UTM.io

Dan McGraw didn't set out to build a SaaS company. UTM.io started as an internal tool at F and Amazing, his consulting and digital marketing agency. The problem was obvious: UTMs (Urchin Tracking Modules) are "by far the most commonly used tracking" mechanism on the internet, working with every analytics and mobile tracking tool. But when you're scaling a marketing team across departments, geographies, and team members, maintaining consistent UTM parameters becomes a nightmare. Dan built a simple tool to solve this internally, and it sat on the market organically for two years before he even thought about monetization.

The tool was so useful internally that Dan decided to test the market. Four years before the interview, he charged $5 a month and let it grow organically for about a year. The real inflection point came 18 months prior when Dan acquired the UTM.io domain (in a deal structured with equity rather than cash) and rebranded the entire company as a standalone product. The team is lean: two full-time developers, one full-time product manager, Dan, and his co-founder (who owns the UTM.io domain and is now a partner in the company). The partnership model is innovative—they use a "slicing pie" equity model that tracks the hours and costs each founder contributes, adjusting equity dynamically based on effort and investment.

Growth came through multiple channels. The organic adoption from the original tool provided a foundation. About six months after the rebrand, Dan ran an AppSumo campaign that generated about $45,000 in revenue—though he later realized many of those customers weren't a good fit and churned. The real traction came from targeting VPs of Marketing and data analysts at companies with 20+ marketers. Dan has customers like Shopify using the tool with 85+ people on their account. However, Dan also inherited a large base of $7/month users from the AppSumo deal (about 80 customers, representing 60-75% of his customer base but only a small fraction of revenue).

The math on his current customer base tells the real story. With 100 total paid customers and $3,400 MRR, only about 20 enterprise customers are driving the majority of revenue (roughly $2,800 of the $3,400), paying upwards of $1,500/year. The remaining 80 customers at $7/month contribute only $560. Dan depreciated the $7 plan eight months prior but hasn't fully cleaned up the base. The bigger problem is churn. After implementing a pricing change three months earlier, his current monthly revenue churn is about 10%—extremely high for a SaaS product. Dan attributes this to poor onboarding and customers not setting up UTM tracking correctly. He's moving upmarket intentionally, planning to potentially increase entry-level pricing to $300/month and add mandatory setup calls with sales reps (similar to Superhuman's model).

UTM.io has grown from $500 MRR a year ago to $3,400 MRR, representing 15-20% month-over-month growth. The company is bootstrapped entirely, funded initially from F and Amazing's profits (the agency did $1.2 million in 2018 revenue). Dan is about to hire his first dedicated growth marketing manager for UTM.io, starting October 7th. He has no interest in VC funding and is instead focused on debt financing and organic growth, planning to eventually spin UTM.io off as a completely separate entity. The challenge ahead is fixing churn and deliberately shifting from a high-volume, low-ARPU customer base to fewer enterprise customers with higher lifetime value.