Mad Mimi

Dean Levitt grew up on a 30-acre farm in South Africa before co-founding Mad Mimi in 2007 with his brother Gary. Dean joined initially to write copy but quickly became the marketing and growth driver, handling early customer support and growth initiatives. The brothers weren't chasing venture capital or explosive growth—they were building something they believed in, something that felt right.

Mad Mimi's first paying customer came through pure organic inbound. A prospect reached out via email asking for a phone call, and Dean jumped on from a Starbucks. It turned out the customer was a spammer, so they had to let him go—but the real victory was that customers were finding them without any hard selling. "They just sort of found us and they loved the simplicity," Dean recalls. The challenge wasn't getting the first few customers; it was crossing the chasm from single-digit daily signups to double digits.

Mad Mimi's freemium model became a powerhouse. Users could maintain up to 2,500 contacts for free with unlimited sending—perfect for a yoga studio with 200 contacts who would happily use the platform forever at no cost. As their contact lists grew, they naturally upgraded to paid plans at around $36 ARPU. Every free email sent carried a "Powered by Mad Mimi" footer, generating referral traffic. The brothers later calculated that these free accounts, thanks to the referrals they generated, were actually profitable on their own.

The company spent $0 on customer acquisition. They didn't obsess over growth metrics or chase astronomical numbers. They had low churn (below 5%) and grew at a comfortable pace with a small, bootstrapped team. By 2014, Mad Mimi had 250,000 total users, with 14,000-18,000 paying customers, generating approximately half a million dollars per month (roughly $6 million annually).

In 2014, GoDaddy reached out via email to Gary after interviewing their own customers and identifying a synergy. What followed was months of light, non-contentious discussions. "It was almost anticlimactic," Dean says. On acquisition day, the team came to work as usual. There was no celebration—just calm confirmation that this was the right partnership at the right time. The deal was valued at a multiple higher than the typical 4-5X acquisition multiple, though Dean couldn't disclose the exact figure due to GoDaddy's IPO. Today, Mad Mimi continues as part of GoDaddy's email marketing offerings, and the Levitts remain deeply involved in building the product.