Opinary started from a deep frustration: the difficultly to gauge public opinions on current issues online. So Cornelius Frey and his co-founders built embedded tools for publishers to measure just that. It was a hit and they started making revenues from an early point. Today, Opinary is used by millions of users in the newsrooms of +60 publishers in Germany, UK, and the US. Starting in 2013 as a bootstrapped side-project, the startup just closed a €3M series A. In this presentation, Cornelius explains how bootstrapping allowed him to build a project out of passion, giving him the freedom to make the mistakes & choices he did. He shares how you can achieve financial independence fast if you focus on the right things ;)

1. M A K E O P I N I O N S M A T T E R .

2. The problem: 98% of online
content consumption is completely PASSIVE
(*and some still wonder why their users don‘t convert)

3. Solution: Interaction. 150x higher engagement.

4. TH E IMMED IA TE IMPA C T of
TU R N IN G EN GA GEMEN T IN TO LOYA LTY
raised on-site engagement to up to 32%
increased time on site by 33%
increased sharing rates by 110%
W I T H U S ,
H U F F I N G T O N P O S T U K
decreased bounce rate by 24%

6. • NLP: multi language syntax parser, POS tagger, entity extraction
• Mixed Membership Topic Modeling
• Detect and infer relevant content with unsupervised Machine Learning Models
• Every poll is matched and injected into meaningful semantic content
A U TOMA TED D ISTR IB U TION :
proprietary learning algorithms for safe, powerful editorial fit at scale

7. T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D T H E S T O R Y

8. 2014
IDEA: ORIENT & EMPOWER

9. REALITY: OVERWHELMED
2014

10. IT‘S REAL!
2015

11. AND NOW WHAT?!
2015

12. LET‘S GO
2016

13. IT‘S HARDER THAN WE THOUG
HT.
2016

14. WE‘RE MAKING STUFF HAPPEN!
2017
**60m**

15. Reach: 250m users
2018 goals
With monetized, automated partners
Revenue: 5m ARR
With long-term brand partners
Crack UK/US & insights
What are your users really thinking, and why does that matter?

16. 1. Keep your job and cut
expenses
Observations on bootstrapping
(if possible….)

17. 2. No need for a proven
model and category!
Observations on bootstrapping
(but definitely find/prove a user/customer need)

18. 3. Build something small
and ugly
Observations on bootstrapping
(and get it used)

19. 4. It‘s only an experiment if
you kill half of it
Observations on bootstrapping
(overcome your own harsh judgement and pivot early & often)

20. 5. What will you pay me if i
….?
Observations on bootstrapping
…verify actual, not wishful intent and need

21. 6. We‘ve run out of badges
of honour
Observations on bootstrapping
SORRY!

22. 7. Guard your time
Observations on bootstrapping
Are your clients there? Or the people you want to hire? No?
Don‘t go