Our SaaS is Backed by Y Combinator and Grew to $1.6M ARR
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey everyone! I’m Mas, founder of Queue. We're a platform that allows you to launch your productized service business. Add checkout, client portal, and project management tools to your website with full white-labeling so you give your clients a seamless experience from hiring to sending your first deliverable for review.
If you’re not using Queue for your productized service agency, then you’re probably gluing together 6 different software together. One for storage, checkout, client portal, feedback, taskboard, referrals, etc. The list goes on.
Instead, we built a product that’s specifically designed for selling productized services and it’s all white labeled on your website. So your clients can now pay on your website, submit their first request, and review the work you submit to them without jumping from software to software.
We’re ~$1.6M/ARR and have been growing very fast in the past 3 months. We’re aiming to do our series A in Q1 or Q2 of 24.
We started with building a simple tool for people to get feedback on videos and over time it grew into a larger product. Over time, we realized that there were more and more problems businesses faced, so there were a lot of opportunities for us to build.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I’ve been coding on and off since I was 12. I was introduced to this world in World of Warcraft. You see, you can create add-ons on WoW to help you play the game. So I learned how to code so I can build them. And then eventually I learned how to build a website because my guild in WoW needed one. After that, it was always on and off projects I would do to pay the bills.
Being a 1st gen immigrant, money was tight. So coding projects for various clients, friends, and Twitch streamers helped pay the bills. In college, I studied biochemistry and physics. I already knew how to code, so I figured it was a waste of my time to go computer science.
Around 2017, my best friend Fadi convinced me to do a startup with him. It was called Sense a Life. We built a device that plugs into your car and detects if you left your child or pet in the back seat. It will roll down the windows, honk the horn, and alert anyone you add as an emergency contact on our mobile app. We were acquired after 3 years.
Okay, so how did I come up with Queue? 2 ½ years ago I hired a friend to coach me in Overwatch. I would record the games I play and then send it to him through Google Drive to get feedback. He would review them and leave comments on an Excel spreadsheet with timestamps.
Reading the comments and going to a specific timestamp got annoying very quickly. So I spent a week building a video player that lets you leave timestamped comments with drawings. We loved using it, so we shared it with our friends on some Discord servers. And the next thing I knew, hundreds of people were using it.
It was very satisfying to see these esports coaches using our platform for their business. And then a couple months in we saw some video editors picking it up. These people were using our product not for reviewing gameplay videos, but rather for getting feedback from their clients. This is where things started to take off.
Suddenly our revenue doubled in a couple of weeks. And we got feedback to build additional review tools for images, PDFs, and even live websites. So we did and they loved it!
I knew I wanted to build another startup, but I wanted to build something that lets people start businesses. This has always been the idea from day 1 of building review tools for esport coaches to agencies getting feedback from their clients.
However, we didn’t start with the bells and whistles like client portal, payments, and all the other features. We started with a humble review tool because we knew building too much too soon would confuse our users and chances are we’ll build a system that’s not well made because it didn’t come from user feedback over time.
So that’s how the idea of Queue came about. It started with building a simple tool for people to get feedback on videos and over time it grew into a larger product. Over time, we realized that there were more and more problems these businesses faced, so there were a lot of opportunities for things to build and problems to solve.
The goal for us is to keep building the tools these businesses need so they don’t have to glue together a bunch of different software and instead they can use 1 platform to run their entire business.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
I built Queue with ruby on rails at first. There was no frontend because I figured it was a waste of time to complex it so much. If I had to do it again, I definitely would’ve used React because it made SO MUCH of the build process bug free. It took me about 1-2 weeks to build the first product that we released. If I used to react, it might’ve taken me 1-2 days.
I built the entire thing by myself with feedback from my friend on how he would want to use it. I knew how I would want it to work as a user, so there wasn’t a lot of outside feedback needed. It cost me a total of $50 to release it. $30/month for the server. $20/month for deployment software. And we used free versions of various saas tools like Pusher.com for the websockets (makes things real time), and Konvajs (for the drawing overlay).
Queue started off as a simple tool for video reviews and was primarily used by esport coaches and video ad agencies. Over time, we added additional review tools to support images, PDFs, and even live websites.
