Jake Aaron Villarreal: Welcome to our podcast, From the Ground Up, where we interview startup founders exploring their journeys, their success, challenges, and lessons learned. We hope you be inspired in discovering what it takes to build a thriving startup. I'm your host, Jake Aaron Villarreal, and here with us today we have Alex Nikityuk, founder and CEO of Maroo. Alex, welcome to the show.
Alex Nikityuk: Thanks Jake, glad to be here.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well if you're planning to get married or you are a vendor like a wedding planner, photographer or caterer for example, you want to listen to this episode. You're going to learn how Maroo is changing the experience of how you pay for your wedding. More importantly, the experience and the happiness you get in it. So a little bit more about Alex before we dive in. Alex launched Maroo in 2020. He was accepted into Y Combinator of the batch summer 2020, and raised $4 million in capital to date. Alex has scaled the company to $200 million and almost 10,000 businesses [have] used the platform. Before that, Alex was at Revolut where he led the FP&A team and helped to close $500 million in their Series D round. Prior to this, uh his startup tenure... prior to the startup tenure, Alex had a successful international career at Procter & Gamble and General Electric, where he worked globally in various corporate finance roles. A lot going on there Alex. Uh before we dive in, before we dive in here, uh where are you joining us from today?
Alex Nikityuk: I'm currently in London, UK. This is where I'm based, where I'm, I started the company during pandemic and kind of stuck, stuck with that um, decided to get a passport before deciding you know moving on to, to another geographies.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. Are you originally from there?
Alex Nikityuk: No, I am originally... I'm from Russia, but um since 2011 um me and my family we've been traveling due to my work. Um so originally starting from Moscow, then we moved to China, France, UK, multiple states in the US, back to France, and now again UK. Um and yeah, so that's, that's where kind of COVID you know hit me and um yep.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Gotcha, cool. This... well you know it's interesting, uh this show is really about uh founders and CEOs of startups, and when I look at your background it's similar to mine, which was I started in corporate, I worked at Oracle for a number of years. You worked at big companies, Procter & Gamble, GE, uh you're on the finance side, you've been in that space for a number of years. What was it that decided for you to make the pivot into the startup world and to build a startup?
Alex Nikityuk: Sorry Jake. Um I do apologize, for some reason the moment we, we hit record the the video quality went down and the connection went down. Um is it expected or not really?
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, it is. And it, it's being recorded locally, so don't worry about it. It's going to come out perfect.
Alex Nikityuk: Oh, okay, okay, 'cuz for me even the the question didn't come through, because [it] kind of stopped.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Oh, okay. Got [it], okay. What... uh let me ask the question again.
Alex Nikityuk: Okay.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: When I look at your background, you're a corporate guy, you've been at big companies, you've been at Procter & Gamble, GE. What was it that made you make the pivot to jump into the startup world and to be an entrepreneur?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah. Um, I think I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur or start a company. I just like, I always, I guess, was afraid to do that. But uh after moving from corporate to Revolut, which was kind of like in, in the, at the same time in the early stages but already on the, you know, growth curve, it really helped me to have this like nice transition from the corporate environment to [a] more like entrepreneurial startup environment before like fully committing to just starting something on my own. Um so I would say this was a really kind of gradual integration into the startup world, which I'm very thankful for to Revolut for that. And uh you know I think it's, it's a pretty cool kind of... it was a pretty cool journey that you know allowed me to make, you know, decisions you know gradually and like really weigh them before, you know... I know that sometimes people just like drop their corporate careers and like immediately jump into startups. I think that's, that's a hell of an adjustment for folks. So um in my case I think it was a great deal, uh even though it was like year and a half, but still I got a feel [for] what it means to kind of run your own company before actually doing so.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. So for the listeners, talk to us. What is Maroo and what inspired you to build it?
Alex Nikityuk: So uh, Maroo is [an] operating system for uh wedding and events professionals in the United States. Uh if you know companies like Toast, uh so that's an operating system for restaurants, or Mindbody, that's the system that a lot of uh fitness salons are using to run their businesses. It's, it's pretty much the same but for the vertical uh of an almost hundred billion dollar industry of wedding and events professionals. Um we help businesses to run their payments. So accept payments, make payments, um integrate with accounting systems, prepare tax forms, um we help to, you know, issue invoices um and things like that. That's kind of the, you know, very early stages of Maroo. Uh but we have a lot of great plans um for 2024 and for upcoming years, as there are some really cool features that are on the roadmap.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. Well, you know you're a finance guy and you got into weddings and the event space with really no experience in that space. What really led you to really find that space, and I guess what makes you different than other companies in that space?
