Avocode

An Vu identified a real pain point in the design-to-development workflow. Designers and developers were struggling to collaborate effectively—developers would manually extract colors, fonts, and sizes from design files, often resulting in mismatched implementations. The process was fragmented across tools like Trello, Slack, and Basecamp, creating confusion and rework. An saw an opportunity to streamline this critical handoff.

Avocode launched in February 2015 with a clear value proposition: designers upload their Photoshop or Sketch designs, and developers can inspect them directly within Avocode to extract assets without touching the original design files. The platform includes collaboration features like notes and revision tracking, ensuring everyone works from the most current design. An bootstrapped the company while building a team focused on product, design, and engineering.

Avocode's growth came entirely through inbound marketing with zero paid customer acquisition. By May 2016, just 15 months after launch, the company had acquired 2,800 paying customers. An ran a pre-order program early on that generated $90,000 in the first week, validating strong market demand. All customers were paying (no free tier, only free trials), with two main pricing tiers: a "Garage Plan" for freelancers and a "Business Plan" for teams, priced at approximately $60/month based on number of seats.

The team discovered that customer churn was nuanced. While user churn sat at 7% monthly, revenue churn was negative 1%—meaning they were expanding revenue within existing accounts faster than they were losing it from churning customers. The insight was that freelancers (paying less) were churning, but business teams were staying longer and adding more seats over time. This expansion-driven model meant an 18-month average lifetime value for business plan customers. By May 2016, Avocode was generating $50,000 MRR from $27 average revenue per user across 2,800 customers. Growth was running at 15% month-over-month. The company operated lean—based in Prague with a 14-person team and $35,000 monthly expenses, meaning they were already profitable and adding roughly $15,000 to the bank each month.

An and his team were plotting the next phase of growth. They'd raised $125,000 from 500 Startups (which valued the company at ~$2.5M on a SAFE), specifically to help them figure out paid marketing and customer acquisition strategies. The goal was to reach $100,000+ MRR (over $1.2M ARR) by the end of 2016. Adobe and Sketch were already in conversations with An about potential partnerships. With strong product-market fit, predictable metrics, and a profitable unit economics, Avocode was well-positioned to scale into a much larger SaaS business serving the designer-developer collaboration space.