Andrei Ursachi reveals the successful €500k roadmap of Stailer

Stailer is a bold Romanian start-up that digitally transforms the way we interact with beauty salons. Launched by entrepreneur Andrei Ursachi, the app creates ease in booking your next appointment and definitely creates buzz. Business-wise, the start-up has secured a pre-seed investment worth €500.000, becoming a €5 million value company. Among respected entrepreneurs, Linnify has shown support in this round. To celebrate this milestone together, we invited Andrei to talk more in-depth about Stailer and where they are at this moment in their journey.

The story behind Stailer

Andra Farcău: Stailer is a courageous project that anticipated a fundamental need in terms of communication, digitalization, and automation in a very competitive niche. What’s the story yet to be written behind the platform and the team? Where did it all start, where did the idea come from?

Andrei Ursachi: Well, the idea was definitely closely related to the emerging context at the time. In the COVID-19 environment, the concept of the app managed to seize the opportunity to the fullest. What that means is that we observed and responded to the new changes in customer behavior. It was our way to answer the ‘what’s next?’ question in terms of business ideas. Our marketing and advertising background brought a lot of clarity when doing the market research. We’ve observed a blue ocean of opportunities given the current business models happening at the time. The SaaS model was inferior to what we had in mind strategically and that brought a lot of confidence to the game. The ‘game’ had unexplored opportunities in Beauty-related Social Media, Marketing in general, PR, and SEO.

A.F. What about international business model inspiration? Have you had examples worth studying?

A.U. We’ve done plenty of research, we knew who the competitors were, we studied what worked and adapted it to the needs of our market. Creating a hybrid out of what was already out there, and what was needed - it saved us a lot of time. The business ‘secret’ has been out there for plenty of time: extract know-how from how others managed to do it. Simply put, copy what’s suitable and adapt the value proposition to your own country. Many large companies are targeting the USA, the UK, or Australia, while we chose Eastern Europe to grow freely, and pursue the blitz scale we desire.

Things that had to be learnt

A.F. From an entrepreneurial point of view, what were those ‘aha’ moments, or lessons learned if you will, that made you realize where the initial plan needs to be adapted or shifted? How was the beginning and how did you visualize the evolution of the company compared to the actual market results you’ve met?

A.U. There were things we’ve gone through that we can call mistakes. There is one thing which we've done that, initially, felt like a game-changer: we dedicated a full month to standardizing a rather structured onboarding convention for all the new clients. Nobody ever used it. Why? Because we carry out personalized onboarding for every new client. So, that one was definitely a waste of time.

The business model was good, the team and its expertise were on point and personally picked out of past experience, but there was one drawback we felt in terms of investors. There was one particular person who didn’t actually believe in the vision we already brought to life by now. His belief was that this business isn’t worth more than €1 million (given the fact that, at the moment any start-up is by default worth this much). Having such people on the board can be a huge setback during the fundraising period. It created a sensitive situation during a possible investor’s sit-down and that concluded with half a year of postponing that contract. Eventually, we made that one happen as well, but only after we shook hands goodbye nicely to eliminate any extra frustration. We celebrated that round close-up three times. [haha]

Aha-moments-wise, here’s a good one: until the very moment when the papers are signed, money is wired and deals are sealed, don't settle for ‘that sounds great, we are interested to invest’. Continue looking for investors and basically keep on hustling to build what you envision.

A.F. Frankly, an ‘enthusiasm endurance’ that keeps you going until you get what you desire for your product, and by that, I mean signed, sealed, delivered. That is a good learning milestone for somebody at the beginning of a start-up.

A.U. Indeed. Another ‘aha moment’ I got was while outsourcing tasks. When it comes to collaboration with external teams, you don’t necessarily share the vision at a profound level, it’s best if you know that by default there is a difference in understanding. And when tasks get a little misunderstood, a lot of time goes into something that’s slightly off-track, especially when coding. So one thing we started doing was following the ‘tell me what you understood’ tactic where the differences surfaced early and thus, we could more efficiently bring everyone on the same page.

A.F. That’s indeed one method that works well when working in short iterations to get feedback, clarity in execution, and efficiency, nonetheless. Confirmation is essential.

Businesses that thrived in this particular context, especially in the delivery niche have been struggling with the trust from the vendors/clients. How open was your market in terms of collaboration with the beauty salons?

A.U. In the trust-building process, there were a lot of factors especially in terms of social proof. Representation goes a long way and that includes the right faces supporting the concept: we had Lorand (Soaresz), we invested in PR and Marketing. One other aspect that helped us build trust was an interview we did for national television that we reshared on social media and surprisingly it returned quite a lot of ‘oh, yes, I’ve seen you on TV’ reactions.

