Simo what’s your backstory?

I grew up in Morocco in a family of entrepreneurs, and I always knew I wanted to create my own business too. No other option would have made me happy.

I did a Classe préparatoire, an intensive two-year prep program for top French business schools, and was accepted to both HEC and Polytechnique.

During my studies, I always chose the hard way. I believe challenges and intense experiences sculpt you. I tried creating multiple businesses, lived in Brazil, did a world tour, and more. I also worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and in consulting at McKinsey.

What does folk do, and how did you come up with the idea?

After McKinsey, I was tired of working for other people on projects I didn't care about. I was tired of stopping projects and not being able to track if my recommendations would be implemented, of saying things that would only stay on slides. I wanted to get my hands dirty. To build products from A to Z. That’s why I did Le Wagon (a tech boot camp) to learn to code.

At this time, to hone my skills, I started freelancing. A lot. At one point, I had 20 different touchpoints between clients and prospects. I was using Notion to manage these relationships… and it was a MESS. All over the place, LinkedIn, Emails, Calendar, WhatsApp, Etc. So I started to look at more robust CRMs. And I was shocked by how bad the experience was  in contrast with how huge these markets are.

That’s the moment I met Thibaud Elziere. Randomly. I listened to a podcast he did and DMed him on Twitter. I was inspired by the dude, doing the biggest exit in the history of French tech (Fotolia to Adobe), and then creating three unicorns through Hexa.

As a SaaS entrepreneur, he was also excited by the idea of reinventing CRM, of going after the king of SaaS: Salesforce. That’s when we decided to build folk.

How did you acquire your first 20 users, and what early strategies worked best?

We started by building a homepage. We had nothing but wanted to show the world the solution we’d imagined. We shared it on social media and got a lot of traction and word of mouth — 10,000 people registered to the list. Then we started building the product. It took at least 18 months. During that time, we progressively gave access to people from that list.

What key metrics, user feedback, or observations confirmed you were reaching product–market fit?

We were looking at standard metrics, such as retention and engagement — Daily Active Users / Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU), and Daily Active Users / Weekly Active Users (DAU/WAU) mostly. We were giving week after week access to different cohorts of users, and seeing how these metrics were improving.

We were combining these metrics with qualitative inputs from users, doing white-glove onboarding for every one of them, and using that to collect inputs. Once metrics and feedback started showing excitement, we decided it was time to launch. That's when we did a Product Hunt.

What distribution channels have been most effective for you, and how did you discover them?

First thing: launching. Again and again. Every opportunity is a good one to launch. The worst thing isn’t to be ridiculed, but to go unnoticed.

Then, we took a very scientific approach to acquisition channels, testing them one after the other and comparing them using actionable metrics: effort, cost, conversion, and average basket.

We kept the ones that worked best for us:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• SEA (Search Engine Advertising) on Google, Meta, Reddit, LinkedIn
• Affiliation – letting users and partners distribute the product and take a percent of the revenue they generate
• Influence

On top of that, we engineered the product so that users would share it and collaborate (Product-Led Growth, or PLG).

If you could only keep one channel moving forward, which would it be, and why?

The best growth hack is word of mouth. It's free and scales infinitely. And the only way to engineer word of mouth is to build a great product. That's what I would do.

How does folk stand out in such a crowded CRM space?

CRM is a crowded space, but also a massive market. Also, the NPS (Net Promoter Score) of existing players is very low, creating a large opportunity. They are perceived as being slow, manual, and cumbersome.

Where folk stands out:

How have reviews on Product Hunt, the Chrome Store, and G2 contributed to your growth?

First, they are a crucial part of what we do: Building a product people love.

They are simply the results of all the efforts we put there, and a very good proxy to the love our users have for us.

How do you keep users engaged after they sign up?

It’s about building a product that matches a real need they have frequently. We can’t hack engagement, it needs to be something that fits into a habit.

folk doesn’t offer a freemium plan, Why did you choose that model?

The window where users are trying a product is a crucial time for them to decide, a time of high engagement. We want to make sure we create maximum engagement during this period with a free trial.

Also, freemium works well for categories of products where willingness to pay is low (e.g. forms). For CRMs, willingness to pay is high, and users expect to pay.

How has your affiliate program performed, and how do you find the right partners?

Very successful. I'm super bullish here. It's also a big channel for other CRMs, for example, 50% of the new revenue of Hubspot.

Two reasons for that:
‍
1. CRMs are high-friction tools, so having a partner advising you helps.
2. CRMs are stake tools, they are core on the stack, so having someone you trust to reinforce the fact folk is the right option helps too.

What is your plan for folk in the future?

In 24 months, I believe in a world where the way we sell will be fundamentally different.

The CRM will capture ALL data for you. From communication channels, social media, your leads' website, your physical meetings, your phone calls, and your videoconference. Anywhere. Structured and unstructured data. And on this CRM, rich and comprehensive about your relationships, users will be able to enroll hyperspecialized AI assistants that will do the work on their behalf.

For example:

In this world, the job of salespeople will be fundamentally different. Focused on the human part of their job - connecting with people - and letting context-aware assistants do the job for them.

Who are some entrepreneurs or experts you recommend following for business growth?

• Lenny Rachitsky
• Elena Verna
• Kyle Poyar

What are the biggest lessons you've learned from building folk?

Mature categories are hard. Even though people hate their CRM, the bar is super high, and there is a lot to build. It's harder than we expected.

What advice would you give to other founders?

Any quotes you live by?

Successful people are macro-optimist, micro-pessimist.

Any promotions you would like to add for Founderoo readers?

Use the code FOUNDEROO to get 30% off for 3 months.

links + socials

Simo LinkedIn

folk Website