Alex Nikityuk: That's a great question. Um I actually truly believe, I, I truly believe that you don't need to have a specific industry expertise if you want to build a product in that space, um as long as you're willing to learn. Because, because the the benefit I think I have is that I bring different perspective[s] and point of view to the pretty old-fashioned industry that had, you know, processes work in a certain way for, you know, a lot of years, and I don't carry a lot of like you know... if you want to say so, like reputational baggage with me. So if I make a mistake there is nothing kind of, there is pretty, very limited downside for me. Because like, "hey, he's, he's, he doesn't know how things work." At the same time like those, this allows me and the company to make experiments and try and test new things um which other people might find provocative.
Like for example last year we were sharing um you know wedding budgets. Like pretty much how much people actually spend money on their, on their weddings. The entire topic of money and uh payments and how much things cost is a kind of like taboo in, in, in this industry. So for us to be able to speak openly about how much things cost was a pretty big step and added a lot of transparency and kind of resonated with a lot of people, which, which I think is pretty cool. Um but yeah, I mean I, I, I just think like it's, it's the same as when you travel to another country. Like one, one person can say that "oh they have an accent and like I don't understand them." But at the same time it's you know, having an accent [is] just a sign of your bravery and you know the fact that then you were decisive in certain moments and decided to move on. And you bring a different set of perspectives um to the space where you came. So I think that's, that's where kind of Maroo shines. Is that we're different. Like we can't say "this is the company built by the industry for the industry." It's actually the company built by outsiders, but like, willing to help this industry to elevate and thrive. Um and I think it's pretty cool.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. You know, you could have chosen any industry. What led you to weddings? Just curious.
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, it was just coincidence that in 2020, when you know in the midst of the pandemic, a friend of ours she got married in New York. And she shared with my spouse how difficult was it for her to pay for her wedding. And uh how limited were her finance, financing options or like even payment options. And that's you know, that's how Maroo basically started, like as a Buy Now, Pay Later uh product for the, for the wedding expenses. And um gradually over time we kind of switched from this B2C to the pure B2B model, um but this is how we ended up in, in the wedding space. Um just yeah, coincidence of fact.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: I love that. You know, it's a very emotional time for the people getting married. It's also could be a challenging time for the vendors that are covering some of the costs, they're doing the labor, they're doing the work, they want to get paid, they need to get paid, they got to get paid timely, they have multiple events. What's the user experience like for the people getting married and their families? And what's the user experience like for the vendors? And how are you making it better?
Alex Nikityuk: Um I like to think, and you know, this is what I'm saying to a lot of people, is that wedding process, or wedding payment process on its own, it's like those footpaths in the park, you know, when people are going to work, they just kind of created those paths. What we are doing is just putting concrete on top of that. What that means is like, there are so many processes that's been in this industry for so many years. Like we don't want to change the behavior, we don't want to change like, completely disrupt things, because yeah, there there is, there is a logic why those processes were taking place before. What we want to do is put some organization into it. For example, like instead of you know, paying with checks or cash, or carrying those envelopes during the event um, and the total of those envelopes sometimes like people carry thousands of dollars in their like pockets you know. Sometimes people drink and typically the exchange of envelopes happens like at 1 or 2 a.m. Like we don't want to, to people to, to, to have this headache like, you know, being worried about security of those money. Like, or how to make payments and when to make those payments. We just want to transition everything for example to online and make this experience as simple as like you send it through Venmo, right? Um so that's, that's one way.
Or another example is um, you know you asked about the, the, the, the experience both for couples and, and vendors. Like you know when you have a photographer who invoices the bride, and this invoice should be cleared and approved by her planner, so then the payment actually being done by the Father of the Bride. Like none of the existing solutions cover this type of cases, and that's what, where Maroo shines. Like we help to you know organize this workflow properly, um and ensure compliance around, especially payments, payment compliance on, across all those steps. Um both when the payment is actually taking place or when the chargebacks happen and, and things like that.
