It’s been about seven months since Oregon entrepreneur Fritz Brumder launched his startup Zipcan, and the young company is up to more than 500 beta users and 15 paying customers.
The startup, Brumder’s second, is in the video collaboration space. It’s an easy-to-add video chat feature that can be embedded in other products and tools or used as a standalone video chat. Brumder’s goal is to make the tool easy enough to add even if a customer is not an expert in digital video.
“We were thinking the obvious uses for customer service and support. It was hard to visualize what are the new products people will create,” he said.
The team, which is now five, has been surprised to see interest in the product coming from not only other startups looking to incorporate video, but from larger more sophisticated enterprise teams as well.
As video trends have evolved through the pandemic, Brumder is seeing Zipcan being used as more a platform that other developers are building upon.
“We had this idea people would create new products, but we didn’t foresee the depth and breadth of that,” he said.
For example, one startup in development is using Zipcan as part of its app that connects people to lawyers on demand during the time in which a person is in contact with law enforcement. Another is CoFoundersLab, which connects entrepreneurs looking for co-founders. Zipcan is powering that company’s video chat function within its app.
Zipcan is powering about 600 calls a month, said Brumder. It’s still in early testing with many of its customers and beta users.
Prior to launch Brumder and co-founder Spenser Lea raised $75,000 from Cascade Seed Fund and others. With revenue coming in, Brumder doesn’t expect to raise any more money this year. And current investors are interested in staying involved.
His strategy for sales is a product-led approach. He hasn’t needed many outbound sales, relying instead on launches on the site Product Hunt as well as SEO. The rest of this year will be evaluating go-to-market mechanics. The team is looking at customer acquisition costs as well as retention to understand the lifecycle.
Since the company seems to be powering the tools of others, Brumder is bullish on retention rates. The success of those companies will mean a lower likelihood of churn.
Brumder previously co-founded video streaming company Brandlive.
