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A
Hi, Tekken. So you started out as a developer for Internet.com. what ultimately led to you saying, you know what? I want to go and do something on my own. Like what, what finally like clicked or made sense for you?
B
At that time, like, I kind of hated it because it wasn't very challenging, like just, you know, typing HTML to create forms or just handle them back end to send emails, things like that. So I wanted to find a product that can actually do that and I searched for it. There are, there are some products, but they weren't well. So at that time, like, it clicked on my mind that if I ever like start my business, this is the product I could build. With that knowledge, I quit my job. I forged ahead and I built Jotform.
A
What's up, Founder Nation? Super excited to bring you this episode with Mr. Itech and Tonk. This guy has built a 600 man empire competing with Google forms and all kinds of different crazy stuff. The best part about this episode is the focus that this guy has had for the last 19 years. Not getting distracted by all the shiny objects. You know what I'm talking about. If you're an entrepreneur, there's all kinds of opportunities out there. We want to say yes. One of the best phrases I've ever heard is you can do anything, but you can't do everything. We hit oil by digging one hole a thousand feet deep. Not a thousand holes, one foot deep. So let's dive into this episode as we talk about focus and compounded growth. Let's go. Yo, yo, yo. Welcome to another episode of the founder podcast. Today I am joined by Mr. Itek and Tank Itekin is tuning in from Turkey halfway across the world. Super excited to have you. Itechens got in a phenomenal story. This is a story that you're not going to want to miss. We're talking about somebody that has dedicated his life to his craft. That slow growth, consistent, compounding growth that really a lot of us entrepreneurs miss out on because we get distracted by the shiny objects. We got all these other different type of things. And Itechen is proven that if you can just find something that works and continue to dig the hole over and over and over again, eventually you're going to hit oil. He has grown his business since 2005 to now, 19 years later, to over 600 employees. He's got an incredible, incredible software, Jotform, that is utilized throughout the world, doing millions of dollars in revenue. He has wrote a New York Times bestseller, automated your busy work. He is just well published, well, just a well established entrepreneur is super excited to have you on the show, Mr. Itech. And welcome to show.
B
Hello Chris. Great to be on your show. Thank you for that great introduction.
A
Yeah, man, it's, it's exciting. And, and I would also share that, you know, not only an incredible businessman that is dedicated himself to the crap, but a family man that I just found out, married, three children. For me, I'm a, as a family man, you know, I, I, it's, it's always, it's always important to me to when I have that similar bond with another business owner because some people, they just dedicate their whole life to business and they don't have this other aspect. So that's really cool. I tek and so you started out as a developer for Internet.com for five years. In fact, I didn't even know Internet.com was a thing that makes sense. Early 2000s. So you did that for five years. What ultimately led to you saying, you know what, I want to go and do something on my own. Like what, what finally like clicked or made sense for you?
B
Yeah. So I worked for Internet.com between 2000 and 2005 and I was a developer and I was. So we had like over 100 websites and these websites were all about things like web development, about all kinds of technology stuff. And while I was working there as a developer, one of my tasks was to create these online forms for our editors. So I would create these contact forms, surveys, questionnaires, contest forms, payment forms, all kinds of forms. And like at that time, like I kind of hated it because, you know, it wasn't very challenging, like just you know, typing HTML to create forms or just, you know, handle them back end to send emails, things like that. So I really didn't enjoy creating forms at that time. So I wanted to find a product that can actually do that. And I searched for it. There were, there were some product, but they didn't, they were well done. So at that time, like it clicked on my mind that if I ever like start my business, this is the product I could build. So, you know, at some point like I decided, okay, I can actually make this, like, I can really do a good job. I can make a great product. And you know, and I understood the reason people would use that because I've been like building like hundreds of forms for our editors. So I knew like what they needed. So I actually knew the knowledge. So I think that's very important if you're an entrepreneur, like having that firsthand knowledge about like, what people need, what people are asking for is really useful. So with that knowledge, I quit my job, I forged it and I built Jotform. And the first year, like, I made it all free, like, because I wanted to get as many people to use it as possible. Like, it was all free. Even today, it's free until you receive like 100 form submissions per month. It's all free. And, like, we have like 25 million users now because we have this free version. And that's the biggest marketing tool you can have. Given something away for free is like the biggest marketing tool you can have. And we still have that today.
