PandaDoc

Makita Mikado and his co-founder Sergei were running a business in Belarus when they encountered a frustrating problem: managing sales proposals and contracts was incredibly tedious. After investing hours into creating a document, they had no visibility into whether prospects had even opened it. This pain point became the genesis for what would become PandaDoc.

They decided to build Quote Roller in 2011, a tool to help streamline the quoting process. The product gained initial traction and attracted a few thousand users, but Makita quickly realized they'd made fundamental mistakes. "We didn't talk to prospective customers," he admits. "We thought we knew all the answers, and we spent time arguing with each other about where to place a certain button instead of talking to customers." Only a fraction of signups converted to paying customers—a clear sign the product-market fit wasn't there.

The turning point came when dealing with customer support forced them to engage directly with users. Makita and Sergei discovered that companies needed far more than just a quoting tool—they needed proposals, contracts, document signing, and the ability to track the entire deal lifecycle. This insight led them to pivot and build PandaDoc, a comprehensive platform covering the entire "quote to cash" process. As they scaled, they employed a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" strategy, trying numerous growth channels simultaneously.

Several strategies proved surprisingly effective. CRM integrations became a major growth driver—by embedding PandaDoc into systems like Salesforce, they made the tool indispensable to sales teams already working in those platforms. The product itself had built-in virality: when someone received a PandaDoc to sign, they experienced the platform's full functionality, and many became customers. Partnerships with CRM vendors helped accelerate growth significantly.

Makita also discovered that being authentic and having a sense of humor worked. He created a funny video for a Russian startup competition, expecting no value since all his customers were English-speaking. Surprisingly, the video went viral, caught the attention of a Silicon Valley investor from Belarus, who invested in the company after discovering the product was superior to the competitor he'd originally planned to fund. The award from that competition also helped Makita secure his O-1 visa to move to America.

SEO and link building formed another pillar of growth, though Makita emphasizes they were still early on their thought leadership journey. Early attempts at hiring also spawned unexpected viral moments—a funny recruiting rhyme he created got shared 20,000 times and brought inbound inquiries from Eastern European engineers.

PandaDoc grew to over 10,000 customers while maintaining its focus on SMB markets (companies with 5-500 employees) at affordable pricing ($19-50/month per user). The company remained bootstrapped and profitable for 2.5 years before raising funding. Today, PandaDoc is a $10+ million ARR business that competes in the crowded quote-to-cash space but focuses on SMB end-users rather than enterprise, where it can play to its strengths. Makita credits the team's success to relentless iteration, customer obsession, staying true to their values of helping small businesses, and the willingness to try unconventional approaches.