I Make $5M/Year Giving My SaaS Away for Free

About this episode

👋 Apply to join Profitable Founder Community: https://tally.so/r/dWZ5Jz Marie and Filip (her co-founder and life partner) launched Tally, a free form builder, from their living room during COVID lockdowns. Five years later, they hit $5M ARR with just 10 people and zero funding. In this episode, Mari shares how giving their product away for free became their biggest growth engine, why she said no to their most requested feature for 5 years, and the unexpected channel that 5x'd their revenue almost overnight. Try Tally for Free: https://tally.cello.so/QZlNWuM7kjG Find Marie on X: https://x.com/MarieMartens 👉 Try Distribb for Free: https://distribb.io?utm_source=yt-marie Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 1:04 - From corporate job to startup life 6:44 - The failed startup before Tally 9:43 - How Tally was born during COVID 11:08 - Why simplicity is their biggest edge 13:11 - The freemium flywheel that drives growth 15:28 - How they decide what to build 17:46 - Getting real feedback from users 22:41 - Building in public: does it actually help? 25:37 - Key lessons from 5 years of building 28:39 - The channel that changed everything 32:35 - Making freemium actually work 38:28 - What they would do differently 42:27 - Building a team after years as a duo 47:31 - The future of Tally and the SaaS apocalypse 50:24 - How to protect your SaaS from AI