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.

taplio