger companies. So I wanted to have my created my own environment. And I love always to do to work in a team. And I think if you’re feeling safe, if you’re feeling comfortable work is there’s no big difference between work and free time. Just just, I like to go to work because it’s not nothing where I have to go there tomorrow or something like that. And it was very important for me to create a situation where everyone was working with me feels the same. So it was always important for me to take care for my employees. And, and I think I’ve mentioned in an informal conversation, maybe I’m a little bit at this point of view, I’m a little bit more closer to office owners or to to to business owners in the in the 50s. And in our days,

Nathan Collier 

what do you what do you mean by because you have you said that a couple times? What do you mean by that?

Yeah. So I love to give you an example we are we are having our office in the former Coca Cola building. And at the 50s, they had very close to the office where I sit, they had a swimming pool for the employees. So they even they thought about creating something that that they can benefit from which can give an extra value to them that they feel good. And we can take their kids area to go swimming because there was no swimming pool can no public swimming pool at that time. So that’s that’s the thing that I if somebody, we recently had a guy here, he started as a trainee here. And he came from Kazakhstan, and he’s grown up and has to make a trainee, sing again because of the German laws and he has to need a new certificate. So and then he ended up that his car crashed, and he’s really not that much money. So we bought him a car. So everybody who’s working here should be aware that if he has problems that we can solve somehow, if it’s sometimes it was money sometimes was hands on if we move from one flight to another, and the whole team is there. And that’s the atmosphere that we have. That’s maybe the thing I’m most proud of that I created that atmosphere that attitude here in the whole company with a team I joined it.

Nathan Collier 

Had it so so there are going to be entrepreneurs out there who are thinking, Okay, that sounds awesome. How did you do it? Like? How did like what are? What are some of the decisions you made? Like? What? Like, that’s a great example of a car. Yeah, what else have you done over the years that have sort of created that culture.

Alf Ruppert 

So we have to calculate, and this is even more true today. And harder today that we have to compensate for talents. So and it’s, it’s for a smaller company like ours, we are I think we are with amoeba, 1670 people, it’s, it’s quite hard to be the best to the company who pays the most, because there are bigger companies that have way more money and to come try to compete on the money side. That’s a tough thing. And but what we did in the very first time, I think we do it now at least 15 years, we go skiing every year with the whole team, a whole weekend, for example. And we do some things like that, in the summer or summer when we were just trying to become somehow I want to say friends, friends, or maybe a little bit different thing, but it’s the kind of work family right, my American North American partners often call it work family. Because we have also people working long time for us, I have a couple, at least four people here that they’re more or less since the beginning.

Nathan Collier 

How would you let’s talk to the to the aspiring entrepreneur for a minute. So for people who, who are thinking about they like kind of the way your philosophy the way you’re thinking about things, so build, build something, stay with it, build a place where people love to work, what what tips would you give them? What What suggestions do you have for somebody who’d like to build a company with that kind of culture?

Alf Ruppert 

Yeah, there are a couple of things maybe first, quite easy one, try to be just a nice guy being fair. So not everyone is working for me that I can buy my second Porsche. So it’s an adult drive one was just a picture. It was at the very, very beginning, you feel fine people that are willing to make some overtures and really push hard to make to become a successful company, but don’t forget them if, if you take the first hurdles, then let them participate. So we have, we have to the two guys two guys from the very first time, I gave them shares, and they gave them shares as the as the company starts to become valuable. So they’re even more into it because it’s now part of them is even their company. Yeah, so, so share your success, if you want to say one sentence what else Yes, then trying to create that’s maybe a tough thing because he can we can give no recipe to do that, but trying to to make a comfortable, comfortable environment for everybody that that you are different from other companies. So in today’s world, while so many people are working removed, company culture is often getting lost. So and if you have people which don’t care how which kind of flag is on their roof, they’re just looking for they’re sitting in the same same environment, every working for company A or even working for Company B then you reduce everything to money, try to avoid it try to do something that it’s by on money that is created company culture, it’s maybe the the next step is I would say and we have I don’t read too many books because I know so many people constantly reading books and going to conferences and just thinking what is what they should do. And I would say I have what one thing I’ve learned from book was was write down your your company values. So we really created with a team we say what should define us and we found a couple of rules where we say these are our our company values, we will be respectful, together and respectful treating, will treating customers respectful and what we can even want the same from the customer. We want to our time as valuable. A couple of things but I didn’t wrote them down and Put them on the on the on the whiteboard. We did it together. What defines us as a company? What what is our, our scene where we want to get measured? Yeah,

Nathan Collier 

I found that that’s very helpful. Yeah, the values, I found that they’re they’re often like, it’s an expression of who you are, which is different than goals, right, which is where you want to like what you want to be. That’s very interesting that you sort of got together and just described who you were, like who you were already that that that then codified that culture for you.

Alf Ruppert 

And I use it every time I have job interviews, I put it on the table, they read it, and think for yourself, you will fit in there. If you can identify where you are with this core values, it’s a fair chance that you’ll fit into the team.

Nathan Collier 

Right? Where do you go to sort of like to get new ideas or new inspiration? Is it conferences, books, magazines? Like, what? What how does that look?