A
I love that. So hooking, hooking the user in with something free, some sort of offer up front, let's back up. I mean, you go, you're like, hey, I know this product. I know this is a good solution. I'm going to go do it on my own. Was that scary at all? Walk us through the feeling. I don't know, 19 years ago. It's hard to remember all the emotions that we're going through, but walk us through the emotions of making that initial leap, because I know a lot of the listeners on here are probably in similar situations. Like, I want to be an entrepreneur. I'm currently an intrapreneur in my current business. I have a skill set, but I'm a little. Like, there's no security in going and doing this my own. So, like, walk us through how that, how that went down for you. Yeah.
B
So I was working in this basement in a. In like all these. Within these cubicles, so@Internet.com and I remember going up two stairs to my manager. Like, I remember walking up those stairs and I was feeling like my legs were shaking actually. Like, I was like, what am I doing? Like, why am I doing this? Like, this was my dream job. And when I graduated college, like, studying in the US Computer science was my dream. Like, working on the Internet sector, like, being a developer was my dream. I reached all those dreams. And now why am I, like, just quitting this? And just, like, you know, like, I was asking myself, what kind of money.
A
Were you making that time in this dream job? I mean, obviously, 2000, 2005, completely different than 2024. But what, what kind of money were you making in the US.
B
I think I was making like 75k, something like that.
A
I mean, which. Yeah, I mean, I made money.
B
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's great money. Yeah. But at the same time, I was kind of afraid. But I also had this kind of experience Doing my own products on the site, that actually gave me the confidence because while I was working there full time, even before I worked there full time, when I was a student, I would create these open source product, I would give them away and I learned so much about like building products and then I started kind of selling them on the side as well. So I actually learned about things like SEO, marketing, you know, customer support, things like that. So like, because I did that for a long time, I also kind of had that confidence that I could do this. I could do this because, you know, I'm already, I was actually earning, you know, as much as I earned at my full time job when I quit my job. So I kind of had like this infinite Runway. Yeah. So yeah, it's so that actually I. That gave me confidence to be able to quit.
A
Yeah.
B
And the other thing is, it's not just about the money, it's about learning. Like, I never recommend like first time founders to just quit their jobs and just start building a product that's very stressful like this. Like you don't want that stress while you are building your product. So what you want to do is like do it on the side, do it as a, like a side job where you can actually earn, where you can actually learn all the skills you. Because there's like so many skills you need to learn to become a successful entrepreneur. And the earlier you can start, the better. So don't just wait for like, you know, I will quit my job one day and I will start my business. Start it now. You don't need to wait for it. Like you can just, even if you work like one hour a day, that's the amount of learnings you will have will accumulate. And when you quit your job, you will have all the experience you need to actually do a good job. And you will also have the confidence. And if you can actually start building your product beforehand, that that also helps so that you can focus on like growing your business as opposed to like starting from scratch.
A
Couldn't. Couldn't agree more. I think there's too much unnecessary risk. Right. Like a lot of people associate being an entrepreneur with risk, which there's very much so risk involved with being an entrepreneur, but like hedged risk and proper risk is, you know, absolutely necessary. And so this actually ties into like one of our previous episodes when we talked about like the side hustles of that you can be building on the side. Each one of us have 168 hours in a week. Most of us dedicate 40 of that to our jobs, to our economics and, and going and growing. And so, and then you have, you know, 40 hours dedicated to sleep, another 20 hours dedicated to family. Like there is time. There is always time. If you prioritize what you have going on to be able to go and do exactly like itech and said, go and just build your own product on the side, right? There's, it's known, there's no need to go and just immediately put all your eggs in one basket and take all the risk when you can get paid to be educated. I am a big proponent, just as you, I took in that like, go and get a paid education, learn from other people, see what you're good at, identify the ways that you can go and impact the marketplace and do it on somebody else's risk and somebody else's dime. And so, and then the other thing I would point out here is that like sometimes entrepreneurship isn't that sexy. Like your product doesn't have to be that sexy. Like forms. There's nothing like super like, oh man, this, this is the best thing in the world or so amazing or awesome or whatnot. And like, I'm sure you saw that. You're just like, this is just something that people need and I'm good at it and I can go and provide a solution that's better. Right? And so it, it just goes to prove that like successful entrepreneurship isn't necessarily in the product. It's the dedication, the practice, the team building, those type of things. And so you go and you, you launch this thing and you initially start giving it away for free. And I'm assuming you're probably still running some of these side hustles that are bringing other money or how did that go down exactly?
