Skip to resource content
Founder conversation

How Bootstrapped Freemius Reached Tens of Millions in GMV With a 20-Person Team

Founder Vova Feldman explains Freemius's revenue-share pricing, a year to the first customer, and how promoting YouTube videos took the channel from 5K to over 100K subscribers.

Vova Feldman · Freemius

Published November 11, 2025
Watch the full conversation
About this resource

Explore the lesson. Sign in to access the resource library.

What you’ll learn

Vova Feldman, founder and CEO of Freemius, explains how he built the bootstrapped, profitable revenue-share platform for software makers, from a year to land the first customer to a pricing move from 30% to a 4.7% base rate. He also describes how promoting YouTube videos grew the channel from about 5K to over 100K subscribers in thirty days.

Read the source passages

Key moments

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

A year to the first customer

“So it took about a year to get that first customer.”
Watch at 04:36

Fee drops after $5,000 lifetime

“after you cross $5,000 in sales in lifetime, not monthly or something like that, it's 7%.”
Watch at 07:52

Promotion drives subscriber jump

“we managed to grow our subscribers from five ks to over 100 ks in thirty days.”
Watch at 18:32

Cost of a webinar promo video

“I think it was around $300 something like that.”
Watch at 20:17

Why every video gets promoted

“$50 isn't neglectable and you're getting like 10x better results by promoting it.”
Watch at 22:13

Resource files

About the speaker

Vova Feldman

Founder & CEO · Freemius

More founder interviews