NailedTED

Jose Andres, a former CTO, saw a gap in how companies approached employee engagement and culture. As someone who deeply cared about team dynamics, he realized this wasn't just his problem—it was widespread. The insight came from conversations with other CTOs who felt the same friction. In June 2019, he started building a prototype in Google Drive over the course of just two days. It was scrappy, but it was real enough to get feedback.

The prototype was intentionally rough—a quick test to validate the core idea. Jose and his two co-founders (Javi, a CTO-level developer, and Jesus, a design-minded product person) were all technical and had startup experience. By October 2019, they formally launched the company and began their first customer conversations. The product was built to charge €4 per month per employee—intentionally low pricing for the Spanish market, with plans to increase as they expanded internationally.

Jose didn't run ads or do fancy marketing. Instead, he leveraged his network—reaching out to contacts and contacts of contacts, asking for feedback on the prototype. His CTO background gave him credibility with other CTOs, who became his first customers. These early conversations showed genuine interest, and those CTOs started piloting the product with their teams. This direct, personal approach became the foundation for customer acquisition: three to five new companies per month, all sourced through prospecting and reaching out to potential fits.

By the time of this interview (approximately one year after launch), NailedTED had reached 50 customers managing 4,000 employee seats. Their monthly revenue was around $12,000, working out to approximately $144,000 in ARR. However, the early months taught Jose important lessons about product-market fit. Seven of their 50 customers had churned—five of them were poor fits from the beginning (companies that didn't align with the product's strengths). The other two left because they wanted "something bigger, more that do a lot of things." This feedback was crucial: it showed Jose which customer profiles to pursue and which to avoid.

After bootstrapping to $2,000 MRR, they raised $200,000 on a convertible note in December 2019. Jose described the investors as "betting on the idea" with minimal pressure—they were resource-focused rather than demanding immediate returns. The conscious decision to burn $12,000 per month (while generating $12,000 in MRR) reflected their strategy to accelerate growth through hiring (a new developer) and recently bringing on Laura for marketing.

NailedTED is at a critical inflection point. With six team members and less than a year of operation, they're transitioning from pure organic, founder-driven acquisition to a more systematic growth approach. Their gross churn sits around 14% annually, which Jose is actively analyzing to separate the signal (product misalignment) from the noise (other factors). He's considering a second fundraise in Q4 2020 or Q1 2021, but only after identifying the specific levers that will accelerate growth. Rather than rushing into more capital, Jose is taking time to understand which acquisition channels and customer segments are working—a measured, founder-led approach that reflects his technical roots and startup experience.