Another milestone that made a real difference was when we actually started gathering more and more salons to join. Even if it’s fairly easy to get on the app, the real turning point is to build sense and excitement to embed the habit of using the app among the clients. And once we started delivering growing numbers, new client appointments per week, people obviously started taking us more seriously and started to use the platform consistently. At the salons where we deliver over 100 client appointments per week, the system is, obviously, used persistently.

And where we are at now, having celebrated the end of the last round/iteration, things have genuinely boomed, and we literally do not have time to do cold calls anymore; new leads queued up and that’s something we are very ecstatic about. Naturally, we are considering expanding the teams, job listings are open on various platforms. 

Looking forward, the target we have for the end of the year is 1000 salons, which seems unrealistic, 800 would be more comfortably realistic but we have the resources to scale up and we will strive for it.

A.F. You know, they laugh about having too many leads to nurture at the beginning of a start-up build but here you are with so many on your hands that they queue up. 

A.U. Well, they are nurtured by marketing, because we invest around €100 per day on lead generation so that explains it. What happens is that marketing definitely warms up the market and prepares not only the audience but also the clients that have time to form a more in-depth opinion about our system before our cold calling. 

A.F. Definitely. It’s about that moment when you hit a big lead pipeline. Did you reach this moment recently or when was it really?

A.U. Yes, that is happening as we speak. It’s on the table, we could say. That’s why we are discussing a strong, solid 3-4 people team on Sales and Customer Support to manage these matters efficiently.

Landing new clients

A.F. I’ve seen on my feed that you’re looking for people for Customer Service and Sales. Are you also looking to expand the Marketing team?

A.U. Customer service and Sales, yes. We do our marketing in-house now. The focus now is finding a Lead on React Native. We are trying to internalize what we need towards Linnify as we are preparing for the next round/iteration. When we’ll find the right Lead, things will definitely go more smoothly.

A.F. Have you had clients that played hard to get? Have you discovered some sort of pattern in their behavior?

A.U. Early adopters definitely have seen value in digitalization when some others haven’t from the very beginning. And to be honest it’s a pitch hard to resist. We offer free digitalization tools through which your social media followers can transform into actual clients meaning you wouldn’t need to use the phone anymore to organize your daily activities. Also, about the breaks in between the appointments they already have, we promise to bring clients while commissioning only €1, regardless of the value of the service. 

A.F. So now you can say you've gone past the early adopters’ stage, don’t you?

A.U. We are going past it right now. We are present in multiple cities in the country: Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest, Sibiu, Iași, Brașov, Oradea and Timișoara. We’ve redirected the consumer ads towards the clients as well because they needed to see the digital engagement to understand the real-life value. The team has the pleasure of talking about the clients that firmly refused us at the first call and then suddenly realized the scaling rhythm of the app. But we have gone past that time of cold market reactions - mostly because of advertising: it’s hard to not have seen the ads. It was surprising to see that the video ads that worked perfectly were not the ones we would expect them to. The audience can surprise you, so we learned to drop any assumptions.

Challenges that had to be encountered

A.F. What other challenging moments that you’ve gone through come to your mind now and what have you learned from them?

A.U. Well, there’ve been various difficult moments but what I’ve learned is that there’s no magic recipe that works as a game-changer. Everything helps and it compiles all together but nothing will fundamentally transform the game. Or at least we haven’t found it until now, although we had multiple game-changers along the way. Today we deliver in one day the amounts we used to deliver in the second month.

A.F. So frankly you came to the conclusion that marketing is no magic spell and that there’s no perfect recipe to copy. We learn from examples but not all of them suit your situation. 

A.U. I still believe in the ‘jackpot’. For example, out of every 10-15 scripts we’ve created, the jackpot was the one that turned out to be the one with the military guy. That spot now brings many conversions. And it’s not what you would consider the most logical bet. It’s a combination of a Romanian movie with The Simpsons that just worked out. 

A.F. But you’ve engaged in multiple tests and research, right?

A.U. Yes. Still, I wouldn’t have bet on that one. Theoretically, we’ve always tried to get something to become viral but we haven’t succeeded yet, not even with that one. But that’s the goal. Viral has many layers, and I think one of them would be to get people to talk about your ads. To me, that’s ‘mission accomplished’. 

A.F. So you’ve reached almost 3000 users. How did you get the first 1000? Were these metrics relevant to you?

