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Tally is a simple form builder doing $150K MRR
- 1st Year $5K MRR
- 2nd Year $30K MRR
- 3rd Year $70K MRR
- 4th Year $150K MRR 🚀
This is their revenue chart -
Top lessons from tally’s success?
- You don't need a huge team or VC funding to build a successful startup.
- You don't even need a ground breaking idea.
- You just need to build a painkiller product
Quick Summary of Tally’s Success from 0 to $150K MRR in 4 Years
Growth Timeline & Metrics
Date | MRR | Users | Key Milestone |
Sept 2020 | $0 | 0 | Initial Launch |
Mar 2021 | $1K | 3,000 | Product Hunt Launch |
Oct 2021 | $5K | 11,000 | First Year |
Jun 2022 | $20K | - | Rapid Growth Phase |
Sept 2023 | $75K | - | Tally 2.0 Launch |
Oct 2024 | $150K | 400,000 | Current Status |
What Worked ?
The Product
- Focus on doing one thing exceptionally well instead of being a "Swiss Army knife"
- Maintain simplicity and polish over feature bloat
- Build a document-like interface that feels natural to use[
The Business Model
- Eliminated volume-based pricing completely
- Offer unlimited forms and submissions for free
- Single Pro plan at $29/month with premium features
- Recently launched Tally Business for enterprise needs
Recent Strategic Shifts
Marketing Evolution
- Primarily relied on product-led growth until recently
- Started experimenting with paid marketing through influencer partnerships
- Discontinued discount promotions due to lower-quality user acquisition
Operational Changes
- Moved from fully remote to first office at Ghent's Wintercircus
- Expanded team from 2 to 4 full-time members
- Added key roles: Full-Stack Engineer and Customer Support Manager
Growth Engine
Product-Led Strategy
- Free tier drives growth through "Made with Tally" badges
- Viral loop: each form creates exposure to new potential users
- Focus on organic growth through product quality
Team Structure
- Maintained lean operations (4 people) while reaching $150K MRR
- Leveraged contractors for specific needs
- Balanced remote and in-office work for better productivity
The key insight from Tally's latest chapter is their commitment to "doing less, better" - focusing on core functionality, maintaining simplicity, and growing sustainably through product excellence rather than aggressive marketing or feature expansion
Tally’s Story -
Tally is a bootstrapped startup with 140K users and a small team of 4. (2 co-founders + 2 employees)
Their value proposition?
- Google forms is too ugly, Typeform is too expensive 🤷♂️
Really..
The project was started because Marie and Filip (the founders) wanted to scratch their own itch of having a beautiful, easy to use, reasonably priced form builder.
What led to Tally’s growth?
- Cold outreach in the initial days
- Building a community of users right from the early days.
- Riding the NoCode wave in the early days. They got a lot of love from NoCode communities in Europe.
- Product Hunt Launch early on + Building in Public.
- Typeform moving upmarket and raising prices.
Typeform raising prices meant small and medium businesses just couldn’t afford it. A gap was created in the market, which Tally filled up nicely.
This tweet explains it -
(source)
Product Led Growth
Tally works on the freemium model - which means most of it’s features are free. But when you’re on the free plan, and you create a form with tally, you cannot set a custom domain or remove the Tally logo.
So when you share your form with someone, Tally gets free marketing.
Freemium is a tough model to crack, because you may end up attracting too many freeloaders and not enough premium users. It’s very risky.
But if your product has inherent shareability - like the mere act of using it will lead to it spreading to more people, then you can give it a shot.
This is Tally’s flywheel -
(source)
If you can afford that 3% conversion rate, then do give freemium a shot. Otherwise, don’t offer a free plan.
Last year, I wrote a detailed post on Tally’s growth in the early days -
Do read it for more interesting insights.
You can dive deeper into Tally’s journey in these posts that Marie wrote -
And watch this talk that Marie gave -
Tally’s founders are amazing, they share every aspect of their business openly (which is also a marketing strategy).
Hope you found this useful.
Cheers 🙌
Multiple projects or One?
I was a big fan of running multiple projects in parallel.
But I realize that if 1 of your projects is doing better than others, then you'll be stupid to NOT double down on it.
As my SaaS product (Elephas) is gaining traction, and doing better now (way better than any of my other projects), it needs more time and focus.
I'd be a fool if I don't give it that. I’ve had to make a few tough decisions because of this.
I wrote a short reflective post on Twitter about this. Do take a look -
I share these things openly because I hope they help someone like me facing a similar dilemma. Hope you find it useful.
I also stopped sharing revenue numbers publicly a while back.Didn't feel like it somehow.
But I wasn't able to put my reasons into words... so never tweeted about it as well. Just read Kyle Gawley's latest newsletter.
This explains it 😅
More in this tweet.
Don’t fall for the wrong metrics
Some people think building a startup is about hiring talent, delegating stuff, becoming Mr BOSS and bunch of other superficial ideas like that.
All of that can come later.
The first challenge is getting 10 people to pay for your product. This is where 90% people fail.
(source)
Don’t care what others think
Found this gem in Alex Hormozi’s book $100M leads -
"If someone won't speak at your funeral, you shouldn't care about their opinion while you're alive”
So stop caring what other people think, and start putting yourself out there.
- Publish that tweet
- Send that newsletter
- Make that landing page
- Speak to a customer
You’ll feel uncomfortable, and that’s a good thing. This means you’re doing something important.
That's it for today folks. Hope you found this useful.
If you did, please share it with a friend. And do signup to receive more such posts every week in your inbox.
🔗 Super Links
Useful links you don't want to miss -
- How I increased my SaaS conversion rate by 700% | From Jon Yongfook
- Great definition of Product Market Fit | From Justin Jackson
- 4 ways to get your first customer (with no money, and no audience) | From Lukas Hermann
- How Monopoly Go became the number 1 top grossing app on the AppStore | From Peter Marpaung
- Don’t be afraid of pivoting | From David Park
🤗 How can I help?
Whenever you’re ready, consider joining the Indie Masterminds community. The goal of this newsletter is to inspire you, but the goal of the community is to help you take action and go to the next level in your journey.
So if you’re at that stage where you don’t need more inspiration, but you need to take the right action, then come join us!
We’re here to help 🫂
