Introducing Coinrule
We went down to profitability. We reduced the team a little bit. So we almost break even and we are launching now two three small products actually to see how the market reacts. It’s like an acquisition channel for a lot of users because our competitors are on the iOS app stores. A lot of our user base is US- based and US is primarily an iOS market. We know us are like our best users. Are we building for serious traders who are like, you know, sitting in front of like six screens and like need the most like sophisticated tools or we building more for like a retail trader who wants to be able to trade on the move. More like entertainment rather than a business income channel.
Meeting the Founders
Now, we’re on our way to catch up with Gabrielle and his co-founder from Coin Rule. We’re here to find out what’s going on for them and uh what are they launching? what are they working on? Um, they’ve been in the game for a few years now, so really interested to see what’s kind of really happening in the behind the scenes of their world. Hey, how are you? [Music] This is my third startup and probably 10 years ago, I just made peace with myself. I was like, I’m an entrepreneur. This is what I’m going to do. In fact, when we talk in the company sometime, you know, about selling, you know, exiting, you know, we’ve received some offers in the past and uh I was like, yeah, okay, we sell it, but then what I want to do, you know, I’m going to start a new company where here like, you know, we have a a dream team.
A Founders Journey
Uh all the processes are in place, the admins are in place, so we can actually try to build new products from this platform. That’s for me like, you know, it’s the best ever because yeah, I think that’s what I’m going to do in the progress of my life. I think I’m super happy of doing this. I’m very I mean basically when I wake up in the morning I feel blessed. I feel like super lucky of being able to to actually build company, create value, uh being able to manage my own schedule and also take care of the team. I really like the people management part. Uh I I love that and uh yeah even if some you know they see you as the the manager or the founders you don’t get the same love back but uh I love to do that. So I don’t think I’ll go back to any other like corporate job ever. Basically we had this um this politics policies like the last six months that we went down to profitability. We like we actually we reduced the team a little bit. So we have almost break even and we are launching now two three small products actually to see how the market reacts. So we have a baseline of revenues has been growing but not exponentially but like you know solid revenues and now we are launching new products for different markets as well. always in the crypto space, always on blockchain, but a little bit more hardcore for like big big trainers, let’s say, because we understood that, you know, the market is more on the B2B side. Uh, yeah.
Retailers are nice, but also like the big big whales are like somewhere else. So, we’re trying to capture those. Zak is amazing because he already has three kids and as expecting the fourth one I don’t know how he does like he’s a he’s a you know amazing coder like super dead four kids like he’s building a house it’s like I don’t know it’s an inspiration for us it’s it’s crazy inspiration and when is he when is he do like in April right yeah yeah I think it’s April like the beginning of April beginning of April Okay. Shall we catch up on some like one thing we could catch up on is this npm. Uh I think before that also uh I also wanted to tell you something by the way. What? Yeah. I thought that was coming after. Oh my god, man. Congratulations. It’s basically almost the same due date, you know, the first week of April. That’s crazy. Amazing. I got this amazing I thought I I thought already because yesterday you know from the way I was like I already kind of knew. Yeah. Yeah. You you had basically it was like so difficult to keep it like you know secret like since when do you know? Wow man it’s funny like 4 days before the wedding we discovered it. It was a crazy like crazy week. Yes. Yes. And even before wedding. Yeah. Also for you was the same right? Exactly. It was just before wedding. Christy was uh you know planned obviously but she was like oh my god for wedding I cannot drink anymore. Exactly. So mean I was not drinking.
Testing the Beta App
So in April will be a very interesting month in April. I mean I’m will be off but then you will be like you know duty for one or two weeks beginning of April. Yeah the first week. Wow man. Wow. Congratulations. So many kids in this company like crazy. You’re all dads. Exact. Exactly. Wow. Right now we’re going through the beta app and we are um basically looking for bugs, right? Like we’re looking for Yeah. areas and Zenick, we’re testing one specific thing which is the payment flow because we need to get it into the app store. Yeah. And we resubmit. So we are testing basically if you go settings. Uh yeah, on plans plans and then Yeah, exactly. Uh buy maybe put monthly plans. Yeah. and then buy this one upgrade that one. Yeah. So, we are testing B the payment flow uh in this new version if it works and it and apparently the upgrade doesn’t work like the upgrade buttons that was the bug that actually Jav was referring if you get this wrong.
The Importance of iOS for Growth
What’s what risk? Well, it’s basically we we lose a marketing channel, right? It’s like an acquisition channel for a lot of users because our competitors are on the iOS app stores. Uh so yeah it’s it’s a battle we are like three four companies doing algorithmic trading and uh we are always like neck to neck like fighting. So every single channels no matter how big or small it is we try always to saturate it as much and always to get to the first position and actually Javier our CMO is like a magician on iOS optimization. So as as soon as this app is out I think we will gain literally I think 10 15% revenues per month. No for sure. It’s a big channel. That’s a big also because a lot of our user base is US-based and US is primarily an iOS uh market and we have an Android app but Android is more international, iOS is more US. We know we know US are like our best users. So it’s I think users on iOS have more commercial power but Apple is much more uh restrictive and picky in terms of like the app store. So the standard is much higher. So there was a lot of back and forth. We had to get out some regulatory concerns. We had to get that sorted. And then on the payments, they have like very specific expectations on the flow. Um which it’s not basically they don’t like when you don’t use Apple payments. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And uh and also like in terms of tech dev, we we wrapped the app. So we build one web app and the same one was optimized for Android and iOS wrapped. So it’s not a native app.