So in, in short, so what Maroo does is for all the businesses, so on the vendor side for all the wedding and events professionals, right now, help them to create invoices for their clients which are beautiful, they look beautiful, they you know remind people that they actually making payment for, for their wedding or for their event. Um so we kind of bring two sides of the you know equation of like very um kind of financial service-like design plus the a lot of emotional components that kind of resonates with the the events or the weddings that are taking place. Um so when the invoices are sent, we help businesses to accept payments you know very quickly comparing to other players in the industry. And most importantly, we help them to save money on the processing fees. Um if you take other companies in the space uh, typically they charge vendors, you know, between I don't know like three to three and a half percent on the card payments, and between one and a half and two and a half percent on the ACH transfers. So what we do is we help businesses to um pass those processing fees to the client in the very, very convenient you know respectful and nice way, which basically saves them up to three, three and a half percent annually. Just to give you the context, last year we saved 3.2 million across all the vendors on Maroo on processing fees. These are the funds that stayed with those small, medium business um, or business owners, which for some people helped to kind of go on vacation with their family, because you know a lot of those businesses are you know one, two people type of you know size of you know organizations. For others um they, they allowed to pay for their entire Manhattan office annual fee right. So which again it's a pretty big range. And um Maroo is making an impact in, in, in real impact in people's [lives].
And on the client side, so people who are getting married, their experience right now is uh Google spreadsheet or Excel spreadsheet where they list all the payments that they need to make, when they need to make them, and making sure that they're not, they're on track and they're not late because there are some, sometimes there are late, late payment fees applied. So what Maroo does is helps you to transition this like Excel spreadsheet into online, where the place, like your account on Maroo, where you can in a very easy and convenient way consolidate all your wedding payments in one place. We send you reminders, we notify in advance just to make sure you're on track. Uh you can pay through Maroo to any vendors you know, whichever way they invoiced you. Um because then we're going to send them either a check or we're going to you know send them an ACH depending on what their preference. So it's a, it's a quite convenient way for both sides. Um and yeah, we hope that we, we, we, we improve the process and eliminate stress along the way.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that's really cool. You know you've, you've got a lot of revenue that's flowed through your platform, 200 million is a lot. Um you've also got a lot of vendors and customers that have used the platform. What's worked for you in terms of go-to-market to get the word out of who Maroo is and how do you scale?
Alex Nikityuk: So there are two strong um product-led growth type of motions that we have. Um one is when a business, they, they go for an event... so for example a photographer, they go for, to take a shot of, of the couple during the wedding. But besides them, they come with the lighting assistant, second shooter, hair makeup artist, for example. So the direct relationship is between the couple and this photographer. So let's say the couple pays them like 10K. But then this photographer has financial relationships with those extra three businesses, and that's how they got introduced to Maroo. Because this photographer sends the payment through Maroo, those businesses receive an email saying, "hey um you know Sarah Collins Photography wants to send you I know $2,000. Sign up on Maroo and get paid in one business day." So that's how they learn about Maroo. They have a kind of reference that their friend is using Maroo. So they sign up, up, they get paid quickly, they start exploring the platform, they start invoicing new clients. So this is like B2B payments type of growth motion.
And then on the other side, when the photographer invoices the couple, [the] couple makes the payments. We immediately tell them like, "hey, we hope you enjoy the simplicity of your payment experience this. Maroo is a place where you can consolidate all your wedding expenses in one place in a convenient way. You can actually start making payments from your account to any vendor you have on your like wedding team. Try this today." So then the couple start, starts making payments to all vendors uh they have on their list. Some of them we don't know, right? So they basically start s- sending um... and then this vendor, they receive a payment or email saying, "hey you know, um your clients, I know, Jessica Parker um she wants to pay you like $5,000 through Maroo. And Maroo is a payments platform for the wedding and events you know industry and so on. Sign up here and get paid in one business day." And this is kind of super convenient for people. Uh because for the couple it's all in one place, for business um they get paid like even if they create or not create an account, again we just send them a check. So it doesn't, it works like both ways. So but in our, in our scenario we have both businesses and clients acting as our kind of sales agents help us to spread the word. So that's, that generates around 40, let's say roughly 50% of the growth right now.
Um and then on the, on the other side we have um you know events. So there, this industry is driven by the events. Um so Maroo you know sponsored some of them or participated in some of them. And uh we also ran a few webinars last year, so that helped also to spread the word across the industry. So when we you know invited some industry experts or um you know some well-known wedding professionals just to speak on some you know major topics that are kind of interesting for, for uh wedding pros.
