Bunnyshell is a PaaS developed by 29-year-old entrepreneur Alin Dobra, which automates repetitive tasks for provisioning, deploying, and maintaining software stacks. They won €750k in March 2018 and now make $12k per month while offering services to clients all over the world. Alin has a passion for technology, marketing, sales, and psychology.
Bunnyshell, a PaaS developed by 29-year-old entrepreneur Alin, automates all the repetitive and tedious tasks necessary for provisioning, deploying, and maintaining software stacks. They won €750k in March 2018; as of now, they make $12k per month while offering services to clients all over the world.
What is your background and what are you concentrating on right now?
Aloha! I am the creator and CEO of Bunnyshell, a SaaS company for applications that need nearly flawless availability and dependability. Alin Dobra is my name, and I’m 29 years old. I’ve built significant efforts for more than 10 years, and I like automating procedures. I have a huge passion for everything related to technology, marketing, sales, and psychology.
I started working in software engineering in 2011, rose to the positions of CTO and CIO at a conversion marketing business, and after realizing that the solution I needed didn’t exist, I decided to create my own cloud tools.
As a result, I created Bunnyshell with the alluring promise that it would enable you to quickly establish your servers across several cloud platforms. Automation, provisioning, deployment, monitoring, scaling, and security upkeep. There is no testing, no expensive system administrators, no lost time, and no extra fees. a cloud without migraines.
In less than 18 months after launching Bunnyshell in March 2018, we obtained a €750K investment and are currently offering services to multinational corporations.
What is your background, and how did you come up with this idea?
At the age of 23, I received a promotion to CTO at a Magento & Symfony partner outsourced development firm, where I was in charge of overseeing a team of over 30 employees and handling client interactions. I was, in essence, a young person with a lot of obligations.
I started researching about my traits since I was unsure of them. first-time CTO experience: what it means to be one. Through my inquiry, I also learned something really interesting and helpful. Something truly amazing that led me in the years that followed:
“The CTO needs to have a plan in place for every scenario. He is accountable for anything that goes wrong.
As a result, I started learning and doing everything was required to move things forward, including hiring, HR, retention, sales, account management, development, sysadmin, and DevOps.
In the years that followed, I lived by the same tenet: that I required a plan (which occasionally comprised plans A, B, and C) for everything and learnt and tested many things in the real world. This kind of thinking allowed me to advance to the position of Managing Partner at that outstanding business.
I craved for more after learning how to form teams and create software. I wanted to develop things, find answers to real-world challenges and use cases, and help the rest of the world.
I left the firm as a consequence and joined a marketing start-up that created an eCommerce solution that used A/B testing, personalizations, and pop-ups to enhance conversion rates. A/B testing, user personas, conversion rates, micro conversions, funnels, and a vast variety of other commonly used marketing terminology and acronyms were all ones I had never heard of before. It was a task I wanted to take on and was ready for.
When the company started to grow, there were also technical difficulties brought on by the over 200k requests per minute and over $15,000 per month at AWS. We entered Microsoft’s startup program as a consequence of my outreach to them, and as a result, we received more than $100,000 in credits (thank you, Microsoft!).
We could start saving $15K per month only after moving our infrastructure from AWS to Azure. So I started looking for a solution that would allow us to manage our infrastructure the same way we did in AWS after the transfer.
I was quite curious to learn that there wasn’t such a platform.
I created the tools on my own since I wasn’t having any luck, didn’t want to rely on others (remember, I was the one with the plans), and am a lover of automation. Providing, deploying, watching, and alerting. It took us four months to successfully switch from AWS to Azure and create our infrastructure management tools.
It was at this point that I had my “eureka” moment and saw the need for such an instrument. a platform that handled all the sysops-related duties that each application needs, such as provisioning, monitoring, alerting, backups, autoscaling, etc.
Who doesn’t need availability, security, or backup? All of us desire the benefits of automation, not its endless repetition. Why do we always having to reinvent the wheel?
How was Bunnyshell built, exactly?
In order to work with Roxana, my DevOps at the time (who has now become my wonderful co-founder; I’d want to thank her for being a part of this journey), I quit my prior business. We started putting our dream DevOps platform together as a team.
We sought to market the minimal viable product (MVP) to clients while it was being developed using a “sell-it-while-you-build-it” technique. We had to make sure the idea was sound and that we weren’t creating something that nobody needed or desired. In addition, it is always better to build a product with client money.
It was—and still is—a voyage of self-discovery, and I genuinely enjoyed starting it. I wanted to do so many things (and still want to do them) like outreach, social selling, surveys, infographics, conferences, seminars, content, and academy, but we only have so many resources.
We have listened even more than we have learnt. The entire process has shown us that perseverance is the secret to our success.
Beginnings exude ideas, optimism, vigor, and confidence, which is why I like them. I’ve always thought that the journey is more significant than the end point. The education is given by the road itself.
What marketing techniques did you use to grow your company?
We began by treating distribution with the utmost seriousness. We used word-of-mouth marketing even though we didn’t have a specialist department when we first started.
Everyone who would listen, including our acquaintances, former coworkers, and everybody we’ve ever engaged with from the IT industry, heard us talking about Bunnyshell and our intentions. It was quite helpful to inquire about their network from our network.
