Plausible
What they Do Best
Plausible is a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics, offering simplicity in analytics tracking.
Main Industry
Software
Platform
Independent/Standalone
Type of Product
Desktop/Web App
Target
B2B + B2C
Price Range
$1 - $49
Business Model
Subscription
Free Plan
Free Plan
Pricing Details
Revenue Estimates
$1,200,000
Monthly Website Traffic
487,738
Revenue Per Traffic
$0.21
Idea to Money
Code typed: Dec 2018. Public beta launched: Jan 2019. First paid subscribers: May 2019. $1K MRR achieved in one year.
Founders
Employees
0
Year Started
2018
Dedication
Full-Time
Market Insights / Trends
website analytics
Industry Incumbent
Google Analytics
How They Came Up With The Idea
The founders had prior experience with Google Analytics & believed that with the evolution of GDPR and other privacy regulations, there was a significant gap in the market for a new and distinct way to conduct web analytics.
Their aim was to create a platform that could cater to modern-day privacy concerns and provide efficient web analytics solutions to businesses.
How They Built The First Version
- The co-founders built and designed their product in early 2019, emphasizing transparency and community involvement throughout the development process.
- They shared their thought process openly through the blog and engaged with various communities, including Indie Hackers.
- The MVP was open-sourced, and the development process was made public, encouraging feedback and feature requests from the community.
- The product’s growth was organic without a significant launch event, primarily due to community engagement.
- In terms of pricing, the founders opted for simplicity and affordability, charging users based solely on the amount of traffic to ensure even small sites could access a privacy-friendly analytics product.
- The pricing approach challenged the prevailing notion, popularized by companies like Google, that web analytics should be free at the expense of user privacy and data.
- Through their efforts, the Plausible founders aim to change this perspective.
Growth Channels
- Plausible co-founders unconventionally approached their marketing strategy in a distinctly different way from typical startup practices.
- The founders focused primarily on content marketing and community engagement. They invested time writing and publishing regular blog posts and actively engaging with social media platforms and niche community websites.
- A pivotal moment came when one of the founders published a blog post on titled "Why you should stop using Google Analytics on your website." This marked the beginning of a consistent content creation strategy, with the team managing to publish approximately one blog post per week. Their content was characterized by a non-salesy tone, thorough research, and relevance to their product's audience, focusing on addressing their questions and issues.
- One of the notable achievements of their marketing strategy was the immediate traction gained from their first blog post, which resonated well within communities like Hacker News and attracted considerable attention.
- By then, this post had been read by about 65,000 people. They also took a transparent approach by making their website statistics publicly available, allowing anyone to view their traffic data and delve deeper into their analytics through a live demo on their website.
Main Growth Channel
Content Marketing
Tech Stack
- Elixir/Phoenix
- PostgreSQL
- Clickhouse
- TailwindCSS
- Netlify CMS
Tools
- Fastmail: email
- Paddle: payments
- Element: internal chat tool
- GitHub: feature requests, development, and product roadmap