Alf Ruppert 

I think the most of the inspiration, I get out of conversation with customers. I’m still, even as my job changed. So because in the very first beginning, of course, I did everything. So it was the consultant guy, the support guy, and, and, and the sales guy. I mean, meanwhile, I have quite a lot of I often say I’m the person who knows, at least at a specific topic here in the company. I just have a good idea from every department. But I try to keep in direct conversation with customers. So I still do consulting sessions, even if it’s not that much as my colleagues and I still do sales staff that I I’m still in the conversation with customers of any size. So so I get to understand their needs. And can reflect that and can think about, hey, this guy has a problem that we couldn’t solve until the how we can make his life easier his business life. And out of that, we get ideas. And, and I don’t love to run around all these trends. I have a funny story. Business friend. He was a big friend of the SaaStr conference. So so he told me, you have to go and have a look there and there was one in Europe and I decided, Okay, we will go there. And we went there with three people. And I went to do this conference. And I was shocked because I was seeking I’m running to a time tunnel back in the 2000s. It was originally the same bullshit. As the internet’s first economy started. They were telling them I say I’m on the wrong part of the in the room. If so, I could stand there and tell people, because I already seen what what these young guys are speaking of. And I’m not sitting here and here again, disable ship ever had lost. Everything was about how can we make it look like bigger and sell it and get the next venture money? No, nobody had made one one euro revenue that. But everyone was was was everyone who said Oh, great. He got another 20 million venture company. Is it a success to get venture money? No successes if you build something and sell something and, and and make really money out of it?

Nathan Collier 

Yeah. So we were just our head of product was just at the recent, like Sastre Europe conference, is there, do you think there’s a danger to go to a place like that, and, you know, some good, some bad but like that you get caught up in that sort of whole venture world where, where people are they talk an awful lot about funding rounds and those kinds of things. But it sounds like you’re more and I know this is true, but but I’d love for you to talk about it. You’re much more focused on building a company that’s, that’s profitable. And and you can see it like 2006 Up to now still still going. What what do you think the danger is of being too focused on those types of venture capital type ideas.

Alf Ruppert 

I did this mistake, I already did this mistake because in 1998, I founded my first bigger company but which was the ecommerce stuff and this was just as the before the new economic 2001 everything crashed. Yeah. So yeah. And we built it up a software and then we went with our last money to the C bid which was a big thing that that time so for younger people watching this, this was a big trade show all about computers and software and the big biggest in the world and it was taking place. It took place in Hanover and I remember He took our last money rented the mobile home because we have no cash for having the proper hostel where they’ll say, if we don’t find someone giving us money, we will be dead after the after we found somebody went to a guy who gave us money. And then they force us to do you have to have to do this and that and that. And I was quite young at that age, and I followed their instructions and be blown away. I think at that time, it was one between five and 600,000 100 years I was on stage German mouths. I don’t remember that a long time. But it was quite a lot of money for us at that time. And and then they told us if the money is empty, just call us you can another round. Yeah, interesting. Unfortunately, I called them and it was 2001 and they say oh, the money all the money is gone. And, and then we had to close the company. And since that I promised, I will not take any money from from Venture people that are telling me what to do. I even told the the bank, we never needed the bank. Everything we reached from from here to meanwhile, close to 1.151 point 5 million euros revenue is that we financed ourself interesting. So I don’t even have a

Nathan Collier 

You’re truly bootstrapped in the real sense of the word, like from the very beginning. What’s one thing that you hope people will remember after listening to this conversation?

Alf Ruppert 

Don’t — especially if you’re an entrepreneur. Don’t let you … don’t hear that at this bullshit, they are telling you like an artist books and conferences to make quick money. It’s more enjoyable to build something long lasting, which not means that I’m not … if somebody would come around would say I give you 30 million euros, I will reverse the thinking to sell it. So that’s maybe the other side Don’t be if you choose the way that I choose, which I think that it’s the more attractive way than trying to fast build something up and sell it even before it makes the first euro or dollar of revenue. But on the other hand, don’t be too. So if there’s a business opportunity at the end of the day, and it’s better to sell or to let it go let it go. Yeah, so it’s a balance.

Nathan Collier 

And you can do all that while operating at a profit. Is that what you’re saying?

Alf Ruppert 

Yeah, yeah. You’re not successful. If you of course, our world will tell you you are successful if you sold something for 20 Millions, what would never made 1 million revenue, and you have to enable it in your pockets. But I will I feel more successful, to build something where which which is fine as in itself and paying out to salaries for my team and make a good living for a couple of families.

Nathan Collier 

Yeah. So thanks, Alfred. Or Thanks, Jeff. It’s been it’s been great. If people want to sort of connect with you, how can they do that?

Alf Ruppert 

Contact me via LinkedIn or just email me directly. You can find my all of my contact information on the on the website. I’m happy to share my experience to every entrepreneur. And yeah, maybe lead in can take a little bit time because I’ve learned 90% of and prepare for what you’re writing me there because 90% are starting to try to sell me something at the start of maze I don’t answer.

Nathan Collier 

So maybe maybe say, Hey, I saw your I saw your interview or heard your podcast or something as as the opening. So thanks, alpha. Really appreciate it.

Alf Ruppert 

Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you very much.

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