And lastly social media. Um I can't say that paid marketing really worked well for us. But uh you know, as I mentioned last year we were posting real budgets. That generated a lot of kind of engagement uh because you know people have very different opinions on a wedding that costs like 1.5 million, right? Somebody says it's pretty cool, others say this is nuts. So it's a, there is different reaction and that generates uh quite a conversation.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah really cool. I love the network effect of having a consumer use it and they get an invoice, they pay it. The vendor that's never heard of you sees a brand and, "hey I get paid in a day. Uh let me try that. Let me understand who they are, let's work with them if it improves my cash flow." So really, really cool. Um you know for, for those out there that are thinking about building a business. You know, you're a finance guy, you're in an industry that you didn't know, you're doing very well. Um what was the technology experience? Because you... I'm assuming you had to build a tech stack, or did you use what was out there and integrate your own? What's, what was that experience like for you?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, so we, we pretty much built everything ourselves. Uh wherever we couldn't, we partnered. And you know, luckily we're blessed with having great partners like um Stripe, Orum, uh Brex. Um these guys really helped us to kind of get started and you know, optimize our payments margins over time. Um so yeah, I mean there are a lot of companies right now that are coming up which kind of provide you an embedded financing stack like on, on the spot. So you need to care only about marketing, just kind of getting people on your platform, and then you install... you know like I recently learned about the company Basis Theory, um they're just kind of bring the entire finance stack like, you you know, invoicing, payments, uh you know wallet-to-wallet B2B type of transfer, things like that, all in one place. You just kind of one API, you connect it all, and you, you have the entire like process in on your platform. The only thing you need to care [about] is like how to bring people there. Um and then kind of it's up to you.
So that, I think these solutions are pretty cool. Uh because we had to build like a lot of those things ourselves. Like um, you know, over three years I feel like we polished the invoicing experience. I've never thought in my life that invoicing can be such a difficult process. You need to take into account so many things, it's just insane. U but at the same time it, it's super interesting, it just creates a lot of um you know interesting aspects of the business that again I've never expected before.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, really cool. As you look at your company today, when you started and where you're at now. What, where do you see the vision of it going?
Alex Nikityuk: Um so right now we're, as I mentioned, we're focusing heavily on the B2B side. So we want to make sure that the business experience on Maroo is the second to none. And um you know, wedding pros or event pros choose us as their default system to run their business. I think over time I would be willing to explore how we can deepen the finance relationship with those businesses. So um ultimately you know, you know getting deeper into [an] understanding of the transaction because like ultimately we're running they, powering their revenue, powering their revenue and the payments. So we, we can see their income and outgoing streams um and we can generate a lot of you know insight, analytics around that. So the next logical question is like, "can we introduce banking over time?" Like just make, becoming like a bank for the specific vertical. Because hey, like again there's a 100 billion industry, that kind of money that's going through this flow. And um that's a, that's, that's a pretty big niche that a lot of people just overlook because it's not that very you know, like immediately like uh coming to your mind as something big. Um so that, that's one direction. Um and I think over time we will need to switch more also on the B2C side. So look into how we can like really make the couple's experience even, even better beyond just like you know consolidation of you know payments in one place. Um so we'll see about that. Uh right now again the main focus is vendor experience, just to make sure that these guys get the best product you know on the market.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: You mentioned some numbers. How, how big is, is the market opportunity?
Alex Nikityuk: So just in a very like rough terms, uh average uh wedding in the US right now is around 45 to 50K. There are 2.1 million weddings every year, so that makes around like 90, 100 billion industry. Then you have around um six, six billion of uh just like event planning software type of you know market. Um and then, and then yes, that then there is like uh you, you can start adding some adjacent you know markets. But you know, for us it's, it's secondary. Um like I usually have in mind like build side, size of the market where we can actually like play.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, wow. It's a sizable market definitely. Uh I like what you, what you're creating. Um you know, when you think about uh that event, you think of it, you know hopefully if you do it right it's a one-time event, getting married. Um what's the reoccurring revenue look like? Is it really more on the B2B side where the vendors are out doing multiple weddings and you're seeing the transactions, and that's really where it's coming from? Um kind of moving from B2B to B. Is that, is that kind of the direction of kind of the growth?
