Neil Gandhi

Paage.io

AE's deserve more than just email opens
Put your sales material in one link and track engagement

Bootstrapped, team of 2

Founder

Pandapose

Acquired in August 2022. Make personalized images at scale for your email marketing campaigns.

OneSignal

Ran growth initiatives at OneSignal as the company scaled from 22 employees -> 100

Growth

Gametakes

Acquired in December 2018

An app to record and share a podcast right from your iPhone. Used by analysts at ESPN, Bleacher Report, and the NFL.

Hi there 👋

Currently bootstrapping Paage.io. The story of how we got here is pretty interesting...

After college I spent a couple years building Gametakes - an app to record a podcast from your iPhone. Gametakes wasn't quite the success I wanted it to be, but it taught me a lot about how to get customers at scale and build retentive products. For example, I figured out how to get thousands of users for free from Reddit without paying for ads or getting banned by mods.

It was my 8th attempt at launching a consumer product. We ended up selling it but I was burnt out.

So I joined OneSignal, which exposed me to B2B, and I haven't turned back since.

Over the past two years I built a couple SaaS apps. I didn't want to raise venture, so I bootstrapped them to profitability. One of those apps, pandapose (pandapose.com) recently got acquired. 

The other one was an AI SDR that would find prospects for you, write emails to them, and send them out. This was a very bad startup idea. If you're building in this space, happy to share why.

But, there is a silver lining.
From building that product, I built a tool like Paage internally. Customers kept telling me they wanted the Paage like tool, but not the product I was selling 😂

SO, I pivoted, and Paage was born.

Paage is bootstrapped and I'm currently the only full time employee but I recently started hiring a couple contractors.

I'll be posting learnings from my journey in building Paage, so follow me to stay up to date!

If you've read this far, let me know! Would love to connect, learn more about what you're selling, and help in any way I can.

Thanks! 🚀

Send buyers a personalized, interactive link instead of a boring email. paage.io
Bootstrapped, just me right now

Neil G.

Freemium kills most startups

It sounds amazing on paper: "Let people try it free and pay when they unlock value. Less friction! More adoption!"

You then pattern match against successful PLG companies and go "well they all have a free tier. THAT's why they're successful"

But freemium only works for a few types of businesses.

It makes sense when:
- Your product is inherently viral  
- Your TAM is massive  
- Users can unlock value in under a minute
- Others joining the product makes it more valuable for you

Examples:
- Calendly: Every time you share your calendly, you’re spreading the product.  
- Grammarly: Massive TAM. Everyone is a potential customer.
- Loom: You see the magic of record a video -> get a link in seconds
- Linear: Every new teammate increases the product’s value

In those cases, freemium is worth the cost to maintain since it will bring in more customers for you.

If, however:
- Your market is limited to specific departments,  
- Your product isn’t viral by nature, or
- It takes multiple steps to get real value…

Then freemium will cost you way more than it brings in.

Even if people sharing your product helps spread it, that’s great. But freemium only makes sense when the person they share it with could also become a customer.

Freemium often feels like the shortcut to growth, but for most, it’s just a slower way to die.

Neurony

ialoc & YAROOMS were incubated by Neurony and are currently led by Neurony's employees (better said, ex-employees). After demonstrating their success, both became spin-offs. 

Currently in charge of our Startup Studio. Incubating multiple initiatives, like SkillSwift, the learning retention tool for insurance agents, and Aprobare-Facturi.ro, the invoice approval platform for RO construction companies.

Head of Sales

YAROOMS

Left things in order @ YAROOMS and had some fun with a personal project (youraitool.com)

Consultant

Overall experience (since joining YAROOMS): 
- The company went from 8 employees to 38 and reached 2M ARR. 
- Closed north of 1M in revenue (personally). 
- Worked with and managed 2 SDRs directly, went through 2 VP of Sales. 
- our avg. ACV grew by ~20x. 

My best professional journey so far (from a growth and personal development perspective).

VP Development 

- Raised our first investment round: 2M EUR. 
- The company started hiring and onboarding new colleagues from all over the world (sales hires: 1x Director of Sales, 1x AE, 2x SDRs).

Senior Account Executive

- Joined in the early days of the new product (desk booking & workplace experience). 
- Went from not knowing what a real discovery call meant to closing 324k in ARR in less than 12 months (which was 80% of our net new revenue). 
- Built the first onboarding process for new customers (still used today).
- Covered all timezones (APAC in the morning, Europe during the day and US in the evening).

Account Executive

ialoc

- Worked on the company's first strategic initiative (LaPranz). The Romanian version of MealPal. 
- Built the MVP from scratch in 2 months, got our first paying users and started the pilot. 
- Unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the industry completely froze in a matter of months.

Chief Innovation Officer

Overall experience since joining ialoc: 
- We grew our customer base by 267%. 
- expanded to 2 new cities. 
- worked on the strategy for our international expansion to Poland (postponed).

Business Development Manager

- when I joined, the company had 2.5 other sales reps (2 FTE & CEO) closing 3-4 contracts / month. Personally closed 12 in the first month. 
- the main product was a reservations management system for restaurants (similar to OpenTable). 
- expanded to new cities (Sibiu & Brasov). 
- funniest negotiation: got locked in a basement with the owners of a restaurant, they wanted an 83% discount. Didn't give in.

Business Development Specialist

CONSILO WEB

- summer job to save money for moving to Bucharest (University). 
- upselling B2C voice subscriptions for Vodafone's customers. 
- 3 weeks after joining, I became the #1 sales rep out of 55. 
- how: shadowing the best performing rep (my team leader) during the day. Studying the procedures and creating my call scripts during the evenings/nights.
- I realized how much I love sales and that I'll spend my next years getting better at it.

Sales Consultant

Weidner Restaurant

- summer job. 
- after the first 2 months (June & July) I got in charge of most processes of the kitchen. Our Chef was helping me with the soups though. 
- working 5 days out of 7, ~14h-15h / day.

Chef Aid

Different projects 

- first job. 
- worked 10h a day (between 7am-5pm). 
- daily KPIs were set during our morning "internal alignment" session. 
- made €1 per hour / €10 a day.

Construction Worker

For the past 5 years, I've been growing through different roles inside Neurony's holding and was fortunate enough to be involved in projects like ialoc and YAROOMS. Both B2B SaaS companies. 

For the next 5 years, I'm focused on building a strong sales foundation and becoming the best possible sales leader. 

My life goal is to build a tech hectocorn before I'm 45. I'm 24 currently.

taplio

The Battle

Neil G.

Laurentiu Clenci

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The Battle

Neil G.

Laurentiu Clenci

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Neil G.'s LinkedIn Performance

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