We established alliances with cloud service providers like Microsoft and DigitalOcean, which helped us achieve the degree of customer confidence we needed. Talking about your output is talking about your company. Therefore, finding a trustworthy mate is crucial.
Everyone with whom we had previously communicated received a copy of the Bunnyshell Beta version so they could test the software. We received a large number of replies and found that the IT community is willing to help in general.
Following that, we started going to conferences and spoke about Bunnyshell and our goal of democratizing the Cloud. This has been a great beginning along with social networking.
Even though the platform was still in its early stages, we saw success right away and received trust from a number of extremely significant and powerful clients. A pharmaceutical firm was our first customer, then an eCommerce platform, and finally an eCommerce shop. They offered us comments, which helped us everyday progress.
It’s been almost two years since we started Bunnyshell. It might not seem like much, but with all the feedback, modifications, and tactics put in place to achieve the perfect market fit, it was a very stressful period for all of us.
We are presently considering four unique strategies—two for sales and two for marketing—to increase our client base. The idea validation step was the first, and the product validation phase was the second. We are currently assessing the product-market fit.
Even while it originally seemed challenging to describe and re-define the product in response to feedback, it was really helpful. Now that we have finished working on the platform, we can enjoy our success there.
As a result, I would tell anyone looking to launch a business that nothing is possible without taking client feedback into account and improving your product to suit their needs. You create the item for them, not for yourself.
For business owners, this is a challenging lesson to learn. Your whole company is constructed with the consumer, not you, in mind. They will offer you their money and attention if you meet their demands.
What are your long-term goals?
For each server, we are creating a system administrator tool. The Site Reliability Robot (SRR) is the term used to describe it.
We intend to assist in the creation of a new Internet by automating all management and DevOps tasks. a better, safer, and more rapid one. To improve server speed, we have included capabilities like self-healing servers and ongoing fine-tuning.
We want to grow, get more funding, scale, and dominate the market. I think that’s what any startup company wants to achieve. But everything hinges on the outcomes.
We will focus on developing product-market compatibility in the near future. to design a product that people love, need, and desire. Moreover, to enjoy the journey and help others.
Helping companies whose IT systems have been harmed by the coronavirus pandemic is a part of our commitment to doing so. All small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who have been negatively affected financially by the COVID-19 virus, as well as medical, non-governmental organization (NGO), and educational organizations that are actively looking for a cure for the virus, will get free cloud migration.
Life is far too short to build mediocrity.
I want to play chess and enjoy life with my wife and my three-year-old son.
What were your biggest challenges, and how did you get over them?
When you’re married, have a one-year-old child, a family to support, and debts to pay off, it’s challenging to start a business:) I was fortunate to have some money in my account, which allowed me to concentrate on the journey rather than the money.
My co-founder Roxana, who took many months to recuperate after being hit by a car, is now in excellent health. This was the biggest problem we had. Finding investment sources was motivated by this.
We earned €750k for our first seed investment six months later from Early Game Ventures.
What are your biggest flaws, exactly? What were your biggest mistakes?
I think we need to have made the product available even sooner. We were hesitant to engage in some risky behaviors. We wanted to make a product that would appeal to everyone, and we were so appreciative when people paid attention to us and offered comments that we neglected to consider whether or not it was relevant to the product we were developing.
What does the application actually do? Is that a relevant point of view? Although feedback is useful, if you act on bad advise, your startup might be destroyed. Or you’ll build something that you don’t want to build. Don’t start a business for your customers or for yourself. Then you will ruin your own business.
What actions would you do differently if you had the chance?
I’d think about use scenarios. not a quality. not advantages. use examples.
What practical use cases do you resolve? What can you do to address them more successfully than others? The most frequent mistake entrepreneurs make is thinking they need more features to draw in more customers. I’m guilty of this too. Wrong. Completely untrue.
You don’t have to approach every customer at once. Choose a use case. Attack it. Verify it. Obtain the first client. Get the first 10 customers who share the same use case. Get the following 100 clients, then carry on.
What educational tools would you suggest for entrepreneurs who are just starting out?
Reading books
Simon Sinek is the author of the book “Start with Why”.
Eric Ries is the author of the book “The Lean Startup”.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.
Peter Thiel wrote the book “Zero to One”.
I made a list of books that improved my understanding of business, marketing, and all other facets of an organization. It was incredibly useful to me since I was able to find several solutions to my problems. According to my memory, this list was one of the first to be posted on the Bunnyshell Facebook page.
Check interesting articles about growth hacking like these:
Parts 1 and 2 of The Hotjar Tales
What Made Intercom Successful?
It is possible to learn from any source, but I think the capacity to filter information is the most important talent. I always made an effort to learn from reliable and renowned sources. YouTube, YouTube tutorials, and podcasts all provide educational content. We are lucky to have easy access to a wealth of knowledge, and we need to make the most of all the benefits that technology has to offer.
I have “personal” bookmarks with this kind of information.
But I find that practice and other entrepreneurs teach me the most.
For further information:
the Bunnyshell website, our blog, and writings on Medium.
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