Alex Nikityuk: Exactly this. Because um we, when, when Maroo, yeah started, we had to reacquire couples again and again. And to your point, the lifetime value with them was quite limited. Uh and yes, like it's, hopefully it's a one-time event and then it's 100% churn type of client. That's why we, we, we came to this realization pretty quickly and decided to shift gears into like B2B. Just because you acquire a business once, hopefully you do a good job for them, like delivering actual value to, to, to those wedding pros. And they will start invoicing their clients through Maroo. And if the client created an account with us, they become our client. And we pay zero for that. So which is why for example on Maroo right now, we had 40,000 weddings taking place on the platform, even though we had 10,000 businesses on the plat- platform. So we just get much more clients organically through this you know motion of businesses invoicing their, their, their, their clients. Um yeah so that, that's the main reason why we decided to switch gears into B2B just because economically it made much more sense.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that makes sense. So you, you talked about you saved uh vendors and people getting married uh a significant amount of money over the course of a year. What are they paying for? Like what, how do... what's the business model for your company so that people know yeah how you're actually sustaining the business and how you're building the business, you're getting paid?
Alex Nikityuk: Absolutely, just, just want to make sure I either correct myself. Uh we, we help businesses to save the, on the processing fees because all, all companies, they, they typically, all platforms, CRM systems, they charge businesses as the recipient of the funds a certain percentage of, of the payments. What we do is we allow, let's say every, like, allow a photographer to send an invoice for $1,000 and then get paid $1,000. So you know reconciliation is simple, understanding what this payment came for is simple, um sending invoices was simple. And on the other side, so on the client side, when the client receives the invoice for $1,000 they, we offer them different options [on] how they want to pay. And different options have different pricing there. So if they want to use a card, that's a bit more expensive for obvious reasons. If they want to choose ACH, I think we're offering the lowest fees on the market right now. Um so they choose ACH. If they don't want to choose any of those options they can you know go and like send a check if that's their preference. So it's, it's totally up to the client at this stage. And that's what you know businesses really like, because it's not them dictating the payment terms, it's actually like they, they, the client can see all options available for them. Um it's, it's mainly their decision how they want to pay. But the, the, the business, at the end of the day they get what they actually invoiced for. Um this is the first point.
And second, we provide the flexibility around the payment terms, which means that vendor A can say, "I want to pass on the processing fees on the clients," um and that's their choice. So that's a setting in our system that kind of adds up those fees or passes those fees onto the client. But the vendor B might say, "I actually want to pass on the processing fees on the credit card to my clients, but all ACH fees I take on myself." So for the client it's a free payment option. So that's also kind of a scenario. Like I think the, the, the key value of Maroo and the like main differentiators of Maroo, we account to this variability that the wedding industry presents. Because every business is unique on its own. They have their own way of doing things. And a lot of those horizontal plat- platforms that are, are out there, they, they don't, they don't want to address this just because it's just too much. And for their size of like trillions of dollars, this small market it's, it's just um a distraction. It's like too much effort of their product teams to build something for like that specific vertical. But for us it's, it's kind of like our bread and butter.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that's really cool. You know, when you started the business and where you're at today, is there anything you would have done differently that you started with and now where you're at that you could look back and share with the listeners, "I wish I would have done this because it would have saved us that much time," or "I wish I would have pivoted earlier because this caused us to spend this much money," or whatever?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah. So actually I have a, a full Notion list of like my learnings that I would do differently. So I don't want to like go through that uh in full. But I think the, the main part is I would not rush to scale things as fast as we did. Just because um I think you need to go through a certain process to mature your product based on their you know realtime feedback and not to kind of get to the scale so fast so then you get so much feedback that your team is not capable to like go through it. Just because so many you know requests at the same time. Um so if, if I would do it again, I would just go slowly. Um like stay lean as long as possible, make much more I would say experiments um you know with different ideas, like product growth ideas. Um and yeah, see how, how that goes. But again, like it is what it is and I'm happy in, with the place where we are right now. Yeah, just like if, if I would do it again, yeah, I would, I would prefer to take it slower.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, you know a lot of companies over the last 24 months or so, as we know with the financial markets, have really scaled and then had to scale down. Some went out of business, some ran out of money and got bridge financing to continue the business and now they've raised their next round. What's that journey been like for you?
