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How We Bootstrapped to $5m in 5 years

Partner ecosystems, community investment and financing as a tool: Keboola's approach to building a data platform

Pavel Doležal · Keboola

Published September 1, 2022
About this resource

Pavel Doležal, CEO of Keboola shares:

- Learning how to diversity financial instruments as a founder

- Why they paid for overexposure

- How they built an End-to-end data platform as a service

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What you’ll learn

Pavel Dolezal shares Keboola’s approach to growing a data platform: plan beyond the immediate horizon, invest in partners and community, treat financing as a tool, and keep changing with the market.

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Key moments

Find the ideas you need and go straight to the source.

Plan beyond the next year

“need to use to process data into snowflake and out of snowflake and it only starts with getting data in so what we did we actually oh by the way see g2 you know we have the stars on g2 as well we love g2 right so what we did we actually you know like put it all together into end-to-end platform so you don't have to have you know 20 different tools you have one login you can get data in you can get all the connectors we have the biggest marketplace in in our space we have 1400 applications in our marketplace developed by 400”
Watch at 01:27

Build partner ecosystems

“agency and just like start a machine well it didn't cost anything on amazon right so like well this is the great time to actually build a sas company without you know like giving too much equity away in the beginning we can achieve product market fit without you know actually getting the vc money so that's what we did and we started to scale we started to scale first couple of years by referrals you know people started to use us they started to grow their own companies right and then some of them are now now now unicorns like”
Watch at 05:14

Invest in community

“and another learning that we made is kind of like when you go to enterprise features or you want to develop new features and you are bootstrapped you don't have to pay for it that's a big learning you know there's a lot of customers who are willing to pay for it if you go you ask them you work with your customers and they say like well like our data signs up right like we went to we are working for esteban this is our you know screen form product board and what i highlighted is all the features actually attribute them to to a”
Watch at 09:07

Use finance deliberately

“how are we doing now well during covet pandemic and that was where the dip comes we made two decisions we made a decision to actually open up quebec as a freemium to actually enable product load growth and second decision we made decision to go to enterprise because that's where you know all the money kind of like for us was in the beginning and they pay us a lot of money and they need us it's somehow country country intuitive i can talk about it a little more but this is”
Watch at 12:28

Keep changing

“have okay so now what happened right well we were overexposed so remember that graph that nate is showing kind of like your exposure and you know exposure to several clients that what that that's what happened to us so first we were overexposed during the covet into hospitality and retail industry in u.s so our clients were just going bankrupt right we had a client who was who was”
Watch at 16:20

(not requiring 10 different tools)

“(not requiring 10 different tools)”
Read slide 3

Keboola Revenue Growth

“Keboola Revenue Growth”
Read slide 6

Customer Co-Funded Features

“Customer Co-Funded Features”
Read slide 8

“Four people applied for job

““Four people applied for job.”
Read slide 9

We Paid For Overexposure

“Focusing on one industry has potential downsides”
Read slide 12

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Resource files

  • Video

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  • Diversify Financial Instruments (Slide 11)

  • How We Bootstrapped to $5m in 5 years - Slide Deck

About the speaker
Pavel Doležal

Pavel Doležal

Partner · Keboola

LinkedInTwitter

Pavel Doležal is a Czech entrepreneur and serves as CEO of Keboola. He is an emerging leader in agile data management and cloud transformation. He has been building companies since 1999, starting with the largest portal network, Atlas Portal. At his position at Keboola he's responsible for global business development and marketing.

Company revenue
$5.9M
Team size
200

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Slide by slide

Each slide with a short explanation of what it shows. Open the slide text for its exact wording.

13 passages

Keboola bootstrapping context

  1. Slide 1Open deck
    Slide text

    March 2022 March 2022 | Pavel Doležal, CEO of Keboola Pavel Doležal CEO of Keboola How We Bootstrapped to $5m in 5 Years

  2. Slide 2Open deck

    A unified stack supports process automation

    The page positions Keboola as an end-to-end data platform that combines Snowflake with process automation and analytics. It presents the service as an integrated stack with a single place to manage the workflow.

Keboola’s data platform

  1. Slide 3Open deck

    One service covers the data workflow

    The platform combines ETL connectors, data science notebooks, machine-learning pipelines, and workflow automation. Its stated value is a broad toolset that needs less maintenance than stitching together separate systems.

