Markerly

Markerly's origin story is unconventional. Back in 2012, Justin Klein and his co-founder started in Washington DC with a completely different product—a web highlighter tool designed to help people collect quotes from the internet, essentially a Pinterest for quotes. The pivot came when they got accepted into 500 Startups, the prominent California-based incubator. While there, they realized they had technology already embedded on many blogger sites and saw an obvious opportunity: pivot to influencer marketing and monetize what they'd already built.

The company launched with a hybrid business model from the start. On one side, they built a white-labeled SaaS platform that brands and agencies could license to manage influencer networks internally. On the other, they offered full-service agency work—handling strategy, influencer identification, outreach, content creation, and reporting. The technology was battle-tested internally; they used the same platform to run their own campaigns, ensuring they were eating their own dog food. This dogfooding approach meant the product continuously improved based on real agency workflows.

Justin revealed that Markerly grew to serve 30 customers, with the SaaS platform priced at a minimum of $1,000 per month and averaging "a couple thousand dollars" monthly. The agency side had much higher commitment requirements—campaigns came with a minimum $25,000 budget. This chunky, project-based revenue was harder to predict than SaaS subscriptions, but it represented about 60% of total revenue. The company carefully positioned itself in verticals where influencer marketing worked best, particularly CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands that could send product samples and generate conversation quickly.

The dual-model approach was intentional, not accidental. Justin argued that brands often didn't know upfront whether they needed a full-service agency or a self-service platform—and their flexibility allowed them to serve customers on both paths. Rather than viewing this as "playing the middle," Justin framed it as solving customer problems however they emerged. When brands managing 50,000+ influencers via MailChimp and Google Spreadsheets came to Markerly, the platform solved a real pain point. However, this dual focus also created tension. Nathan Latka pushed back hard on resource allocation—one engineer building custom solutions for an agency client was one engineer not improving the core SaaS platform. Justin's response: engineering was always focused on the platform, while the agency side didn't require custom development.

Churn was a known challenge. Influencer marketing didn't work equally well for all industries or all clients. Some brands would run campaigns, see results, and scale independently; others would find it less effective and leave. CPG was their sweet spot, but verticals like CRM tools proved harder to crack.

By the time of this interview, Markerly had raised $700k in seed funding (starting as convertible notes from 500 Startups, later converting to equity when they brought on a lead investor). With a team of 12 based in Austin, Texas, they were generating approximately $60k/month in total revenue (derived from ~30 customers, averaging $2k-3k/month on SaaS, plus episodic agency campaigns). Justin was exploring new growth vectors: becoming a preferred vendor to Facebook/Instagram as they entered the influencer marketing space, and developing deeper creative partnerships with specific influencers. He acknowledged the tension Nathan raised—with external investors on the cap table, he couldn't simply pivot to a pure-agency model and take all the cashflow personally. But he remained committed to building the space the right way, believing influencer marketing was genuinely powerful for brands when executed well.