Alex Nikityuk: I think it's, it's pretty consistent with the rest of the market. So we raised our seed round at the like the highest hype, like the highest point of hype of Buy Now, Pay Later model, because that's what Maroo was at that stage. Literally two weeks before our Demo Day at YC um, Square bought Afterpay. So like this was, Buy Now, Pay Later was like the next big thing. Um and it was all before web3, AI, and whatever came after that. So um, BNPL was the, the, the top thing at that moment. Um so we raised at a pretty high valuation. Um and yeah, we found ourselves early last year at the point when yeah, we were pretty much like close to the end of the runway, and we were by no, like we were not able to raise money even close to what, what we raised initially. So that required some adjustments on our ends. Um adjustments with investment terms to your point, raising bridge rounds and things like that um in order to sustain business. Uh we made changes in our pricing because, well, the best financing you can get is just like start making money through your revenue and your clients, delivering value. Um which I think a lot of founders forget, frankly, including myself. Um yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: So can you repeat that? Can you repeat that one more time for the listeners? The, the, the, what's the cheapest financing that you can get?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, make your clients pay. Like again, for, for the valuable product. Because obviously it makes no sense to charge your clients and deliver poor quality you know result. But if you're doing good things and like you're actually solving someone's problems, you need to charge. Actually that, this was another thing that uh to your previous question, what would I do differently, I would actually start charging from day one. And ideally charge much higher than, than like... well I'll basically start with a higher pricing and then go down. Because I think the mistake I did is uh we offered a lot of like cool features for free. And then when we realized that it's unsustainable to continue doing this way, um plus the scale we got in like very quickly, um it just started biting us. And when we had to adjust the pricing, obviously a lot of people were not happy, understandably. Um so I would say like that's another thing, like don't be afraid to, to charge for the product that you're building as long as, yeah, like you're actually solving someone's problem. Um yeah, I think it makes um a lot of sense to do that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Takes some courage too, to, to, to ask for a higher price because you're not quite sure what the market is until you start to see the traction. But I think you have to try. I, I think it's much better to go high and then you optimize down as you need, as you need to to find where, where the market really is going to be willing to pay.
Alex Nikityuk: I think it's also kind of a question of being honest with yourself. Cuz like when you're offering something for free and like you're seeing you know thousands of users jumping on you and like "yeah I want that," you might perceive that as a kind of, "oh I got a product-market fit," and like it's not actually product-market fit. Is you're giving stuff for free. It's like just free freebies all over, and like people just keep telling each other about this stuff. Um the only way to learn, really learn about whether you have or not a product-market fit is to start charging money. Because if people are doing this, like telling their friends about your product while paying for that, that's the best indication if you actually like on, on the way to do something great. Um otherwise yeah, it, it'll be just fooling yourself.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Well it's a great brand, I love the name. Uh I had saw online, we did some research prior to the podcast, and you know you were in Times Square on the big you know panels showing you know Maroo and why uh you know what the brand is. And it just, it looked great. I mean it was like a big brand in New York City, I mean you kind of, you're hitting the, hitting the target there. So what was that experience like to, to, to walk down the street and you know see next to famous people and stars you know your brand you cascading across uh Times Square?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, it was, it was phenomenal honestly. Like I sent it to my parents, they were like, "oh my God, this is so cool." Um I mean first of all I need to say or give a lot of credit to our banking partner Brex who provided us with this opportunity, um because without them yeah I don't think it will be possible. Um secondly I mean the, the whole experience was amazing, mainly not just because you know you just put your own logo on, on the, on the billboard and like, "hooray, we're cool." Um I wanted to make sure that um you know our ad there was, was something that we can share with our clients. So we asked four of our clients, uh photographers, to, to share their pictures that you know they were most uh um you know excited about to be on the wide screen. And um you know, we basically posted their pictures there at it.
Um and our kind of slogan there was "elevating uh wedding and events industry one step at a time," which is exactly kind of what we're doing. Like we're not rushing with a you know rocket speed. Um we're taking those steps carefully. Because again, I, after three years in the wedding space I kind of learned that it might not be the best idea just like to try to revolutionize everything immediately, because you know people like to take time with things. Um and it was amazing to share this moment but yeah, for uh professionals who, who've been in the space for, for you know many years, um well-respected in the industry and give them opportunity to shine as well. Like one of them went to the Times Square with her family, um showing her, her work. I think that's pretty phenomenal um just when your kids can see like "hey, this is what my mom did." Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, it was quite cold though because I, I was standing there like taking those pictures and like "oh this is crazy."
