Maciej started Calendesk by hiring a 10-person team, well beyond what a pre-revenue solo-plus-cofounder SaaS needed.

“We kicked off the project with a team of 10, which included backend and frontend developers, iOS and Android developers, a DevOps expert”

The over-hire directly caused the cash burn that led to bankruptcy.

“I made a huge mistake here, burning a lot of cash”

The initial target customer profile was a guess that turned out to be wrong.

“Our initial target audience was essentially a guess, and as it turned out, I was mistaken”

The team hadn't yet worked out who their ideal customer actually was.

“At the beginning, we didn't have a clear understanding of who our ideal customer was”

Calendesk had offered free accounts, then dropped them for new signups.

“We decided to stop offering free accounts for new customers”

Free users consumed support and onboarding time without ever converting to paying, and that trade-off stopped making sense.

“freemium users were too time-consuming and we felt we are not ready for this at the moment”