We also released a way to bill your clients when you onboard them to your project, but it didn’t take off the first time we released it. Here’s our first version of Queue:
The first version was not very focused. In my opinion, we released way too much quickly. I had this itch to release the full platform of my vision, but it took months to learn that building too much at once will confuse users.
Also, our writing was horrible. One lesson I learned is that if you cannot explain what your product does concisely and simply, then you’ll fail at getting customers. Another mistake was us not talking to users enough to figure out how they wanted things to work.
For example, the invoicing wasn’t ideal. It took us too long to figure out that they wanted subscriptions and not one-one invoicing.
This is what our website looks like right now
The problem that Queue is now solving came when we tried to hire a design agency for Queue. We searched on Dribbble and Webflow for the best agencies but found hiring them was a nightmare. Starting the contact form to hire them took a very long time because of the lengthy contract process, meetings, and approvals. Instead of hiring someone quickly like a startup needs, it took weeks.
At first, we thought of building a way to send contracts with e-signatures, but we realized this wouldn’t change the required meetings and contact forms on their website. So someone on the team recommended a very simple idea. Why not let our users display their rates on their websites with a 'buy or subscribe' button? This concept was a radical shift from the norm because agencies worked on a contract basis and priced based on WHO the client was.
Our breakthrough idea was to allow agencies to create subscription plans for their services that they can add to their website. But not just a simple checkout form, these would be fully customizable, and tailored to each agency's unique offerings. This meant they could design their plans with various options and add-ons, streamlining the checkout process for the client and creating fewer meetings for the agency.
Describe the process of launching the business.
We didn’t launch on a product hunt like everyone else. Instead, we launched on Discord after I spent 1-2 weeks building it. I was on a lot of different Discord servers where we would chat with esport coaches, designers, etc. It took us about 1 week to get our first dollar, which was $9. I made the product $9/month just to see if anyone would pay for it. I knew I could always increase the price over time, so putting it at a low price early on isn’t a big deal to me.
So when I built the first version, I shared on those discord servers and that’s how we got our first 100 customers. After that, I would message people on Discord servers (back then you didn’t need to add them as a friend) saying “Hey there friend 😀” and go from there. Ask what they’re currently using for reviews and then introduce them to Queue. We messaged over 300 people like this. There was such a big support for our tool that some of our users were sharing it with others.
When I launched Queue, it wasn’t funded. Because of my previous startup sale, I was financially secure enough to not get paid for anything. I decided to raise a small check from a close friend, Rashid, so I could hire an additional dev. Rashid was a friend of mine and his parent company bought my last startup, so he was more than happy to support my new venture.
A couple of months into the startup, I got an unexpected Twitter message from Lucy Guo asking me if I wanted to hop on a quick call in talks of funding. She posted a tweet about giving feedback to YC applications, so I sent a DM with a link to the application. She gave me feedback on it and wanted to have a call to go over it because she thought the product was really interesting.
15 minutes after the call, she committed to $50,000. 5 minutes later she texted asking if they could make it $100,000 at a $3M valuation. I agreed and that was it!
A few weeks later, we applied to Ycombinator. We were rejected the first time. It was a big downer, but we kept our heads up. The reason we were rejected was that we were still focused on gaming. Which is a fine market, but SAAS in the gaming world is a bit hard to work.
Most gamers are used to microtransactions, so convincing them to pay for a SAAS product is difficult. And the market is also a bit small for it because there aren't enough esport coaches in the world where we can target 10% and make $100M/Year (which is how you determine if your company can be venture scale).
In our YC application, we explained that we also targeted agencies, but it wasn’t enough to get accepted. Thinking back, I think the red flag was the fact we were targeting 2 markets at once (gaming and agencies), so we didn’t have enough focus. Everyone wants to go big from the start, but that makes your messaging lose focus when no one knows who you are.
So we went back and continued to build the product. We decided to stop focusing our platform on esport coaches and focus only on agencies. And after 6 months, the next YC batch was starting. At that point, we were around $15K/MRR and very focused on who we targeted, so I felt confident about applying again.