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that's great though. I lived in New York City for a number of years and I know, know that that weather can get to you a little bit. But uh really cool to see that as, as you look into 2024, what are you excited about, what's on the horizon, on the roadmap for Maroo?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, so we, we have quite a few features um mainly around you know subscription type of model where we, we deliver new functionality that we didn't have before. Um because right now whatever you can have on Maroo, like as of January 4th, um it's free. Right? So like you don't pay anything to use the invoicing platform, make payments, business to business ACH payments are free as well. Um so it's, it's a pretty like win-win situation in this case. U- we're adding new features around like electronic contract signature, u- itemized invoices, multi-business, multi-user access that will be part of Maroo Pro subscription. Uh at the year end we launched um Maroo API and new integrations with Zapier and um Make.com which hopefully will provide more businesses with an opportunity to connect to their you know systems of choice. Um in case you know Maroo is like one part of, just one part of their workflow. But ultimately as I mentioned, like our goal is to be to cover 100% of you know the client management, payment management needs uh for the wedding and events pros. Um over time so hope we're, we're going into that direction.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Nice. You know, our listeners come from multiple countries. Um if you want to get married or you're a vendor in uh any country, can you use Maroo or are you mainly focused on the US currently?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, currently we're mainly focused on the United States. Uh we have some businesses located in Canada and Mexico, but the main condition we have, mainly driven by the you know payments regulatory compliance um you know aspect, is uh to have a business account in uh US. So we can't send money outside of the country yet. Um international payments is on our roadmap as well uh for 2024. And yeah, we hope, hopefully we'll be able to launch it this year.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Okay cool, let, let us know when you do cuz our listeners come from Germany and Europe and South America and all over so yeah, let us know when that happens. Um if anybody wants to find you or find Maroo, where do they go?
Alex Nikityuk: Um they can go on LinkedIn. So search my name. Um you know, we have our Instagram account but again it's heavily focused on the wedding pros so I don't think it'll be very fun for the general public. Um so yeah I mean I'm pretty open, you know people can reach out. Like a lot of founders reached out to me recently you know asking about you know fundraising and um you know how to scale their business. So it's alexey@maroo.us um or alex@maroo.us, whichever works. Um yeah, we be happy to help whenever I can because again I've been in this place uh at some point in the, in the past three years so hopefully I can help some, some people.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well let's wrap it up here. I got three questions, they're just three simple questions with three simple answers, and a little bit more personal, not so much on the company. But um number one is where do you go to think big, to get creative or to brainstorm?
Alex Nikityuk: I go on, on the run. That, that's when like the most ideas come, come to me. Um can't say like uh I I I need to run for a while to get to that point, um so I think this usually starts after like 3 km, something like that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. I, I, I do the same thing. It's, it's, I don't know if it's a blood flow thing or something and it starts to click in mentally, but yeah, uh that's great. How about uh in terms of, you know, the roller coaster of a startup has got many ebbs and flows, where, what do you do to stay positive in the, in the ups and the downturns of, of the business cycle?
Alex Nikityuk: Yeah, this actually happens multiple times a day so I'm sure like people who have been in this um, you know, running their companies they, they, they can relate to that. Um I like, one thing I, I started doing back in the corporate career is like when I get messages from people saying like "hey man, like thanks a lot for the help" or like "you did this presentation great" and so on, I just screenshot this and place it in this like separate folder. And when things go really bad I just go to those messages and like read. And that reminds me that hey, there are people out there like who, who really value what I'm doing despite all the issues we're facing. Or like when I personally feel like worthless, like not being able [to] do anything.
So just recently I, I had this moment um like at the, in the beginning of the year again, like I think it's just you know the start of the year reconsidering everything. And one client messaged me completely out of the blue just saying like you know how much he values the, the, the platform, how much value delivers to his business, like offering some help there as well. And this just kind of like, wow you know, you know we... it basically reminds you that you're doing this not like for money, for yourself, like you're actually delivering something for people. Because you know the slogan of YC is "Make something people need" or "people want," sorry. That's, that's kind of the, the essence of, of it. Like when you build something out of nothing that actually delivers value to another individual, I think this is, for me this is like the best feeling.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah and it's, it's, it's... sometimes you forget about, you know, business is a psychological game too where you know there's a lot of ups and downs and your state of mind can change very quickly moment by moment. And interactions that you get from your customer base can change how you feel that day, that week, that month. Uh and it does matter what you're delivering and if you do it well you get a lot of positive feedback. And we're all going to have ups and downs but I think keeping that perspective is, is, is good to, good to maintain.
