Station

Julien Berthomier co-founded Station after working both sides of the startup ecosystem—first building an e-commerce platform in Thailand with his co-founder (whom he later married), then working at a VC firm focused on emerging markets. He found building companies more exciting than investing in them, so he and his co-founders set out to build a browser specifically designed for work as an alternative to Google Chrome.

The original Station was ambitiously scoped: a full browser alternative for SaaS work. The team grew from 100 beta testers to 40,000+ users in less than two years, earned "Product of the Year" at Product Hunt, went through Y Combinator, and raised a $3.25M seed round with Accel. But beneath the impressive metrics lay a critical problem: poor retention. The team had built something users liked but didn't love enough to stick with.

Instead of powering through, Julien and his co-founders did something harder—they honestly evaluated 2.5 years of analytics, hundreds of user interviews, and every failed feature. They discovered two truths: (1) 70%+ of usage happened in chat applications (Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram), not work apps; and (2) a failed feature called "Workspaces" (collaborative bookmark manager for teams) showed promise but needed to be automated to be truly valuable. This analysis revealed two viable paths: pursue B2C as a chat aggregator, or pivot B2B to build automated knowledge organization for teams. They chose the harder, more exciting path: B2B.

In early 2020, before COVID, the team met in Seville to ship the first MVP of the new direction in less than one month. By summer, they had 100 beta testers and 10,000+ users on the waitlist. Crucially, they limited early access to manage signal-to-noise and prioritize iteration over vanity metrics. They implemented lifecycle surveys using Superhuman's HXC methodology and Profitwell's monetization insights to guide their roadmap. By mid-September, they announced their private beta officially.

One critical lesson from this period: a major marketing mistake occurred during the pivot announcement, where they tried to convince existing users the new product was "for them"—it wasn't, and they received backlash. They learned to be honest about pivots disappointing some users rather than gaslight their audience.

As of the interview (March 2021), Station is in closed beta with 3,000+ users, 100+ teams testing the product, and 50,000+ users who have requested access. The product remains free and is primarily used by individuals. They're rolling out team features over the next six months and plan to monetize shortly after, with a goal of onboarding their first 100 teams in 2021. Growth has been entirely organic—through product-led land-and-expand strategy, B2C channels (app directories, blog posts, social media), and word-of-mouth. They've spent zero dollars on advertising.