    Slide text

    (not requiring 10 different tools) Low maintenance, e.g. not requiring a FT guy to manage it End-to-end data platform as a service Data Science One click Jupyter notebooks Populated with always fresh data so models continually learn ML flow build in One click to get models to pipelines Automations Easy to implement and configure workflows, CLI, API to no-code Templated solutions End-end-ETL Over 400 connectors & reverse ETL writers, if not available easy to get one build Affordable for our all SaaS companies Comes with Snowflake management

  2. Slide 4Open deck

    A workflow runs through connected tools

    The screenshot pairs a terminal-based project setup with a visual data workflow and a catalog of connectors. It demonstrates how users can configure, orchestrate, and extend data pipelines from one product.

Client outcomes

  1. Slide 5Open deck

    More teams use shared dataflows

    The diagram contrasts a central team’s 15 core dataflows with 20 for business and partners, and 400 business dataflows with a workload of 1500. The claim is that this supports 10x more people and use cases while saving over 50% on wages.

    Slide text

    Enabling 10x more people and use cases while saving over 50% on wages We enable our clients to grow their dataflows, without unnecessarily scaling their “phd” head count. Central data team - #15 core dataflows WE TURN COMPANIES INTO LIVING ORGANISMS… Unlocking new revenue streams & increasing profit - MallGroup, Rohlik, Kofola, Erste, Shipmonk From Augmented Customer 360 to automation of customer profile in support desk Biz & partners - #20 dataflows Biz - #400 dataflows (workload 1500) ALL NEW USE CASES UNLOCKED WITH KEBOOLA

Revenue-growth history

  1. Slide 6Open deck

    Revenue climbs to $5.9m

    The chart traces revenue from $125k in 2014 to $5.9m in 2022, with the steepest rise between 2018 and 2019. Milestones below connect growth with product development, customer growth, and changes to sales and pricing.

    Slide text

    Keboola Revenue Growth 2008 2012 2014 2019 2020 2021 2022 Cloud migrations Internal tools Product Referrals First sales team Our customers grow Covid Covid PAYG Inside Sales Scale!

Partner cashflow

  1. Slide 7Open deck

    Partners help grow recurring revenue

    The table compares Keboola and partner revenue across three years, while the chart shows total revenue rising and services becoming a smaller share. The model starts with a larger partner contribution and shifts toward recurring contract revenue.

    Slide text

    Cashflow to partners It feels counterintuitive at first, but it is the only way to scale Keboola revenue Partner revenue Year 1 0.7 4 Year 2 1 3 Year 3 1.2 3

  2. Slide 8Open deck

    Customers co-fund product features

    A project-management screenshot shows customer requests and feature work organized across status, design, task, and company columns. It presents customer input as part of the product development process.

    Slide text

    Customer Co-Funded Features DataBricks & MLFlow Templates Azure

  3. Slide 9Open deck

    Hiring can surface customer demand

    The example describes four job applicants who shared a requirement to bring Keboola into the role. It frames hiring conversations as a signal that customers may already expect the product.

    Slide text

    “Four people applied for job. Four had the same condition - you need to bring Keboola in”

  4. Slide 10Open deck

    Usage expands alongside new users

    A laptop screenshot presents a sharp rise in users during 2021, reaching 3K by the fourth quarter. It links that growth to a product-led offering for e-commerce, SaaS, and digital agencies, alongside 536Tb/m processed.

Financial instruments

  1. Slide 11Open deck

    Diversify the funding mix

    The list ranges from prepaid cash, short-term debt, and SaaS subscriptions to customer funding, venture debt, venture financing, and subsidies. Each option is tied to a different use, from hiring predictably to funding enterprise sales cycles without giving up equity.

    Slide text

    Learn to Diversify Financial Instruments Cash is the king, but… Pre-paid CashAllows you to predict and hire Short term debtCovers unexpected Saas subscriptionsAllows you to treat monthly as prepaid yearly FFF later stageBring your best customer on board Venture debtAllows you to double down without losing equity Venture financingGreat for scaling, especially enterprise sales cycles SubsidiesEU want to support tech. Non dilutive financing ICOThe world is changing rapidly. Explore alternatives ???We are still learning. Would love to learn what works for you

Industry concentration risk

  1. Slide 12Open deck

    Industry concentration can magnify shocks

    The cohort chart frames a narrow industry focus as an exposure risk. It shows a sharp decline during the COVID period followed by a return to growth, with the 2022 result marked as a forecast.

    Slide text

    We Paid For Overexposure Focusing on one industry has potential downsides

  2. Slide 13Open deck

    The talk closes with a thank-you

    The closing card identifies Pavel Doležal and Keboola, then thanks the audience. It leaves the bootstrapping and growth story as the talk’s final point.

    Slide text

    March 2022 | Pavel Doležal, CEO of Keboola Pavel Doležal CEO of Keboola