Astalti

James Mooring, a software developer, partnered with Jono, who ran his own NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) service provider business in Australia. The NDIS is a government-funded scheme providing funding for people with disabilities to access support services—a massive market with hundreds of thousands of providers, yet served by outdated software built years ago. Jono's frustration with existing tools sparked the idea: what if they built modern software designed by people who actually understood NDIS operations? James and Jono realized they had the ideal co-founder combination—developer plus subject matter expert with skin in the game.

Starting in June 2021, James began coding what would become Astalti. The initial ambition was to build a full CRM covering everything an NDIS provider needed. But within months, James and Jono realized the scope was too massive and would take too long to ship. They made a crucial decision: instead of trying to do everything poorly, they would narrow focus to just support coordination—the single biggest pain point. This decision proved prescient; by streamlining, they actually built 90% of the functionality needed to serve the broader NDIS space anyway.

In January 2022, they launched a Chrome extension that let providers search the NDIS price guide in real-time—a small but clever piece of engineering-as-marketing that introduced hundreds to the Astalti brand without them realizing it. By February 2022, they released Astalti Lite, a free CRM version designed to build engagement and gather feedback. Within six months, 450 users signed up, and crucially, dozens actively provided product feedback. This wasn't just validation; it was motivation. James had put his entire other software development company on hold—there was no Plan B.

In August 2022, they launched Astalti Pro at $49/user/month with a launch discount. The pricing decision took "lots and lots of hours." They looked at competitors, ran the math on customer ROI (their invoicing alone saved many businesses two full days per fortnight), and settled on a price point that felt defensible but not overly aggressive. By December 2022—just five months after launch—they hit nearly $9,000 MRR with a couple hundred paying users.

The growth wasn't random. Jono leveraged his network of NDIS providers. More importantly, James and Jono did everything themselves: demos, calls, even custom feature development to land deals. They discovered that NDIS providers hung out in tight communities—specific Facebook groups, in-person conferences with "speed dating" style vendor floors, and professional networks. Unlike horizontal SaaS competing against giants, they had pricing power and could actually be heard in their vertical.

Word-of-mouth exploded exponentially. By the end of 2023, they'd grown from $9K to nearly $60K MRR—a 6x increase in a single year. Two key decisions amplified growth: First, they attended in-person NDIS provider conferences regularly, even when competitors didn't bother. They could demo live, and the product sold itself. Second, they monitored Facebook groups and watched for the conversation "What software should we use?" Within a couple years, when someone posted that question, 20 of the 22 responses were Astalti users raving about the product, the support, and the features.

They also invested in what felt like "one-percenters" early on: calling new customers to welcome them personally, responding to support requests in 45 minutes average, and building features based on direct customer feedback. Individually, these seemed insignificant. Compounded over months and years, they created a moat of goodwill that competitors couldn't match.

In February 2024, they executed a clever price increase without calling it one. They launched Astalti Premium at $64/user/month with new features (contract generation, e-signing, documentation tracking), while "hiding" the old Pro tier at $59. Within the first week, 30% of existing customers upgraded voluntarily. New customers? 95-98% now sign up at the premium tier. Revenue continued compounding.

As of mid-2024, Astalti is a team of five doing $60K MRR ($720K ARR) and still growing significantly each month. They went from zero to seven figures in ARR in roughly 18 months—an astonishing trajectory for a bootstrapped vertical SaaS. They've launched a partner and affiliate program, are planning a scheduling/rostering feature at a lower price point (acknowledging different user types), and are laser-focused on making Astalti feel like a place providers want to be, not the "least worst option." James's philosophy: eliminate the wrong things fast through iteration, invest in your customers 10x over what you think is necessary, and remember that every small gesture compounds when you're in a tight vertical where reputation travels at light speed.