A.U. I think the first 1000 came out of curiosity really. It wasn’t a metric in focus in the first rounds. It started to gain priority but what we nurtured until now were the numbers of appointments and onboarding salons. 

Milestone-wise regarding this, at first we were struggling to onboard 15 salons per month. Now that number is easily covered in a week.

Appointments-wise, in the second month we had 150 appointments and now that is what we deliver a day. 

The market acceleration is clear and we see how CPA (Cost Per Action) is lowering. If our first appointment has cost around €1000, now, in Cluj-Napoca, through Google and social media we make an appointment with 2-3 euros. Cluj it’s a warm city in terms of marketing. Marketing investments have been done here over the years and you can really feel that in comparison with a city that’s only starting the marketing engine and it’s still ‘cold’. 

If, at the beginning, we were investing money to warm up the audience, now we receive a turnover. The service is active in multiple cities, with over 2000 reviews on the site, and it really creates that social proof. 

A.F. It also accounts for the investment.

A.U. Yes, and everyone wants to use things that will be in trend. You don’t want to get an app that doesn’t seem promising in terms of success or one that doesn’t progress. Everyone wants updates, upgrades. 

What's next

A.F. Which are the next milestones, rounds you’re planning?

A.U. For the next investment round, we need around 10-15k appointments per month. That sums up to €300k monthly turnover. Today we are at 3k. We hope to reach 10k in the next couple of months. September and October are usually good months and even if the pandemic strikes hard again, that will only mean massive ongoing losses for salons.

A.F. What’s your stand on UX/UI Design and what impact did it have on the users?

A.U. It is very important. Here’s where we overrode the competition. We worked with a freelancer for that. The impact is huge.

A.F. What difference do you think it makes?

A.U. I’d say 50% intuitively. I prefer a clean, well-structured app instead of an app with many functions. And actually, this is one of the reasons why I decided to get into this niche. The existing apps weren’t at all UX/UI pleasant so I knew there was room for improvement. 

A.F. That's true, we are still learning, speaking from a national point of view. Although I have to say, from the foreign countries' experience, the reality shows some gaps in terms of consumer behavior as well as execution and concepts that outsiders don’t see. My point is, we are on the right track or, trends if you will, in terms of digitalization. We are not years behind. We are not that far. In Cluj-Napoca, we surely aren’t. The only difference is, indeed, the fast delivery abilities which have an economic factor as background, the investment power. Regarding expertise and vision-wise I think we are on the right track. 

In the long term, what differentiates you from other companies? You know what they say, the ones coming second have the first ones to learn from. What holds your leading stance as a company?

A.U. It’s about the market-network vision, entrepreneurship experience, and about what one of our investors calls the in arming race: making sure nobody else can raise as much money on this cause as we did - given our successful first round. In addition, the business model does financial dumping so you can’t get lower than that. If there are thoughts about competitors, I don’t think they would start a new series of collaborations with the salons, I think they would rather buy the company.

A.F. What diversification in terms of technologies do you intend to bring to the product? Do you have anything planned at the present moment?

A.U. Yes, we have a lot of interesting things coming up in the future that combine plenty of existing, growing, and new technologies such as machine learning and A.I. We’d like to think that the life of every stylist should start with Stailer. Stay tuned, we’re here to stay. 

A.F. That’s truly exciting. And what about the actual format of the team building this solid vision? As I understand, you’re expanding in terms of people, let’s talk about the plan for the upcoming months. 

A.U. The three big zones we activate in are Sales, Technology, and a hybrid team tackling Marketing and Product development. The Sales and Technological teams will surely grow in the upcoming months. We are currently looking for a React Native Lead for the Tech department. There are also slots in Marketing, Financial, and Customer Service. We have some card payments and discount plans to nurture a massive boarding.

A.F. What stands out working at Stailer? For the ones interested in joining the mentioned teams: what differentiates you as an employer?

A.U. What's really cool about Stailer is the product per se. It’s a disruptive yet in-house product that is addressed to a wide, wide range of customers. It is also very well-marketed. 

On Sales and Customer Support, there is the daily training that really changes the game. And really, it’s the start-up energy, the thrill, the fast growth. The dynamics are snowballing visibly and the procedures are clear and simple. 

Also regarding the C-levers, the mentors, advisers, investors - they are quite close to each team member, so the learning and inspiration are nurtured through the social factor as much as through tasks building the business vision. This makes the internal organization also visionary. Given the fact that there are hundreds of startups growing in Romania and almost none of them has a Chief Sales Officer. It really sets another tone within the department. The brand power is also definitely worth mentioning. Future-oriented recommendations and advice coming from within this team have a lot of power to help the innovators currently (or soon working ;) ) at Stailer. 