Alex Nikityuk: You al-, always need to keep this perspective because like in the moment, like when you zoom in it will be mass, like madness, like you know something won't work, like some you know client is frustrating, frustrated and like you know willing to tear you apart, like you know somebody on the team is not in the right headspace so they're doing something wrong and it feels like everything just falling apart. But then like you just kind of, you need to pull, or to have something to pull yourself out of it and just like reminding, "hey like despite of everything that's happening now like in the moment, look how much we make despite of like all this like madness, there is still like we're moving forward." As long as you move forward, this is the best... this is like what I really like in YC, they, they told us like "one thing you need to keep in mind, just stay alive." Like as long as you stay alive you will succeed like over time. But if you fail, and typically like companies fail because founders give up, then when this, this ends immediately. Um and yeah, as long as you're ready to like keep this fight and like make sure it goes on you know, you have a chance.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah I like that. And also progress in many ways equals happiness. As long as you're continuing move forward and seeing growth, you feel like you're doing something that makes sense and you're heading in the right direction. And you know, as a leader your job is to lead and you also have people that are looking at you to lead. Making sure that you lead them in the right spot is, is important too.
Alex Nikityuk: But it's also, I think it's important also to realize that sometimes despite of your best efforts you might not grow, right? You might just be flat. But this still, as if you look at this as your personal growth, like you, you, you're learning something through it, like you're growing as an individual, it's still worth it. Because those plateau moments they can come and from what I know they, they come to quite a lot of companies. Like it's a matter of like how you figure out like to, to get from it, like to just get to this escape velocity. And that's your personal growth as well. Because I think a lot of people give up in that flat moment when right, whatever they, they, they do, you know different things, they try different approaches and nothing changes, or if it even like goes down. And this is the moment when like you need to realize that you know, through all your efforts you're still learning, you're still trying and like you, you're figuring out. And yeah I mean if things don't work out, like clients leave you... well you can't do much here I guess, like um. But if you can still figure things out as long as you didn't tell yourself or didn't yeah, like "I give up." Because this is the moment when, when really things stop, cuz like if you as a founder said "I give up," even though your team like "yeah let's go," I don't think there is anything can be done.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, no, inspiring. Hope other listeners and founders are hearing this and taking note. It truly does matter um uh, don't give up the fight, you can figure it out if you keep working. Um last question for you. Um if there was a message that you got from another founder that you felt was priceless in your journey that you want to share, what would that message be?
Alex Nikityuk: "Somebody will tell me I will be successful like in the end of the day, just don't stop." Pretty much like similar to question number two, yeah. I think that, that will really help me like, I don't know, somebody you know like Brian Chesky like, he would send me an email and saying "Dude, just keep going, you'll be successful, like this will be awesome." Like I would never stop. I wouldn't stop anyway, but it's just like this will really like boost motivation this, even like in the hardest moments.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah I love that. Very cool. Well Alex, I want to thank you for coming on our show and and telling your story. Uh the courage to do that and the bravery around it, it's important and hopefully we inspired others out there that are building companies. Um my name is Jake Aaron Villarreal, I'm the host of the show. Look forward to catching up with everyone on the next episode. And until then, enjoy your day, enjoy your weekend, and we'll catch up soon. Take care.
Before we wrap up, I want to give a big shout out to all the entrepreneurs that have joined to make this podcast possible. And for all the listeners for listening, it means the world to me that you chose to spend your time with us today. I'm your host Jake Aaron Villarreal signing off for now, but can't wait to connect with you all soon on the next episode. Take care.
This show is sponsored by Match Relevant, a company that helps venture-backed startups find the best people in the market and they do it in three simple steps. First, they sit down with founders to understand their story. Second, they tell their story into multiple candidate channels. And third, they schedule interviews within 48 hours. Find us at matchrelevant.com to learn more about how we do it.
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