B
So while I was, you know, building Jotform, I actually continued the same way I did before I quit my job. So instead of going to my full time job, I would actually start working on Jotform. So I was living in Brooklyn at that time. I would just, just like I would go to office, I would just go out and start working in a cafe in Brooklyn Heights and I would walk to Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan and I would just, you know, spend all my day working from different cafes and start building job form that way. And so it's, it was all fun. But at the same time, I would still work on my customers, I will still take care of my existing customers. But I dedicated my time to the new product because I really believed in this product would be successful because I saw the need and the other thing is the other products I built, the oldest side, geeks, they didn't have this growth curve. They were stuck in slow growth. So that's also everything you learn when you do things on the site. Like what kind of business model doesn't work? Like, for example, selling software is like a single copy, single version, doesn't really scale, doesn't work because you have to find a customer for every sales, right? But when you build a subscription software, when you build a service that people pay every month or every month, every year, that scales because if your product is good, if you don't have churn, if you have high retention rate, that it's going to snowball, it's going to start very slowly. And for example, the first year it was all free, right? 2006, I released chat form, it was all free, but I was getting like, I was alone at that time, like just subscription, like free users gradually. But in 2007 I added some, I worked on some paid, paid, like plan version product features. So when I released that instantly I got like 500 subscribers, which. And at that time it was just $9 a month. So it was only like 4,500 per month. But it wasn't big. Yeah, but because the product was good, because people were insuring that continue to increase over the years. And so even today we have customers who has been with us for more than 10 years, for a long time. And it's very important because in a subscription product, in a product that people pay as they go along, you have that motivation to keep them happy because it adds up. And that's a great business model. But when you have to like find a customer for every sale, it just doesn't add up. And instead of making existing customers happy, you're focused on the new sales all the time. And that's just, you know, I prefer working on the quality of my product as opposed to just, you know, making flashy, you know, trying to find new customers.
A
For sure. I love that. So initially you have that free product. When you made the conversion and started offering the $9 a month, how many free subscriptions did you have active at that time?
B
At that time we had like 15,000 free users. And then once I released that paid version, I was able to convert like 500 to, to them, to the paid version. I remember the, as soon as I like I announced the new paid version, right? Half an hour later, someone from Spain, it was very early in the morning, so someone from Spain was the first customer. Then someone from the uk, I believe and then from the east coast and then, you know, all these subscribers trickle in and it was a great feeling. Even though, like they were just paying $9. It was an amazing feeling.
A
Yeah, well, so let's, let's dig into a little bit more granular. So I mean, you've bootstrapped this thing for the last 19 years and you've slowly added, you know, different products or different features to your product, slowly added employees, slowly added these things. Right? Like, how have you been able to say so focused? Because I'm imagining there's been distractions or been other opportunities that have been presented over the last 19 years. How have you been able to just make sure you hone in and continue down this path of like, this is our strategy, this is how we go to market. This is what I'm dedicated to.
B
Yeah, I remember like one of our developers once came to me, this was very long time ago and he said, okay, yeah, we built the, like, we rewrote chat form like the third time. So are we going to work on something new enough? And I said, like, you know, look at these users, look at these customers, all these requests coming from these customers and how they use our product that we can never finish with this product. We have to continue working on improving it. What happened was over time we discovered that we are not just a form builder. In the beginning it was just, can we build a product that can let people, they can just go and build their own forms on their own easily, just make the easiest form builder? And just that was our focus. But over the years, like we started seeing that people were actually starting to like, we started seeing like people weren't just using it to create form. Like people don't just create forms so that they can collect data. It's actually, it's about some workflow, it's about some tasks, it's about some work that needs to be done. So someone is making a request for something, someone is registering for something, someone is making a payment to purchase something. Like there are just like so many use cases for forms and people aren't just filling the forms just to send the data because there is just like so many things happening after that. There's a workflow. So we started seeing our job as to helping people automate all the things they do once they get the data with the form. So we start building all these additional features and products. So for example, recently we released Jatform Sign. So it's a full blown E signature product, very similar to DocuSign because we saw that People who actually had forms, they also needed E signatures. So we also released this product called Jotform apps where you can actually create this mobile app from your forms and let's say within your company you have all