Organize.app
Andrew Fan, now 34, launched his consulting agency back in 2012 at age 24, building it into a multi-million dollar business (doing "a few millions" last year) with 55 engineers. But after spending years focused solely on consulting work, he realized that building something from scratch and being fully responsible for all decisions was "much more fun than doing consulting." This realization sparked his pivot toward launching SaaS products as side projects within his holding company Upsilon.
Organize.app launched in March 2024 as one of several Slack applications Andrew's team built. The product solves a specific pain point: smaller, growing companies using Slack heavily need to visualize their organizational structure and manage basic HR features like org charts, birthdays, and PTO tracking—but they're too small for enterprise HR tools. Andrew decided to leverage Slack's marketplace as a distribution channel, reasoning that it's "a perfect place to start your bootstrap small business" because "once you release something for Slack you can get into their marketplace. Basically this is a free marketing tool for you."
Andrew's strategy was elegant: optimize for Slack marketplace search by making keywords bold in the description (org chart, birthday, work anniversary, manage PTO) and building features that would rank well. When users search for "org" related terms, Organize.app appears in the top 5-10 results. His first customers found them this way—organically through Slack search. Today, "all of your trialing customers and paid customers today have come from the Slack App Exchange."
Organize.app currently has 5 paying customers representing roughly 200 seats, generating approximately $400 MRR (charged at $1 per user annually or $1.25 monthly). Andrew credits the pricing model's growth potential to his customers' natural expansion: "If you are growing, you need to visualize your organization... revenue is growing." Only 1.5 full-time people work on Organize.app out of the 55-person holding company; the rest split time across other projects and the core consulting business. Andrew has two future models in mind: either transition to a venture studio model (taking equity in ventures he helps launch) or grow one of the SaaS products large enough to shift more of his team's focus away from consulting work.
- •By building within an established 55-person holding company with existing revenue, Andrew could afford to experiment with low-risk SaaS products and iterate without pressure to immediately monetize, allowing Organize.app to find product-market fit organically.
- •The startup solved a precise market gap—companies too small for enterprise HR tools but large enough to need org charts and HR features in their already-adopted Slack workspace—giving it a clear, underserved audience.
- •Leveraging Slack's marketplace as a distribution channel eliminated the need for paid customer acquisition by making the product discoverable to intent-driven users already searching for specific keywords, resulting in 100% organic customer acquisition.
- •Strategic keyword optimization in the app listing (org chart, birthday, PTO tracking) aligned product features directly with how potential customers search, ensuring high visibility in marketplace results rather than relying on brand recognition.
- 1.Identify a SaaS idea that solves a specific problem for a narrowly defined customer segment too small for existing enterprise solutions, then validate the idea as a side project within a cash-flowing business to reduce financial pressure.
- 2.Choose a platform marketplace (Slack, Teams, Zapier, etc.) where your target customers already congregate and search for solutions, then build features that directly match high-intent search keywords users would type.
- 3.Optimize your marketplace listing by prominently featuring the specific keywords your target customers search for (use bold text, clear feature descriptions, and relevant titles) to achieve top-5-10 ranking without paid promotion.
- 4.Set a simple, usage-based pricing model (per-seat subscription) that scales naturally with customer growth, so revenue increases automatically as your customers expand rather than requiring separate upsells or pricing negotiations.
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