Planyard

Eke Ustalo and his co-founding team came from IT and cybersecurity backgrounds, not construction. But they had friends and acquaintances deeply embedded in the construction industry, and they couldn't ignore the pain they heard about repeatedly: general contractors—especially the biggest ones managing multi-million dollar projects over years—had almost no visibility into project profitability. Companies were using spreadsheets and Excel to track massive undertakings, making costly mistakes in the process. Worse, some went bankrupt simply because they couldn't see if their projects were actually profitable. The problem was so acute that even existing software solutions were too complicated and often abandoned in favor of manual work.

The team started experimenting in 2017 with the most basic approach possible: Google Sheets and Google Presentations mockups to validate the concept with potential customers. They launched the full product around 2018. Remarkably, before they even had a finished product, they already had a willing customer from their network who committed to paying—a powerful signal of market demand. This pre-launch customer became their first revenue-generator in 2017-2018.

The team bootstrapped from day one, using early customer revenue to fund operations. The founders maintained side jobs initially to keep the business lean. By the end of their first full year in business (2018), they had generated roughly $10-20K in revenue. Growth was slow at first because they spent significant time prototyping and testing to truly understand the pain point. But the signal was clear: the problem was real, and general contractors needed this solution.

Pricing proved complex in an industry where company profiles vary dramatically. Some contractors had large teams, others had few employees but managed massive projects. The team experimented with project-based pricing—allowing customers to bring new projects onto the platform while leaving older ones off, which meant lower initial commitments but also lower early revenue. By 2021, after several years of operation, total annual revenue reached approximately $200K. Currently (at time of interview), the team is generating $10-20K monthly ($120-240K annual run rate) with around 45 customers paying an average of $20-30K per year. The sweet spot turned out to be mid-market contractors rather than the absolute largest ones, where implementation was faster and the revenue-to-effort ratio was more favorable.

Planyard operates as a lean three-person team of co-founders with roughly equal equity splits, now running full-time after years of side-hustle operation. They've built an international customer base across multiple continents. To accelerate from their current bootstrapped pace, they're considering raising capital—targeting around $1M for 10-15% equity—to hire more staff and execute on validated solutions they've already prototyped. The founders are deliberate about maintaining control and minimizing dilution, but recognize that three people can only move so fast in a market with clear demand.