these forms. And we actually found the idea because we had the need, like I was asking people, okay, where is this form? Like, where is this HR form? Where is this, like, you know, request form? Like, I was asking people about, like all these forms because we were using our product as much as possible, but. But I was always losing the URLs for the forms. So we asked, like, why don't we create a tool where you can actually add all these forms. You can build that, you can even add more stuff, you can add links, you can add all these things, you can build a app, just a no code product and then you can even let people install this app on their mobile forms or if they want to use it from browser, they can use it online. So we came up with the idea for Jotform apps and that became very successful among our users as well. So there was a need for document generation because once you fill a form, all that data can be used to create this PDF file, to create a document so you can store it as a durable document, you can send it to other people. So we created this PDF designer where you can actually create your documents. So we added all these tools because the goal was not just to help them create forms, but to help people with all their workflows. And because I've been involved with so much with this automation stuff, I actually wrote a book about it. Last year I released the book automate your busy work and it became a Wall Street Journal bestseller. And in that book I actually talk about what I learned as an entrepreneur, automating all the things, like all the busy work. Because that was a big struggle for me. What I learned, automating the stuff, what as a company, what kind of things we automated that actually resulted in so much more productivity and how we helped people automate their busy work with our product. So all those things that, like, because I have been involved with automation so much that it just makes sense to write the book about it. And I think it turned out to be a great book. And it was released last year and it found a great audience.
A
Awesome. So this is what I'm hearing is like, you know, traditionally entrepreneurs are very add and easily distracted with what we call the shiny object syndrome, right? Like, new opportunities arise and we say yes to that instead of learning how to say no. And so what you're explaining to me and what I've also been able to find success in as an entrepreneur is identifying new opportunities that still fit within the scope of our focus, right? Still fit within the hole that we are digging to hit oil and being able to find joy and passion in creating new things that fit within that focus. Because I think where a lot of entrepreneurs fail is they want these new opportunities and new ways to grow and create and develop and use this. Because as entrepreneurs, we're just going crazy with ideas. We're always, like, trying to think of, like, all the new ways to improve and everything like that. And the issue for where it becomes an issue is when that's outside of your focus. When, when all of a sudden, like, I'm focused on developing software and I have this idea about real estate, or I have this idea about a physical product that I could go and sell, or somebody else comes to me and says, hey, do you want to invest in this and help consult me on this? Or whatever, whatever it is. And so, and, and in our minds, we believe that we are capable of anything. Like, we can go and be successful in anything we've done, because up until this point, we've had success in everything. And so the temptation is to say yes to those type of opportunities that are outside of our, our focus. And then we get distracted and we start digging new holes. And we never eventually hit oil, right? We never hit that Compounded. And so what I'm hearing from you is that, you know, that this is your hole and you're just finding new ways to drill, right? New ways to be able to access oil from the same hole, whether that's new features in forms, a DocuSign type of, you know, product, or whatever it is. And so, like, that's, that's what I'm gathering from this, from the principle, like the. A principle of success, of consistent effort over and over again requires new creation within the same focus. Would you agree?
B
Exactly. And when you have customers, when you have so many customers, so many users, millions of users, that, like, even if I created a new product, just, like, the amount of value you provide is multiplied by the number of people who will actually get that value, right? So if you already have, like, you know, 25 million users here, like, why don't you just go and, like, provide more value to them as opposed to, like, come up with a new idea and try to, like, just get new users, new customers to the new idea, which is very difficult. So I kind of found a way to kind of satisfy that entrepreneurship like that need by actually building all new additional features product to the existing users. And that's a great way to actually kind of provide value to your existing users. And we also recently released our enterprise version and for the first, I believe like 12 years of JotForm, probably more than 12 years, there was no salesperson. It was all SaaS service. So people would come to Jotform and they would use the free version, upgrade to the paid version. It's great. And I'm kind of an introvert, so it's just like, you know, I never liked sales. Like I'm not a salesperson. So it's, you know, and I also didn't know any sales people. So it's just, you know, this was good and comfortable. But I remember once there was this like big company customer who, you know, who asked me like, hey, come to our office, you know, we want to buy, like we want to pay you a lot and just, you know, buy jobs form like for the company and was like, you know, and I was at that time, like I had some other stuff. Like I didn't, you know, I didn't feel like, you know, taking, going, taking a plane and going there like, and then I lost that customer that was a potential