I interviewed Michael Seibel, Dalton Caldwell, and Harj Taggar. They gave us a shot and funded us! I still remember the call I got from Michael while I was at my parent's house. We had a quick 15-20 min chat about the future of freelancers, agencies, and design in the tech world. It was quite clear Michael and I had the same vision for the product, so I felt very confident that it was going to be a good place for us.
We did Ycombinator for 3 months. It was fully remote because we got in right at the start of covid lockdowns. We spent the entire 3 months doing nonstop growth. We hit up everyone we knew who could use our product and tried to get them to pay us.
See, the idea is that you want to get as much growth as possible in those initial 3 months so when demo day rolls around, you look appealing to investors and prove that you can grow. This is exactly what we did and the result was $2M in funding.
Half of it was raised before demo day. I spoke to about 20 investors and about 12 invested in us. It included small checks of $5,000 to large checks like $300,000. Every single meeting was on Zoom, so I was able to do them all in a few weeks to raise the round.
I firmly believe you should become profitable before fundraising. It's crucial to demonstrate self-sufficiency, to avoid being overly dependent on venture capital decisions. I know it’s hard, but you’ll feel 100x more confident.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
When Q was first launched, we targeted Discord servers focused on Webflow, Figma, and video editors. Our approach was to create a relationship with server owners and promote Q in response to questions that Queue can solve.
We also participated in servers like Productize Yourself, where we'd respond to questions that other products couldn’t do. Our usernames included our website so we can subtly direct interested users to learn more about Q.
Initially, we reached out to potential users within these communities. Whenever someone seemed to be struggling with a complex issue, we introduced them to Q, explaining how our product could be a possible solution. This works to this day.
We also rely heavily on word-of-mouth and direct sales, focusing on larger agencies with larger teams. This is where the majority of our revenue comes from. Six months ago, we expanded our target market to include solopreneurs.
Our motivation for this shift stems from a passion for supporting entrepreneurs. While larger contracts contribute significantly to our revenue, it's the smaller businesses that motivate us to pursue our vision and bring satisfaction to what we've built.
We’ve also done a product hunt launch and that drove a lot of new accounts (hundreds within 24-48 hours).
Today we have over 3,000 teams using us. We lost a lot of esport coaches since we first started because of our market change, but that’s okay because we grew a lot doing this. The price each team pays varies based on their size. Some teams are paying $10,000+ a year because they require SOC2, full whitelabeling, etc. And some are paying only $600/year because they’re solopreneurs. We’ve been a subscription model since day 1 and we prefer this model.
Make sure you’re solving a real problem. No one cares if your product uses blockchain to create NFTs. What matters is if there’s a big enough problem that your customers are willing to pay for. So focus on the problem and then the solution.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Being a startup founder can suck sometimes. You’re on a tight timeline of running out of money and demotivated because other friends are growing faster than you. I faced this problem myself whenever growth slowed down in certain months. This demotivation can affect your family, friends, and your employees. So what I did was I created a compilation of screenshots of our users thanking us. This is what kept me motivated to continue going.
We hit profitability about 1 month ago and plan on going back into the red very soon once we do a couple more hires to take on marketing and branding. We’re a big fan of hiring talented people on a subscription basis (mostly our users so we can eat our dog food). And we’re growing about 30% YoY. I’m not happy with this and I often get panic attacks that it’s not fast enough if I’m being honest.
Our distribution has been outbound sales for a long time now. Primary reason is that it allowed us to create a repeatable strategy to get new revenue. However, we strongly regret not focusing on marketing and brand early on, as this is becoming very important to make our business model sustainable. We do not do any ads and don’t plan on it until our series A.
We’re a team of 5 right now. With 2 people on a subscription basis (design and SDR). And the rest being engineers. A cool fact about us is that we’ve all done a side hustle growing up. So we know what it’s like to get a small service business off the ground and this helps us build our product.
We want to release additional features like website templates through partnerships with Webflow, Framer, and Wix. This will enable us to be a complete end-to-end solution so you can launch your business.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I firmly believe you should become profitable before fundraising. It's crucial to demonstrate self-sufficiency, to avoid being overly dependent on venture capital decisions. I know it’s hard, but you’ll feel 100x more confident when you walk into a room where you KNOW you don’t need them and they need you.
