Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Wrike CEO Andrew Filev (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Based on our conversation so far, I picked up two key philosophies on how you build your company. One is this extensive A/B testing to optimize your customer acquisition. The second is evolving the product continuously through customer input and iteration.

Andrew Filev: It’s true but I would phrase it a little differently. Instead of just saying A/B testing, I would say data-driven would characterize it better. When you interview a candidate, for example, you’re not A/B testing, but you can apply the same data-driven mentality. Another very overlapping area that is very core to my philosophy on how I do things is the philosophy of continuous improvement. I absolutely believe in this up to this day and it is applicable to individuals, teams, and companies. It doesn’t matter so much on where you start. What matters more is the velocity at which you improve and move forward. That, I believe, is super critical, especially for startups. Velocity is the name of the game.

In business, if you want to run successful organizations, continuous improvement is the key. The third one is the customer focus. Another thing that interests me is, because we were bootstrapping, I was the guy to man our phone support and emails in the early days. I totally embraced it. There is tons of learning and value in that. I was directly online with customers. I felt their pain. I felt their need. That instilled in me this third fundamental belief and the focus on customers when it comes to the business and product.

Sramana Mitra: You first self-financed a bit and then you bootstrapped through organic revenues. How long did that continue before you raised venture capital?

Andrew Filev: We launched in 2007. Then the first funding in 2012, I believe. It was a $1 million convertible note. We didn’t go ahead and launch a huge investment round without knowing what we were getting into. It was a fairly small fund. There was this partner who knew me and wanted to do a deal. He was a great guy. He built one of the big photo sharing sites back in the day. He persuaded me and his partners to do this convertible note.

Sramana Mitra: How much were you doing in revenue at that point?

Andrew Filev: I honestly don’t remember. I think between $1 million and $5 million. So we did this $1 million convertible note. It worked out beautifully. We were able to launch some of the stuff that without that money, we wouldn’t have been able to. When you’re bootstrapping, you can’t go negative. In 2013, I started inbound calls from VCs and private equity funds every week or every other week. I talked to a lot of them. I really liked what one of them presented. I really liked the partners, and they really liked where we were heading. There was a good click. We did our Series A for $10 million. Our investors are extremely happy with the deal.

Sramana Mitra: What year did you do that deal?

Andrew Filev: That was in 2013. Between their first call where they didn’t know me and I didn’t know them and money in the bank, it only took us three months.

Sramana Mitra: What is the firm?

Andrew Filev: Bain Capital Ventures.

Sramana Mitra: Where to now? We’re now almost at the end of 2015. Where are you going from here?

Andrew Filev: When Bain put in their money, we had about 3,000 customers. Now, we’ve 10,000 customers. After Bain, we did Series B at the beginning of this year led by Scale Venture Partners. We had Tier 1 funds who wanted to be in the deal. We had to refuse them because we wanted to keep the round very small. We did a $15 million raise. We are at about 10,000 customers and roughly getting to 300 employees. We are growing 2.5x year over year. I still think it’s still very early in the journey. I want us to get to $10 million because everybody in the business either manages somebody or is being managed by somebody. We all feel their pain of trying to collaborate and manage work. I think there’s a huge pain out there and I want to help companies solve it.

Sramana Mitra: Excellent. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Wrike CEO Andrew Filev
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