big client and I didn't do it. And we actually didn't have a product for a whole company anyway. So it's just we were lacking something. And that's when I came up with the idea of Jotform Enterprise. Okay, why don't we create a product for bigger companies, for companies who want to use it as a team, like for users who want to use it as a team, like who want to collaborate, who want to share data among each other, share forms among teams, things like that. So, and like actually learning sales, like building a sales team, right? It, it was something completely like something I didn't know I was. So this was 20, I think this was like 2018. So we created the Jotform Enterprise product. So I had my first sales higher like and this was coming from a big SaaS company, like, you know, big title, like very knowledge. He came in and he couldn't sell a single Jotform to a company. So it didn't work out. Like he kind of came from a big company. So he like he didn't have that, like he didn't have that start startup knowledge or just starting from scratch. So that didn't work out. So I hired someone else and she also didn't work out. She couldn't Figure out a way to sell jails from. But we were also improving the product. So I promoted someone from within the company that also didn't work out. So like three times I failed to actually because I have no sales experience. I didn't even know what kind of salesperson would be the first sales, like what would be the best person. So finally from my network I was introduced to the fourth person and this person actually had experience like helping startups build sales teams. Like he actually did that before. He knew what to do and he knew how to sell it. So he came in and I was ready to give up. I was like, hey, you know, just, I don't want to fire anybody else. Just you know, why don't we just do it like a three month deal. Just let's have a quota for three months. If you can start out for enterprise then that's great, like we can continue. And you know, if you don't like it, you know it's also. So we just started as a contractor for three months and he came in and he did an amazing job. He passed the quota and then he actually, you know, he also worked really well with our team. So we built all the necessary like all the necessary like features compliances because you know there are now companies like Shell who use Jotform and those kind of like big companies, they need like compliances, like they need a SOC 2 compliance. They need you know, some company, you know, if they are healthcare company, they need HIPAA compliance. So there are all these like different kind of stuff that's needed if you are selling to enterprise. You cannot have that if you don't have like a team that can actually work on all those things. So he came in, he built the team. So now we have like 20 salespeople and just for enterprises now, 30% of our revenues, it started from zero to 30% of our revenues in just like you know, five years.
A
So I would, I would extract a few principles from that story right there. So first and foremost I think as entrepreneurs like we've got to be consistently identifying new ways that we can go to the market. Right? Like you had gotten comfortable in like this is our go to market strategy. We give away the product for free, we bring on users onesie2z, they upgrade from the free version to the paid version. We don't do enterprise. But then you started like exploring this idea. So one like you gotta constantly be exploring and thinking about ways that you can improve your go to market strategy. Whether that's an affiliate, whether that's an enterprise bringing in a sales team. The other, the other principle that I would extract is like don't be afraid to get uncomfortable doing something that you're not comfortable doing.
B
Right.
A
Like you obviously didn't have the sales background. You weren't comfortable doing it. You hired people, they didn't work out, right. Like you, and you're cut, you're in this uncomfortable situation where you believe it might work and you're just kind of making those tests. And like that's, that's also very important as an entrepreneur that you have to be doing these things that get you out of the normal day to day comfort and get, get you uncomfortable. A few other principles I would extract is like the law of keep going. Like when you think you're onto something, don't give up right before you hit gold. Right. You know, it would have been really easy to shut, shut it down after the first, the second, the third person didn't work out. And so which, which leads me to my last principle is like if you're going to, as an entrepreneur, if you want to go and explore something, hire the best people, whether that's a contractor or that's an outside consultant. They actually have experience doing the exact thing that you want to do, right. Not just somebody that worked for an organization that did what you want to do, but like that has the real world experience. Maybe like in this example, doing it as a startup, building, building a sales team from scratch, doing, you know, going and doing that grinding mode because there are people out there that are available that want to that and, and this is all just a lack of marketing. Marketing is what makes the world go around. What you want is out there and available and what they want is out there and available. And it's just a lack, it's just a lack of knowledge about each other and the opportunities that exist, which is essentially a form of marketing. And so like understand that there are solutions, be willing to take the risk, stick to it even when it, when it hurts or you feel like you, you know, you can't fail another time. But yeah, just so many, so many incredible principles to be extracted from that, that great story right there.
B
No. Yeah. I mean you have to make those mistakes to learn from them. There is sometimes there's no shortcut.
A
Yes, yes. I take it, man, it's, it's been a pleasure going through this. You've had, you've had incredible growth.