In terms of target market, our focus is shifting more towards solo entrepreneurs recently. They're not just our core users; they also fuel our drive and passion. Their entrepreneurial spirit resonates deeply with us, and we want to be the platform that they build their business around.
As for our product roadmap, we have numerous additional features in the pipeline. However, we're planning a release-over-time schedule to avoid overwhelming our users. New features have bugs, so if we release too fast then it’ll create bugs and give users + clients a bad experience. Something we’re trying to avoid.
Looking ahead, a major focus area will be enhancing our marketing and branding. We recognized too late the importance of building a strong brand and community. So more blog and TikTok content.
One of the best decisions I made was doing YCombinator. I joined YC for a couple of reasons. First the fundraising. YC’s demo day was a goldmine opportunity and I hated fundraising. I just wanted to build a great product, distribute it, and not worry about fundraising. And being able to present on demo day in front of thousands of investors to complete our fundraising in 2 weeks was so worth it.
The second reason I wanted to join YC was for the community. There’s a vibe in the YC community of building fast, working hard, and helping each other. Every time I've messaged another YC alumni for help on anything, I always get a reply. This includes asking for intros to investors and help on almost anything.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
Our technology stack is a combination of Ruby on Rails for the backend and React for the frontend. I chose this because I knew how to build with them. You don’t need a magical tech stack to launch software. I’ve been coding since I was 12 when I built my first website for my World of Warcraft guild to accept new applications.
For our website review system, we opted for Node.js just for this specific feature because there was a library that made it easy.
In terms of other tools, we rely on Stripe for billing. For analytics and tracking, we use third-party tools like Mixpanel, Segment, and Posthog. And Intercom, which we use for email marketing and customer support.
One thing I will never add is a chatbot to handle customer support. Talking to a human being is what builds relationships with your customers and I would rather hire more customer support reps than install a chatbot.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
The primary inspiration for developing Queue was Shopify. What excites me about Shopify is its core mission: empowering entrepreneurs to start their businesses. This resonates deeply with our vision at Queue. Additionally, Shopify's contribution to Ruby on Rails was inspiring, which aligns with our technology choice.
In terms of literature, 'Zero to One' by Peter Theil has been influential. It offers insights into running a startup and navigating the entrepreneurial landscape. Another key book is 'The Mom Test,' which has helped us figure out what problems customers have and how we can build solutions for them.
Last but not least, PGs essays. PG (Paul Graham) was the cofounder of Y Combinator and he writes essays. His essays are a goldmine of knowledge and are written to read as you speak with no fluff.
This along with Y Combinator’s database of videos and guides has helped me navigate product building, sales, marketing, and even managing my employees. Honestly, if anyone wants to build a startup, they should read PGs essays and watch Y Combinator videos on YouTube.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
When starting a startup, the toughest problem they have is growth. Building a product in 2023 is VERY EASY. So many frameworks and available talent to make it happen, but one thing that’s still very hard is growth.
My advice is to only build a product where you have friends to sell to. If you don’t have friends, colleagues, or a community you’re part of that will try your product…you should think twice about building this startup.
Next, make sure you’re solving a real problem. No one cares if your product uses blockchain to create NFTs. What matters is if there’s a big enough problem that your customers are willing to pay for. So focus on the problem and then the solution. And your solution can change as time goes on, so don’t marry the solution, marry the problem.
Finally, assess if your product is better than the existing solutions. So many companies are creating rebranded AI products that chatgpt can do. Don’t fall into the trap that slapping on a nice UI will cut for the long term. It might get you, users, now until your competitor hires a nice agency to rebuild their design.
In summary, have an audience to be early adopters, solve a real problem, and strive to create a product that is not just better, but substantially superior to existing solutions.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We’re hiring a content creator. Someone who is 100% fine putting themselves in front of a camera and is excited about our mission. The creator should have experience with creating YouTube videos, know how to create a hook and be able to write scripts.
Video editing will not be required as we will outsource this. This will be a full-time position with a 4-year vesting schedule. To apply, please email masud@usequeue.com with your experience and a previous video you’re proud of.
Where can we go to learn more?
The best way to learn about Queue is to go to the website. We have 24/7 live chat support and also have video guides.
We’re also on personal Twitter and business Twitter.
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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