We Created A Social Media Collaboration SaaS & Grew To 5,000 Customers
Hello! I am Xenia and I am the proud co-founder and CEO of Planable, the most visual content collaboration platform out there. We bring social media teams together, to create, coordinate, and plan content in one single space. We automate tedious work so that content creators can work smarter. And better. And faster. (And cooler)
Our mission is to empower creative collaboration for the 21st century. Since we started in 2016, we’ve gone from an amazing idea to an even more amazing product. We are powering creative collaboration at brands such as Hyundai, Siemens, UN’s World Food Program, Viber, and many more.
We grew from 0 to over 5,000 teams choosing Planable to streamline their creative processes.
What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?
I grew up in a family where I saw, as a child, that I can achieve my goals, no matter what they are. But, I never had a dream or a strong desire to become an entrepreneur - I consider myself an accidental entrepreneur.
My first business before Planable was a social media marketing agency, started by chance. One of the partners and sponsors of the student association I was part of was looking for someone to manage their Social Media pages, and I offered to help, as a young student of PR & Communication. That's how the first business started.
While managing the digital marketing & social media agency I was faced with a common problem that we are now solving at Planable. We started Planable 5 years ago, together with my two co-founders, Vlad Caluș and Nick Gudumac, who also worked in the advertising industry back then.
So, because agencies collaborate with a lot of people, with their clients, they are, by default, in a collaborative environment. They need to showcase their work to clients and get approvals, which can be a difficult and time-consuming process sometimes. Back then we were building social media calendars in Excel, or sometimes in PowerPoint, and we were sharing it by email internally, inside the agency, and then externally to the clients to get approvals. And it just felt like such a broken process.
So that’s how the idea of Planable was born. We wanted to just make our collaborative work simpler and a bit more efficient.
Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?
We moved to Romania and started working on developing the Planable platform at Spherik, which is a pre-accelerator for startups. That's where it all started for us, there we learned a lot about how to build a startup, what are the difficulties behind startup life.
Fast forward, we managed to develop the platform, we went through Techstars, we took a seed investment and now we work with super big brands, like Hyundai, United Nations, Christian Louboutin, Viber, and many others.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
At the moment we’re doing great, as remote collaboration tools are becoming more in demand. Almost every year we have managed to double our income and we have the same ambition for 2021. In 2020 we had an increase of 180% compared to 2019, and now we already have an increase of 150% compared to January. We have had some very productive months, so we expect to reach this 2x target this year as well.
We now have over 1,200 companies using Planable. We closed in 2020 with over 800 clients, and at the beginning of 2020 I think we had around 400 companies using our platform, so our growth has been exponential. Most of our clients are small and medium-sized companies from North America, but also from Western Europe. We mostly have clients from digital marketing companies or social media or communication agencies. But, at the same time, we have clients who have internal marketing departments and who use Planable to work more efficiently.
In the future, to continue our expansion, we are considering the possibility of opening a new round of investment, depending on how the business evolves. We are not in a hurry at all in this regard, but it is something we are thinking about so that we can make more and more investments and have more market share.
In the past year, we have invested a lot in developing the platform. We have also expanded our development team and this has helped us a lot to be able to deliver more value to our users. We have greatly expanded our integrations features. If before 2020 we had four social networks integrated with Planable, from 2020 and until now we have added three more - Google MyBusiness, YouTube and very recently, we have also integrated with Tik Tok. Now, marketers can work on content and schedule content not only for Facebook, Twitter and other popular platforms but also for newer platforms.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Collaboration is an art, and we’re obsessed with helping teams master it. The key to keeping our clients happy and our team even happier is constantly working on bringing everyone’s ideas to the forefront in an organized, non-chaotic way.
A tech startup cannot be successful without the people behind it. We try to treat customers the way we’d want to be treated, with lightning-fast response time and jargon-free explanations. And we treat each other with the same respect we treat our customers. We listen to each other’s feedback and always strive to make each other’s lives easier. I believe that enabling a strong team is the only way to support a strong business.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We are all about productivity and using any new tools that help us improve processes and work more effectively. We use everything from popular tools such as Slack, Superhuman, Notion to emerging products such as Linear, Sunsama, and Mutiny. Whenever we can, we like to support smaller startups just like us.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I’m really into podcasts at the moment. I enjoy Hidden Brain, Serial, Startups for The Rest of Us, and Freakonomics. But my all-time favorite is Stuff You Should Know – it’s so fun to listen to and I always learn something new that I can use to make myself look smarter at parties.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
We were very young when they started the company — all in our fresh 20’s (Vlad was 19!). We raised this company only because we knew how to raise the bar on ourselves. Since then, “always learning” has become the cornerstone of our company and for us as entrepreneurs. If you’re just starting and you feel you have a great business idea, my advice is to listen to the clients you’re trying to target and make sure you adapt your business to provide real-life value. There’s always room to learn more and adapt and this has to be a constant process, no matter the stage of your business.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are always looking for new talent to join us at Planable. We have several open positions for our engineering department, but we are a growing team with big plans, so we are constantly looking for new people to join us in our mission to change the way marketing teams collaborate. We’re currently looking to hire a Product Manager, Senior Software Engineer, SEO Coordinator, Operations Assistant, and several others. But if you want to work at Planable and can't find the right job opening now, you're always welcome to send us an open application. Tell us who you are and what you'd like to do, and perhaps there's an opportunity for you, now or in the future.
Where can we go to learn more?
We are very active on all social media, so you can find us on Facebook, Instagram,Linkedin and Twitter.
We also have our blog, where we constantly publish new articles, insights, and tips and tricks for marketing and social media professionals looking to improve their game.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