B
Incredible.
A
What has been the hardest thing about bootstrapping and slow growth over the last 19 years? To get to the position where you're at today.
B
I guess it's about. And before I started Jotform, I never managed anybody right. I was an individual contributor as a developer in my previous job. But luckily I hired my first employee the first year, second employee, second year. So literally for the first five years I only added like one person to the company every year. So learning management was really important for me. But I will say I think it's also about the time management, so how you use your time. So I remember a few years into Jotform and we were like three, four employees at this time and I was spending all my day, I was the only. There wasn't any customer support, so I was spending all my day doing customer support, answering emails, accounting, legal, hr, ordering supplies for the office. Like I was busy with the busy work, but what I really liked was working on my product and that's what actually made the difference in the long term. And I was really struggling. And right at this moment something else happened. Google actually came to the rink. Google Forms was released. So now I'm like, I'm not really moving forward my product. I'm struggling. I spend all my day with busy work and now I have to compete with Google. So it was a turning point for me. I think that's when I decided, okay, I have to change something. And the solution was automation and delegation. So for example, I went to upwork at that time it was called odesk. I went to upwork and I hired these like support employees, like contractors from all over the world and just handed over the support work to them and I started automating all the work, like all the HR work, I started automating them. The way we developed, developed our product, we streamlined and automated everything. So it's just. And like I was spending like maybe like five, six hours a day and I was able to automate many things I do and I was able to reduce that to like one hour a day. I think that was the biggest one. So automation and delegation really fades. Absolutely. And just I learned to focus on the most important thing. And every morning I make sure that I just launch this full screen text editor, Iowa Rider on Mac and just a blank screen, white blinking cursor and then I start typing. What's the most important thing I can work on today? If nothing comes to my mind, I will just write whatever comes to my mind. And at some point like, okay, this is the really important thing. And sometimes there are like urgent emails there and I don't check my emails, I don't check you know, the social media or anything, I just make sure that I, I focus on that most important thing for the, for the day and that's the most important thing.
A
And for those that didn't pay attention right there, we're going to recap this. Like, like, first of all, you cannot busy yourself with $25 an hour work, right? Like if it can be delegated and automated to somebody that, that can do that for $25 or less, you've got to get rid of it off your plate. Because this is where, this is the biggest launch pad for any type of entrepreneur when they shift from doing busy work to the thing that they're most passionate about, the thing that gives them purpose, joy, happiness, right? And so like, what is the question that he types on there? What is the most important thing that I can do today? Especially in a day of distractions, There are so many distractions, right? Like this cell phone right here was made to distract us. Push notifications, social media notification, email notification, all these notifications that lead from one thing to another. And it's so easy to get wrapped up in the scrolling to like literally waste two, three hours on doing mundane work or mundane, like just even being distracted. You may not even be doing work versus what is the most important thing that I could be doing today. And I, I Tekken. That is like the, the greatest advice that you could give. I appreciate you sharing that with the world, with our, with our listeners, with our viewers. That, that is, that is really like the biggest, the biggest gem from this podcast. Where is the best place that our people can support you, follow you on social media? What, where's the best platform for that?
B
I'm on Twitter. I'm also writing on, you know, Forbes, Fast company Entrepreneur. And I also have a website, my first name, last name.com itakeintank.com where I have, you know, you can get like the free first chapter of my book, you know, read it for free and like all my articles, all my blog posts are there as well. So yeah, awesome. That's where you can find me.
A
So you guys heard that. Head on over to itechentonk.com that's a Y T E K I n T a n k dot you can get first few chapters of or first chapter of his book for free. Go ahead and support him, buy his new book. He's got a new book that he's going to be releasing in the next 12 to 18 months, which we're super excited about. Super excited to see where this journey goes. I mean the fact that 600 employees only growing from here. I know the revenues are really high, and we're. We're gonna maybe disclose them on a future episode, which I'm super excited about. Thank you so much for your time today. I think, until next time.
Next Level Pros - Episode #130: How Jotform Founder & CEO Aytekin Tank Got Great at Solving One Problem
Podcast Information:
In Episode #130 of Next Level Pros, host Chris Lee sits down with Aytekin Tank, the innovative Founder and CEO of Jotform. This episode delves deep into Aytekin's entrepreneurial journey, focusing on his unwavering dedication to solving a single problem and the compounded growth that resulted from maintaining such focus over 19 years. Aytekin shares invaluable insights on bootstrapping a business, automating workflows, and scaling an enterprise without succumbing to the distractions of shiny opportunities.
