My Google Sheets Add-On For Notion Hit $9K MRR
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
My name is Leandro, and I am from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m the founder of Sync2Sheets, a Google Workspace Add-On that syncs Notion databases with Google Sheets. While I’ve also built several integrations for Coda and just getting started with Quicktion, a new add-on for saving emails to Notion, Sync2Sheets remains my main focus. I guess you can see a clear trend here!
I used to be a freelance software developer, but 3 years ago, I returned to my original dream of building my own SaaS. It is funny that more than 10 years ago I wanted to learn how to code to be able to create my own products, but freelancing got in the way and took me a while to get back on track.
Sync2Sheets is currently at $9k MRR with more than 400 paying customers that range from small businesses to companies like Canva or Wix.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
As a child, I loved taking apart electronic devices, looking inside, and then obviously having to ask for help because I couldn't put them back together, so I decided to study electronic engineering. Unfortunately, college made me hate electronics instead of sparking my love for them.
I did some low-level programming at school and loved it, therefore I decided to make a change and do software engineering instead of electronics. The problem is that I quickly realized the same thing was gonna happen. College at least in Argentina felt so slow compared to how quickly I was able to learn by myself. One night while having dinner I told my family I was gonna drop out, they weren’t super supportive but I knew it was the right call.
During the next months, while selling some stuff I was buying in China and reselling in Argentina, I devoted most of my time to learning JavaScript. I read blog posts, books, and tutorials and got my hands dirty while experimenting with some ideas. The whole point of this journey was to learn how to code so I could build my own tools, I was in love with the idea of owning a SaaS.
I thought it was good to first become a great developer before starting my own thing, but I guess I waited too long. Anyway, in 2020, just before the pandemic and with enough savings to last for a couple of years, I quit freelancing altogether and went all in. I was building a tool to sync the sales from Mercado Libre (the Latin American version of Amazon) with Google Sheets when Notion released their public API, and I thought: “With the huge userbase Notion has, maybe is better to ride the Notion wave…”
Then I used most of the code I was writing for Mercado Libre and applied it to sync Notion databases instead. In 2 weeks I had an MVP deployed in the Marketplace and the installs started right away. Being one of the first to release a Notion-related product with the API certainly helped me get quick exposure.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect idea, the perfect UI and just put something out. Start small and build upon the learnings, code, and resources you accumulate.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
I wanted the data in Sheets to look as much as possible like it was in Notion, so I spent a lot of time mapping font styles, making sure each property from the Notion databases was transferred to Sheets in the best possible way.
For example, I use conditional formatting and data validation in Sheets to mimic how a select property looks in Notion and the same for the rest of the types.
It was important for me that the sheet was editable, and that users would reorder columns, add new columns in between, and move things around without breaking the sync between both tools. Once I had those things nailed, I prepared a quick landing page using Hugo and submitted the add-on first for OAuth review and then to the marketplace. The process of releasing an add-on to the Google Workspace Marketplace deserves its own post!
It took me 2 weeks between getting started and submitting to the store. The funny thing is that the first version had a huge bug, where the last row in Sheets was always overwritten when new data came from Notion, something I quickly realized when doing my final test on the production environment.
Describe the process of launching the business.
My strategy was simple: post on Twitter, and Facebook groups related to Notion, and in the r/Notion subreddit, videos and images on how Sync2Sheets (Notion2Sheets at the time) worked. I found that videos worked quite well on Reddit and got me some good upvotes, visibility, and traffic. In the beginning, I was getting around 15 installs per day.
One other thing I did and am still doing is using a tool called F5Bot to monitor words related to my product, for example, Google Sheets, CSV, and charts in the Notion subreddit and reply with a comment mentioning my product when it makes sense. Reddit is usually the first place a person goes while searching and in many cases, my comments appear first in the place.
It is important to try many things while launching for the first time, you never know what’s gonna work, and in the era of virality a single tweet, post, or video can completely change your growth. Don’t forget to talk with users, get feedback, and improve based on that, but always follow your gut.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
As I mentioned before, Reddit and social in general have been super important in the beginning. You are desperate for installs and traffic and you do anything to get the word out. For me particularly the first couple of years I didn’t take marketing quite seriously as I should, but it is something I am changing now.
I started doing keyword research and putting more effort into content as 72% of Sync2Sheets traffic from Google is from branded keywords, meaning users are just searching the name directly and not finding the tool based on blog posts, something I want to improve during this year.
It is important to check SERP for your keywords and see what types of results Google gives. Is it a video? Is it an article? In my case searching for “Notion Google Sheets” displays mostly videos, so 2 years ago I recorded a YouTube video targeting that keyword and got some nice results.
Lastly, almost a year ago, I decided to remove the free plan and make the tool pay only. What a great decision it was. I went from around 15 new paying customers per month to more than 40. Churn was also reduced because now if someone cancels their subscription they don’t have the free plan as a backup to continue using the product. Users now think twice before canceling.
My recommendation is to think about what it would look like to have a paid-only tool and the funnel to convert users to paying customers with a trial instead of free accounts.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Sync2Sheets is profitable, I spend around $500 between cloud services, email services, and various other small tools. I am not doing ads at the moment but planning to do so in the future once I make some tweaks to the landing page. To share some stats, the customer lifetime value is around $300, and the churn rate is around 7%.
I am now in the process of starting some outbound strategies on LinkedIn, hiring a copywriter to post a couple of posts per week and we will see how it goes in 3 months.
I committed myself to posting once per week on the blog, generating AI-assisted content with some manual checks and improvements afterward. But SEO is always a long game.
Long term I am starting to think about expanding the sync offering not only for Notion but for other tools. It will require a whole redesign of the add-on, landing page, pricing, and more but I think is the next step if what I am doing now works, so I can replicate it with other services as part of the same offering.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I think that as software developer founders we usually make the same mistake, focusing too much on the product and not thinking enough about marketing and distribution. Just building something is not enough, you need to think about how users are gonna find you and how are you going to convert those users into paying customers.
Now if I start something new, I would give more thought and effort to acquisition channels from the start and less to the product itself. SEO with content, different landing pages, LinkedIn strategies, Facebook groups, Reddit, etc.
One big decision that changed the MRR chart was removing the free plan, it worked for Sync2Sheets but I know it is not for every tool, but my recommendation is to think about what it would look like to have a paid-only tool and the funnel to convert users to paying customers with a trial instead of free accounts.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
I use Firebase, including hosting, cloud functions, and Firestore to host Sync2Sheets API and landing page. I have been using Firebase for a long time and it is a stack I feel comfortable with and it plays well with workspace add-ons and Google ecosystem.
Sendgrid to send emails but considering a migration to Postmark. Mixpanel to track user behavior and Sentry for error tracking alongside Google's own error reporting tool, all of them in the free tier. Tidio for customer support chat and Paddle as a payment processor and merchant of record.
Lastly a mix between Notion and Coda for project management, notes, research, etc.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I have been subscribed to the Daily Stoic from Ryan Holiday for years now and I love it, try to read it every day to keep myself in good mental shape. I follow and read everything David Heinemeier Hansson, most commonly known as DHH, one of the founders of Basecamp, has to say. Getting Real and Rework were both foundational in my thinking.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
It is cliché but I feel we need to remind ourselves and others about this all the time, ship it! Stop waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect idea, the perfect UI and just put something out. Start small and build upon the learnings, code, and resources you accumulate.
Focus on marketing and distribution from the start, if you are a developer learn how to wear the marketer and sales hat, I promise it is worth it. Coding is fun, but when no one uses what you built is the worst possible feeling.
When you build things and make them available for others to use, good things happen, always.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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