Square becomes Block, Spotify Wrapped’s genius, $GRAB debut + Founders of Fathom, Deft & Krepling | E1338
First, Jason covers Square's corporate renaming to Block to reflect their broader ambitions (2:11), breaks down the genius of Spotify wrapped (13:15), and gives a nod to Grab's public debut (16:41). Then, Jason is joined by 3 founders who went through the Launch Accelerator, to extract the lessons from the early days of running a company. First is Paul Bloch of Fathom, an AI-enabled podcast search platform (23:03), then Zach Hudson of Deft, a E-commerce search engine (41:58) and finally Liam Gerada of Krepling, a no-code e-commerce platform (54:19).
Venture Capital SaaS: Two Teens Raised From Calacanis
Most venture capital SaaS stories start in Silicon Valley with decades of experience. Liam Gerada did it at 19 from a small island in the Mediterranean - with zero coding skills and a brother who was still a teenager.
In this episode, Liam reveals how he and his brother Travis built Krepling, a Shopify competitor, from scratch after their own e-commerce struggles. He shares the venture capital SaaS journey that took them from losing every user when they introduced pricing to landing 500 customers and a pre-seed round from Jason Calacanis' LAUNCH accelerator. Their SaaS fundraising success came from traction, not pitch decks.
Krepling's startup funding story proves that raising from VCs requires real customer traction. The brothers reached 500 paying customers and $1 billion in platform GMV before any investor took them seriously - overcoming the skepticism of being teen founders from Malta.
Key Lessons
🚀 Venture capital SaaS funding requires traction, not just a pitch: Krepling raised from LAUNCH accelerator only after reaching 500 customers and $1B platform GMV - proving that even teenage founders can secure funding with real traction.
📉 Switching from free to paid will expose product gaps: Krepling lost every user when they started charging, but the founders treated it as a signal to improve the product rather than reverting to free.
🎯 Agency partnerships accelerate customer acquisition without paid ads: E-commerce agencies frustrated with Shopify integrations started building client sites on Krepling, creating a word-of-mouth engine at zero cost.
🛠️ Non-technical founders can build MVPs with minimal coding skills: Travis learned just enough coding to build Krepling's first version, and they hired real developers only after validating demand with paying customers.
🤝 Community-driven growth starts with grassroots hustle: Posting on Quora, Reddit, and sending cold emails got Krepling's first 10 customers - enough to prove the concept before approaching venture capital SaaS investors.
Chapters
Introduction
Liam's motivations and working with his brother Travis
What Krepling does and how it competes with Shopify
How Krepling differentiates from Shopify and BigCommerce
Business size: 500 customers and $1B+ platform GMV
From Shopify store to agency idea to building a platform
Building the MVP without coding experience
Launching a free product and attracting early users
Every user churned when pricing was introduced
How Krepling centralized e-commerce integrations
The no-code approach to third-party integrations
Getting the first 10 paying customers
Agency partnerships as a growth channel
Raising venture capital SaaS funding from Jason Calacanis' LAUNCH
Hiring the first developer as non-technical founders
Lightning Round
Where to find Krepling and Liam
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/295
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