Instantly — How this cold email SaaS, bootstrapped to $2.4M ARR in 9 months with genius customer acquisition strategy.
ANOTHER DAY
ANOTHER STARTUP STORY
Building a successful startup is never easy, especially in a competitive industry like SaaS. Yet, the story of Instantly AI proves that:
A strong idea
Focus on solving one problem
Execution excellence
Understanding customer needs
… can lead to extraordinary success—even without external funding.
Founded by two agency owners, Instantly AI has scaled rapidly into a $20M ARR business in just a few years.
Recently, I noticed their ads everywhere—from YouTube to LinkedIn. Intrigued, I decided to dig deeper and share my findings with you.
In this newsletter, we’ll:
Explore Instantly AI’s inspiring story
Share key lessons from their success
Offer actionable insights to help you scale
Whether you're an early-stage entrepreneur or looking to refine your approach, there’s something here for everyone.
Now, let’s travel back to 2021, when everything started …
About the company
Instantly AI is an innovative email marketing platform designed to streamline and enhance cold email outreach for marketers and businesses.
Founded by Nils Schneider and Raul Kaevand, the company focuses on providing tools that simplify the process of lead generation and customer engagement.
Key features include:
Unlimited email accounts
Warmups
Generative AI tools
These features help users scale their outreach campaigns effectively.
How the co-founders met and how the idea started
The journey of Instantly AI began when Nils Schneider and Raul Kaevand crossed paths while running their respective lead generation agencies.
Their agencies at the time generated around $10,000 to $15,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). As they expanded their operations, both faced similar challenges with existing email marketing tools that were either:
Too costly
Lacked essential features.
Their shared frustrations led to discussions about creating a more efficient solution tailored to their needs.
They envisioned a platform to empower users to optimize outreach by:
Reducing costs
Enhancing automation
Improving tracking capabilities
Additionally, with AI performing well at the time, they saw its potential and decided to fully commit to this SaaS.
The process of building the product in the early stage
In the early stages, Nils and Raul focused on building a user-friendly platform equipped with essential features such as automated warmups and email deliverability tracking.
They relied on their own experiences as agency owners to shape the product's development, ensuring it addressed real-world challenges faced by marketers. The early development phase was marked by continuous iteration and feedback from a small group of beta testers.
Initially it was intended for internal use only, but, after discussing it with others, they realized its potential value for other businesses in similar situations, leading them to develop it further and build publicly.
How did they launch Instantly and get initial traction?
Approach 1:
Instantly AI was launched on AppSumo, which provided significant exposure and helped them gain some initial traction.
This strategic move allowed them to connect with early adopters who were looking for effective email marketing solutions. However, as the founder shared in an interview: “It’s not the right solution for everyone. Those customers have a lifetime plan and they don’t bring recurring revenue.”
Approach 2:
Another approach the founders took was reaching out to their agency clients.
Those clients became Instantly’s first customers, and gave them their first success stories. From that, they used their own product and clients’ success stories as a selling point and promote.
This approach was so successful that helped Instantly grew to $200k MRR in just 6 months with 2,900 customers after launch, separate from AppSumo launch.
The early challenges
Like many other startups, in the beginning, Nils and Raul faced several challenges:
The first challenge is the competition from established email marketing platforms.
Another challenge was the skepticism from potential users about the effectiveness of a new tool.
They also had to navigate technical hurdles during development to ensure that their product could handle scaling as user demand grew.
Growth strategies
The co-founders’ approach to scaling Instantly was multi-faceted, utilizing both traditional and innovative marketing strategies.
Here are some key tactics that contributed to their rapid growth:
They continued sharing success stories.
They actively created contents and engaged with users on social media: Facebook, Youtube, X …
They conducted webinars.
They built a Facebook group named “Cold Email Masterclass - by Instantly,” which has grown to over 50,000 members.
They also sent cold emails to potential clients at the beginning using their own SaaS platform, Instantly!
The big moment
The turning point for Instantly AI came within just 9 months of its launch when it achieved $2.4 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
This rapid growth was fueled by positive word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers who experienced significant improvements in their email outreach efforts.
Growing the Business
As Instantly AI gained traction, Nils and Raul capitalized the momentum and continued growing the business:
They enhanced the platform by adding new features based on user feedback.
They focused on customer support and community engagement to retain users.
They also expand their marketing efforts to reach new audiences across various channels.
Funding
Instantly AI was fully bootstrapped and did not receive any institutional or angel investor funding.
Revenue and Financials
By December 2024, Instantly AI reached an impressive $20 million ARR, showcasing its rapid growth trajectory in the competitive email marketing landscape.
The founders' strategic focus on customer satisfaction and continuous improvement played a crucial role in achieving this milestone.
MORE STARTUP STORIES:
Lessons Learned
Throughout their journey, Nils and Raul learned valuable lessons about adaptability, community engagement, and the importance of customer feedback.
As startup founders, what are the lessons can we take away?
1. Understand the customer base
Instantly AI’s strategy revolves around understanding their customer base. They gather and analyze feedback to identify pain points and needs, refining the product to meet market demands.
2. Leverage community engagement
They built a Facebook community for users to share experiences, ask questions, and provide feedback, fostering loyalty and creating brand advocates. They also engaged users through webinars, Q&A sessions, and social media content.
3. Utilize your own product
The founders used Instantly AI for their own marketing efforts, showcasing its effectiveness as a testimonial. They continuously refined the product based on their real-world use.
4. Invest in customer support
Providing exceptional customer support was key to user retention. They developed tutorials, guides, and FAQs to help users maximize product value.
5. Churn analysis
Churn is a critical metric for any SaaS business. Instantly AI maintains a churn rate of about 10% monthly (as of 2023). To reduce churn, they conduct surveys to understand why customers leave and how to improve retention.
Now that you've learned the key lessons from Instantly AI’s journey.
It's time to take action.
To help you apply these insights directly to your business, we've created a detailed set of practical guideline. This guideline is designed to address a specific area of improvement based on the lessons learned from Instantly AI, and take your hands step-by-step through actionable strategies that can drive Instantly AI’s success.
Let’s get your hands dirty and bring your vision to life.
That’s a wrap of this week’s startup story.
I hope you find the story relatable and valuable.
Now it’s your turn to take these lessons and apply them to your business. Whether it’s investing in customer support, engaging your community, or using your own product as a proof point, I believe the strategies shared here can drive meaningful results.
What company should we cover in the next edition of Startup Stories?
Comment or reply to this email below👇
THANKS FOR READING!
- Gracie from What A Startup