YouMake

Evie Meyer spent five years at Autodesk working on the AutoCAD mobile project, leading design and product management as the team brought CAD technology to the cloud and mobile platforms for the first time. But alongside his corporate success, Evie saw a fundamental problem: 3D design was inaccessible to most people. Learning desktop 3D software required months of training, and there was no intuitive way to sketch in 3D on mobile devices the way you could sketch on paper.

In April 2014, Evie and his co-founder Eric (the CTO, based in Tel Aviv) left their comfortable six-figure salaries at Autodesk to pursue YouMake full-time. "I was making around 95,000 to 100,000 a year," Evie shared. The partners pooled their savings—approximately 80,000 USD each, roughly 240K total—and began building. They bootstrapped for nearly two years, working across two continents: engineering in Tel Aviv, business and marketing in San Francisco. The team remained lean at just three people.

YouMake's core innovation was simple but powerful: the first 3D sketching app designed for the iPad that let anyone design in 3D intuitively, "like sketching on paper in a 3D environment." No prior 3D knowledge required. No months of training.

Before launching on the App Store, the team ran an extensive beta program. "We worked really hard on a beta program ahead of the official launch," Evie explained. They recruited beta users organically—primarily professional designers and architects who understood the pain points of existing desktop software. Critically, they didn't charge beta users; instead, they valued their time and feedback. Many of these beta users became power users and ambassadors, referring others.

When YouMake launched on the App Store in late 2015, it arrived with a bold pricing strategy: $15/month or $149.99/year for the Pro plan, with a free Starter tier. This was risky. The App Store was accustomed to cheap upfront purchases ($5 or less) or free-to-play models. But Evie had learned that "if you really want to create a sustainable business on the app store, you have to create value every day."

One month after launch, YouMake was chosen as Apple's best iPad Pro app for 2015—a massive endorsement that drove significant downloads. The company also secured prominent App Store homepage placement. However, not all downloads converted. Many curious users downloaded the app without needing 3D design capabilities.

But the professionals stuck around. "The professionals that know the pain on the desktop software really appreciate what we do and are paying for us to continue developing," Evie said. Within the first month, YouMake had closer to 1,000 paying customers on the Pro plan (approaching that milestone from around 800). With the App Store taking its standard 30% cut, YouMake was netting approximately $10–11 per customer per month, generating roughly $8,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Churn was remarkably low among beta users, many of whom had become deeply invested in the product.

All customer acquisition was organic—no paid marketing yet. This lean growth validated the core value proposition.

On the same day they launched on the App Store, Evie and his partners closed a $5.2 million seed round. The funding came from a stellar cast of believers: Brian McClendon (founder of Google Earth, former head of Google Maps, now at Uber); Joshua Schachter; and Norm Bardin (CEO of Waze). "It was very challenging to raise money, especially if you are a foreigner here in the Silicon Valley," Evie acknowledged. "The key was finding the right people, people that really believe in what you do."

With the capital, YouMake planned to accelerate product development, introduce new pricing tiers for non-professional users, and invest in paid marketing. The bootstrapping phase was over, but the core lesson remained: build something so valuable that people will pay monthly without you having to spend on acquisition.