← Back to browse

Worky

by Ewhor BaumanLaunched 2021-08via Nathan Latka Podcast
MRR$950/mo
Growthcontent marketing
Pricingsubscription
The Spark

Ewhor Bauman identified a pain point in the freelance market: appointment-based professionals (therapists, coaches, teachers, health experts) were forced to cobble together 4-5 different tools to run their business. Clients needed a website builder, booking system, payment processor, CRM, invoicing tool, and tax management—costing freelancers $200-400/month total. Worky solved this by building an all-in-one platform with zero transaction fees, undercutting marketplace models that charge per booking.

Building the First Version

Launched in August 2021, Worky combined a simple website builder with built-in scheduling, payments, invoicing, and back-office client management. The founding team of eight (including three engineers) focused on integrations from day one—Zoom, PayPal, PandaDoc, and accounting systems. Ewhor spent most of his time on product and sales, keeping the vision tight on a specific user segment rather than chasing all freelancers.

Finding the First Customers

Worky experimented with multiple channels—paid ads on social media, G2, Captera—but found content marketing to be their strongest lever. They created blog content, partnered with local US influencers and opinion leaders, and invested in SEO. They also allocated roughly $1,000/month to Google Ads. By the interview date, they had converted 50 paying customers from 3,500 trial signups, a 1.4% conversion rate hampered by a short 2-day trial period.

What Worked (and What Didn't)

Content marketing and influencer partnerships drove most acquisition. However, conversion from trial to paid was weak due to the brief trial window and lack of a freemium tier. Ewhor acknowledged competitors offered better conversion funnels with premium models or longer trials. Churn was present but manageable—users had a 12-month average lifetime value (~$240 at $19/month). The $950/month actual revenue fell far short of the $67,000 theoretical calculation, revealing that most of the 3,500 signups were inactive trials.

Where They Are Now

After joining Start Up Eyes Guys (Europe's largest accelerator), Worky raised $600k in pre-seed at a $4-5M valuation on a convertible note/SAFE structure. They're burning $30-40k/month and investing heavily in team (adding marketing and engineering staff) and marketing channel expansion. The roadmap includes deeper Zoom integration, PayPal, PandaDoc, and accounting system connections. At 26 years old, Ewhor is focused on scaling from 50 to thousands of paying customers.

Similar Companies

247.ai

$25.0M/mo

247.ai, founded by PV Cannon in 2000, is an AI-powered customer service automation platform serving over 150 enterprise customers with $300M+ in ARR. The company raised only $20M from Sequoia (2003) and bootstrap, achieving 10% net profit margins while maintaining a 12-month CAC payback period and 100% net revenue retention. Despite a security breach setback around 2018, 247.ai has recovered and recently achieved 20% new revenue booking growth in their best quarter.

Active Campaign

$4.2M/mo

Active Campaign started in 2003 as an on-premise email marketing solution built by Jason Vanderboom to fund his fine arts degree. After 10 years and 8 employees generating a couple million in revenue, he transitioned to a SaaS model starting at $9/month. The company now has over 60,000 customers generating over $50 million annually and employs 330 people, growing primarily through organic adoption, partnerships, and focus on the SMB market despite pressure to move upmarket.

Ahrefs

$3.3M/mo

Ahrefs is a bootstrapped SaaS company providing SEO and backlink analysis tools, currently generating over $40M ARR with 45 employees. After joining in 2015, Tim Solo transformed the blog from 15,000 to 250,000+ monthly Google visitors by shifting from publishing what they wanted to write about to targeting keywords people actually search for, creating high-quality content with direct product integration, and continuously updating articles to accumulate backlinks. The company breaks conventional marketing wisdom by not using customer personas, growth hacks, or detailed analytics—instead focusing entirely on product quality and audience education through blog content.

NutriSense

$3.3M/mo

NutriSense is a direct-to-consumer metabolic health platform that pairs continuous glucose monitoring devices with proprietary software analytics and dietitian coaching. Launched in September 2019 with pre-sales in keto and Oura Ring Facebook groups, the company grew from under $1M MRR a year ago to $3.3M MRR today (3x growth), with 15,000-16,000 active paying customers and 170 employees. The business has raised $32M in funding across multiple rounds since a $250K seed in early 2020.

Solides

$2.6M/mo

Solides is the leading HR tech platform for small and medium companies in Brazil, providing talent management software for hiring, development, and retention. Founded in 2010 but pivoted to a subscription model in 2015, the company achieved $31.2M ARR as of March 2023 (100% growth YoY) with 20,000 paying customers managing close to 2 million employees. Alessandro Garcia raised a $100M Series B at an $800M valuation in 2022 and is targeting a $60M run rate by end of 2023, with plans to IPO once reaching $200M in revenue.

Related Guides