Aytekin begins by recounting his early career as a developer at Internet.com from 2000 to 2005. His dissatisfaction with the mundane task of creating forms using HTML and backend emails sparked his entrepreneurial spirit.
(00:14) "At that time, like, I kind of hated it because it wasn't very challenging... So I wanted to find a product that can actually do that... So I quit my job. I forged ahead and I built Jotform."
Chris Lee emphasizes the significance of Aytekin's focus, highlighting his ability to resist the allure of diverse opportunities to concentrate on refining Jotform.
Aytekin details the inception of Jotform, driven by his firsthand experience and understanding of user needs. Recognizing the gaps in existing form solutions, he envisioned a product that was both user-friendly and scalable.
(06:23) "We have like 25 million users now because we have this free version. And that's the biggest marketing tool you can have. Given something away for free is like the biggest marketing tool you can have."
He strategically launched Jotform with a free tier, allowing widespread adoption and organic growth, which laid the foundation for its extensive user base.
Leaving a stable job was a significant emotional hurdle for Aytekin. He shares the internal conflict and fear of abandoning his dream job in web development to pursue his own venture.
(07:13) "I was feeling like my legs were shaking... this was my dream job... why am I just quitting this?"
However, his prior experience with side projects and the confidence gained from them provided the necessary assurance to take the plunge.
Aytekin emphasizes the importance of building a business around a single, well-defined problem. He avoided diversifying prematurely, which allowed Jotform to grow consistently without being sidetracked by unrelated ventures.
(16:26) "Why don't you just go and provide more value to them as opposed to, like, come up with a new idea and try to just get new users... Because successful entrepreneurship isn't necessarily in the product. It's the dedication, the practice, the team building, those type of things."
This singular focus enabled Jotform to develop additional features organically, such as Jotform Sign and Jotform Apps, enhancing the product's utility without deviating from its core mission.
As Jotform grew, Aytekin faced the challenge of managing increasing operational tasks. He credits automation and delegation as pivotal strategies that allowed him to focus on product development and strategic growth.
(35:07) "The solution was automation and delegation... I hired support employees, like contractors from all over the world and just handed over the support work to them and I started automating all the work."
By outsourcing non-core activities and automating repetitive tasks, Aytekin significantly reduced his daily workload, enabling him to concentrate on innovation and scaling the business.
Expanding into the enterprise market presented new challenges, particularly in building an effective sales team. Aytekin candidly discusses his initial struggles with hiring salespeople who lacked the startup mindset required for success.
(30:10) "I hire someone else and she also didn't work out... Finally, the fourth person actually had experience like helping startups build sales teams."
This perseverance paid off when he successfully built a sales team that transformed enterprise sales into 30% of Jotform's revenue, demonstrating the importance of hiring the right talent and adapting strategies to meet evolving market demands.
Throughout the conversation, Aytekin imparts several core principles that have guided his entrepreneurial journey:
Focus on Solving a Single Problem:
Leverage Free Offerings for Growth:
Embrace Automation and Delegation:
Persistence in the Face of Challenges:
Hire the Right Talent:
Customer-Centric Development:
Aytekin shares his personal approach to time management, which involves prioritizing the most critical tasks each day to drive the business forward.
(38:34) "Every morning I make sure that I just launch this full screen text editor... What's the most important thing I can work on today?"
This disciplined approach ensures that his efforts are consistently aligned with the company's strategic objectives, minimizing distractions and maximizing productivity.
The episode concludes with Aytekin reflecting on the challenges and triumphs of building Jotform from the ground up. His story serves as a testament to the power of focus, consistent effort, and strategic growth. Chris Lee encourages listeners to implement these principles in their own entrepreneurial endeavors to achieve similar success.
(34:40) "If you're going to, as an entrepreneur, if you want to go and explore something, hire the best people... Understand that there are solutions, be willing to take the risk, stick to it..."
For those inspired by Aytekin's journey and eager to learn more, he can be followed and supported through the following platforms:
This episode of Next Level Pros offers a comprehensive look into the disciplined approach required to build and scale a successful business. Aytekin Tank's insights provide valuable lessons for entrepreneurs aiming to maintain focus, leverage strategic growth tactics, and navigate the complexities of scaling a company.