Cliently

Spencer launched Cliently in late 2016 after working at Pantadoc, a hot Silicon Valley startup. He had raised $100K (actually bootstrapped from savings and prior stock sales) and had 80 customers doing about $7-8K per month in pure SaaS revenue. The core insight was simple: businesses needed help engaging prospects across multiple channels—not just email, but also video messages and phone calls.

The initial product grew steadily to $7-8K MRR over about 10 months. Spencer brought on developers and spent 4-5 months strengthening the core application. However, a client request changed everything: they asked Cliently to actually *make the calls* on their behalf. Spencer tested this service and found explosive demand. "We almost had too much success," he recalled.

The pivot to professional services—what Spencer called "Cliently Calls"—worked spectacularly at first. By early 2018, the company was doing $65-70K MRR. They were sourcing leads using the platform, then executing outreach (email, video, calls) on behalf of clients. But there was a fatal flaw: it was primarily professional services revenue with limited SaaS usage, low margins, and hard to scale. When Spencer's focus shifted away from product development, customers—who believed in the vision but found the application incomplete—began to churn.

What didn't work: pivoting to services to chase short-term revenue. The company reached $65-70K MRR but was completely off-track from its original vision. All $7-8K of original pure SaaS revenue churned because "the application wasn't falling through basically." Spencer raised additional capital—$700K from three different sources including South Carolina state grants and Active Capital (led by Pat Matthews)—bringing total invested to $800K including his own money.

Spencer relaunched the pure SaaS product in early June, focusing 100% on the application. In just 5-6 weeks, he rebuilt the business to 13 customers generating $40K ARR (~$3.3K MRR). Pricing ranges from $79/month (single user) to $349/month (teams up to 10 users). The product now emphasizes engagement workflows—automated emails, video messages, handwritten notes, physical gift cards and postcards, plus a built-in lead database. Spencer's goal: 500 customers and $1M ARR by year-end, just 5-6 months away. His playbook: figure out close rates with the target market, then solve the equation of how many pipeline opportunities the team needs, then scale outreach systematically.