NetZay
Thiago Verne was working as a programmer at a SaaS company in educational marketing when he noticed a critical problem. While working at digital marketing agencies on the side, he saw clients repeatedly fail because their websites couldn't handle traffic spikes. "We saw that it's very difficult today to create a Scalable Web Solution for a cheap price," Thiago explained. The pattern was clear: clients would launch campaigns, drive traffic, and their websites would crash. He realized there was a fundamental gap in the market—no affordable solution existed that could scale a website to handle millions of concurrent users while maintaining security and performance.
Thiago started building NetZay as a side project while still employed, working on the MVP during evenings and afternoons. He bootstrapped the entire operation with zero external funding, leveraging his deep technical background in software development. NetZay became a SaaS CMS that publishes websites directly on a CDN (Content Delivery Network), distributing content across hundreds of nodes globally. This architecture provides superior security, faster load times, and automatic scalability—solving the exact problem he'd observed at the agencies.
Thiago's path to his first 30 customers was organic and relationship-driven. He sold directly to his existing network from previous jobs and the agencies where he'd been working part-time. "When I started this, I was in the company... selling for their customers in another time. It was a part-time job that I was starting the company," he explained. These early customers became more than just revenue—they were co-creators. Thiago built the MVP with direct input from these clients, iterating based on their real-world needs. This tight feedback loop helped shape a product that genuinely solved their scaling problems.
As of the interview, NetZay was serving 30-50 customers generating $5,000 MRR (approximately $60,000 ARR), with each customer paying roughly $100-150 per month. The team had grown to 5 people, all based in Brazil. Thiago reported zero churn so far, with customers renewing annual contracts and increasingly adding more services. While revenue was modest, the unit economics and retention suggested a sustainable business. At 28 years old and single, Thiago expressed some regret about sacrificing personal time but remained committed to scaling the company, particularly by establishing more partnerships and expanding beyond their home city to grow the customer base.
- •Thiago identified a specific, recurring pain point he personally witnessed across multiple organizations, which validated genuine market demand rather than assumed need.
- •By leveraging his existing professional network as initial customers, he acquired users who already understood the problem and could provide direct product feedback, eliminating the typical customer education burden.
- •The bootstrapped, side-project approach forced product focus on solving the core scaling problem efficiently, resulting in zero churn and strong unit economics that indicate product-market fit.
- •Building the MVP with direct input from early customers created a tight feedback loop that shaped a product genuinely solving real-world needs, turning customers into invested stakeholders rather than passive users.
- 1.Identify a specific operational problem you've personally encountered in at least two different organizations or contexts, then validate that others in similar roles face the same friction.
- 2.List everyone from your previous jobs and side projects who experienced the exact problem you're solving, then reach out directly explaining how your solution addresses their specific pain point.
- 3.Build your MVP as a side project while maintaining employment to minimize financial pressure and maintain access to potential early customers through your current workplace connections.
- 4.Offer your first 20-30 customers direct input into the product roadmap by scheduling regular feedback sessions and implementing their most critical feature requests before scaling to broader marketing channels.
- 5.Once you achieve zero churn with your initial cohort and can demonstrate strong unit economics ($100-150 MRR per customer), formalize partnerships with agencies or companies that regularly encounter the same problem you solved.
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