That’s good because it’s easy to maintain but it’s bad because obviously the interaction are not as good as a native app like all swish and choreography is a bit different. Arguably this is like a first version and then at some point we would build like a fully native because still like trading is something that you do when you’re sitting at the desktop you know like uh you’re calm you can analyze your data on trading view on Binance checking the charts and then you take your decision or your approach on trading and you place like strategy it’s not really something on the fly unless it’s like meme trading but for that you have a telegram maps I think the more sticky customers at the moment are the we call it prousers so it’s basically the one that really have a hobby in trading and they actually spend literally like hours every day. They log in around 10 to 20 times a day on coin rule.
Changing Marketing Landscape
There’s at least a couple of users we know they have a second screen at work. So it’s actually they trade 24/7 and these are sticky but the retailer the hobbyist traders the beginner that doesn’t really know what he’s doing and he just follows a strategy after a few months it turns. Uh so we are now after like day traders and more and more funds because funds actually for them it’s amazing the use case instead of having to employ like a full quant tech team of engineers they can just get a standalone you know coin rule suite and like they can just have a junior trader running few strategy like accumulation liquidation strategy with swap trading organ they can just manage the portfolio with the t-wap so it’s basically buying a certain amount of assets every week or month and then accumulated things so those simple automation s you don’t don’t need like a tech team, you know, in your in your edge funds or family office. You’re better off just using a cloud platform like com.
It seems like things have changed for the discussion now with the colleague. So what do you use to uh excel that doesn’t work the same way anymore. So well in terms of like all the affiliate traffic all the relationships that we build with all the publishers like they’ve lost so much they get much less traffic though. Yeah because they themselves in part because of the the whole AI like change to AI and like how people are changing the patterns in terms of search but also think that they were punished quite a lot in Google by Google.
Whereas in the past there used to be lots of publishers sharing articles and even about us, but like best cryptobots and so on, a lot of that has disappeared. Now it’s just like our competitors and ourselves just appearing in the top results. So just if you search for like the best cryptobots, you literally just get, you know, us cryptohopper three commas instead of the articles talking. No, it’s in a way it’s good, but in a way it’s bad if you know we don’t rank in that keyword. if we can get um the iOS app published very soon. Like he’s just submitting. We’re literally just testing on spawn actually on the website. Interesting. Okay. Fantastic. He’s got a trade plan. But then I mean you got stuck because you already tested before. Yes. But you had like the first version. Nice.
Regulatory and Advertising Challenges
So that’s going to be very cool because we can then do things without any regulation issues. Whereas if you’re thinking of Google Met and so we still we have to go country by country. In fact another thing we need to look into is the status of uh licenses for advertising crypto products per country. Say if you want to reactivate or Google meta and so on meaning UK you can forget about it will be a nightmare. US will be really hard probably worse to look into but for sure it will be complicated. I think or in a way our best bet would be to pick like a country that has enough traffic and wealth like even Switzerland or something but where maybe the rules are a bit less uh less strict around that and then just test it out [Music] you don’t have but you agree right what is one thing that you wish someone would have told you at the beginning of the journey. Interesting. It’s interesting. It’s always a good question because there is this joke that if as a founder you knew how hard it would be, you wouldn’t start. So it’s like there is beginner mind, right? So the less in a way almost the more naive you are, it’s almost actually the better. So you don’t want to tell people too much of like the wrong stuff. I think the only thing that really matters is what they really like beat into you at YC.
Reflections on Founding
The only things you should be doing is talking to users and building product and you’re building product based on I mean that should be obvious but maybe it isn’t to some people but like um and certainly wasn’t to me when I was starting out because it’s just kind of Yeah. So when you’re talking to users it’s to build a better product, right? Um because it’s unbelievable how many people go out, they talk to users, but what they hear is not what the user says, they hear what they want to hear and then they go and they build the wrong product.
That’s every time that happens, it’s a tragedy because it’s a huge amount of time wasted for everyone. So the most rewarding part of the journey definitely has been uh being able to actually help users. Uh it sounds like kind of obvious but like seeing people who use your product and they actually really get product value out of it is incredible. Like we have customers who’ve been using us for years and years uh who have like my WhatsApp number and like the the fact that they keep you know coming back. It’s such a like trust that they put into us. I mean we are a financial application right?
Helping Users
So people really trust us essentially with their investment strategies and like the they’re really like important part of what they’re doing and the fact that these people trust us so much is mind-blowing like I I I’m grateful for that every single day of running their company. Our product is a SAS product really like we are charging monthly for it and you need to get something out of it and yes you want to make money but the market sometimes goes up sometimes goes down and if you are nine months in a row of a terrible market and we’ve gone through many bare markets now then what’s going to keep you there? Because in that case it might not be that you’re making money but you’re getting something out of it. You wake up 7:00 a.m. in the morning, 6:00 a.m. if you’ve got kids, and then you see your phone, the notifications of like 50 trades you’ve made overnight, and you’ve made some money. And that’s exciting, and we need to keep on delivering that and expanding that. Um, yeah, many challenges, but many things that excite us.
https://youtu.be/YitEyKmx8fg?si=e965TKZ6DDXizWPX
Download Coinrule, the Crypto trading bot on IOS, and on the Google Store.