Convano.de

Yannick Dickle and his two co-founders experienced firsthand the power of positive workplace culture while working at Trump, a large German manufacturing company. When COVID lockdowns hit, they saw how quickly company cohesion could deteriorate and realized they needed a tool to keep teams connected and appreciated. Rather than watch the problem fester, they built a prototype internally—a platform designed to celebrate team successes and ensure employees felt valued during unprecedented remote work challenges.

The three founders approached Trump with a simple proposal: spin out the technology as an independent company. Trump agreed, investing a six-figure sum in exchange for a minority stake (roughly 20%). With that capital, the team committed heavily to R&D—spending roughly $25,000 per month ($230,000 over nine months) with external contractors to build a scalable product. One co-founder, a full-stack developer with years of experience, led the development effort while the team remained lean at just three full-time founders plus contracted help. They focused on integrations with tools like Microsoft Teams and coupled product development directly with customer feedback.

Their first customer was Trump itself. From there, none of the founders had meaningful sales experience, so they started with what they knew: cold outreach. By late December of their first year, they'd closed their first external deal. Rather than rely solely on direct sales, they quickly identified a partner sales opportunity—engaging change agencies and consultants who could sell Convano alongside their existing projects. Partners received up to 20% of revenue for the first two years, creating recurring revenue streams for consultants while providing Convano with low CAC, variable-cost customer acquisition.

By the time of this interview, they had 14 customers in their pipeline (5 paying, 9 in trial). The pricing model proved effective: $2 per seat per month for organizations with 100+ employees, resulting in roughly $1,000-$12,000 annual contracts depending on company size. Early results showed the partnership channel working—one of their five paying customers came through partner sales—with multiple partner agreements already signed. The trial-to-paid conversion process relied on measuring whether employees felt more appreciated using a simple pre- and post-trial survey. Their current MRR sits at $2,500 (less than the $5,000 initially stated due to multiple customers still in free trials), translating to $30,000 ARR.

With $30,000 ARR after roughly a year in business, the team is preparing for a Series A fundraising round targeting $500,000 at a $2.5M post-money valuation. They're confident they can triple revenue to $90,000 ARR by December, citing a full sales pipeline and ramping partner channels. The biggest burn to date has been R&D ($230,000 over nine months), though they've already spent most of their initial six-figure funding from Trump. Looking ahead, they plan to internalize their external development team and continue building enterprise partnerships—positioning Convano as the go-to employee engagement platform for organizations scaling beyond 100 employees.