A.F. Tech lead-wise (and not only), I think it’s great to work on a product that’s not externalized. It’s amazing having access to daily mentorship, startup building process, and product development thought processes. Working close to Sales and Marketing, a Tech Lead can see step by step how it’s made and how everything it’s being brought together. Even more, your voice can be heard and there’s so much openness and eagerness to learn and innovate. It’s like a warmer career path. 

A.U. Yes, the thrill is real. 

A.F. It feels like the people you need should have that entrepreneurial spirit within, whether they had engaged in a business building before or not. 

A.U. Yes, it’s about self-starters, self-educating, growth orientation. And we nurture that, you know? We have unlimited UpRiserz subscriptions for the team members: Lorand Soaresz’s contribution. 

A.F. How close does Lorand collaborate with you and Stailer?

A.U. He’s always available when we reach out, he supports the business through posts through this UpRiserz subscription. He helps us a lot with communication, even on business strategy sometimes. He’s the most qualified to give advice in terms of communication, to say the least. Each of the advisers has a specific role in the build-up.

A.F. So you’ve got a highly professional advising team behind, from what I hear. 

A.U. Definitely. We have four advisers. One has an MBA, another one is Sergiu Roșca, on Technology, we’ve also got Bogdan Herea.

A.F. You mentioned at some point something about external countries. Do you plan on expanding outside the borders?

A.U. Yes, expanding outside the borders is in the plan. We are not looking for exotic places but rather in countries where we can find that ‘blue ocean’ of opportunities. Hungary is one of the firsts. We have native speakers so that’s a big start. We can work from here on Sales and use our strategic resources there. We are currently conducting market research in Hungary. Things are looking good, there are no solid competitors building on this niche. We seem to be the first to explore and invest this much here. 

A.F. So the focus is on CEE (Central Eastern Europe)?

A.U. Yes, to begin with, yes. The highlight in this stage is velocity. The growth speed, the strong evaluation, that’s the name of the game. 

A.F. To get more proactive on your growth pattern, do you see yourself in a country like Poland?

A.U. Poland is Booksy’s territory and we respect that. They just had €80 mil funding. If we spend €1 million on Marketing, they’re probably spending €5 million. We want to complement the market so that is why we keep ourselves as good acquisition material. We’re currently focusing on Hungary and we are planning on recruiting two individuals that are hybrids in terms of language and also as location, to get trained here with us and then support the growth of teams there. 

A.F. Are these Hungary positions open?

A.U. We haven’t yet entered the market but knowing Hungarian represents a plus for the currently open yet national-based job positions that we have. The next round will have funding allocated for Hungary per se. 

A.F. How was the collaboration with Linnify so far? How did it go, what did Linnify help you overcome?

A.U. Linnify was there from the very beginning. They were the first partners in the process and they helped us very much. Especially in terms of strategic positioning in front of the other investors. It would’ve been much harder without them. The executive team is super top. Excellent communication. We could even say that their communication represents an inspiration for us. Very, very good. With the Technical team, we haven’t discussed directly but we managed to transform concepts into actions with them. The prices have been finished and polished. We’ve been obsessively paying attention to details because we wanted the product to be as good as possible before the launch. There was a lot going on in the process but the mobile app has been delivered and it’s very appreciated. We are appreciated and that has a lot to do with Linnify for what we succeeded in creating together. 

A.F. What does the future look like with Stailer and Linnify?

A.U. We are conceptualizing a hybrid of working back to back to accelerate the process. The funds are currently quite limited and that’s why acceleration is in focus for now. Proper consulting and advice on React Native represent the grounds of our current ongoing collaboration. 

A.F. Thank you very much for the insights.

A.U. Thank you as well.

Linnify and Stailer have started the ongoing collaboration for over a year now. Positioning as technology strategic partners, we were happy to build together by intertwining not only the expertise but also the vision of both parties. Being there before the big ‘wave’, as Andrei likes to say, brought a lot of clarity to a purposeful and visionary partnership.

Tech-wise, we are grateful for our team working with React Native to have been so committed to meet the value proposition. 

We like this type of products, their authentic maturity in the building process consolidates the promise for scale-up. Nonetheless, it’s in our passion to dedicate our minds, expertise, and operations to innovate and bring the vision into reality.

Hear more about our success stories here.

Download Stailer on iOS | Download Stailer on Android | Follow Andrei Ursachi on LinkedIn