FROM NOVI SAD TO SILICON VALLEY: How CAKE.com Bootstrapped a Unicorn That Competes With Fortune 500 Companies

CAKE.com was founded in 2009 with a single ambitious goal — to build profitable, world-class software. Today, the self-funded unicorn company has more than 10 million registered users across the globe through its 3 SaaS tools — Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky. This is how the team of software developers from Novi Sad managed to build a tech company that can compete with SaaS industry giants.

Unlike most tech startups, CAKE.com didn’t start off chasing external funding and pitching ideas to investors. The team wanted to maintain creative control and ownership of their company, which meant doing things the hard way — bootstrapping by operating as a consulting agency and reinvesting all profits into proprietary software development. Believing in their vision, the team from Novi Sad persevered through 8 failed product launches.

Enter Clockify

Their breakout success came with the release of Clockify in 2017. The team initially developed the tool for internal use after the time tracker they had been using made an aggressive price hike. Building a tool for their own team proved to be the key to Clockify’s success, allowing the developers to address pain points that they had as users. 

Realizing that it had massive market potential, the team launched Clockify as a SaaS tool. The financial discipline developed through years of bootstrapping allowed the team to avoid wasteful spending. For years, they committed zero dollars to paid marketing, focusing instead on product-first development and letting organic traffic, word of mouth, and pure value drive growth. Because of this, they were able to keep operational costs lean and provide the best value on the market, offering features that competitors priced at a premium on their most affordable subscription plan, or even for free. To this day, the company has fully human, 24/7 customer support for all users. The strategy paid off — Clockify amassed 1 million registered users within just 2 years, rapidly penetrating the competitive US market.

Expanding the portfolio

Rather than pivoting to investor capital after their first triumph, the team doubled down on its own formula — reinvesting profits from Clockify to develop other productivity tools they needed. In 2020, they applied lessons learned from Clockify to make Pumble, their team communication app. 

Pumble helped the company scale and optimize for remote work, with the team once again using their own input to create the perfect remote work tool. The global shift to remote work in the early 2020s increased the demand for the kinds of tools they were adept at making, and the team capitalized on it. 

In 2022, they released their project management tool, Plaky, completing the CAKE.com Productivity Suite, which offered 3 productivity tools for the price of 1. By this point, the self-funded company that had grown from a handful of developers to a team of over 400 was directly competing with Fortune 500 companies in the productivity SaaS space.

Commitment to user satisfaction

Ever since its founding, a core pillar of CAKE.com’s identity has remained its focus on user primacy. The company treats its users as its only investors and stakeholders, always focusing on releasing features that maximize value. Although this approach is unorthodox in Silicon Valley — where shareholder interests often come at the expense of users — the team proved its formula works. CAKE.com has never had a quarter where revenue dropped, despite operating during some of the most challenging times for the software industry.

Today, with millions of satisfied users relying on Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky for productivity and everyday operations, the success of CAKE.com stands as a testament to the fact that an independent tech company can build world-class software without any external funding. And they’re not done yet — the company plans to grow further and expand its reach, shaping the future of work for distributed teams.

About CAKE.com

Founded in 2009, CAKE.com is a SaaS company that helps teams and businesses of all sizes improve productivity and collaboration. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, CAKE.com serves over 10 million registered users worldwide across its suite of productivity tools, including the time tracker Clockify, team communication app Pumble, and project management app Plaky.

For more information, visit CAKE.com or follow us on Linkedin.

Izvor/Foto: Cake

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