The crisis situation caused by the world Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the work of many startups in the spheres of goods and non-emergency services.
Thus, according to Opendatabot service, during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020, 400 enterprises were closed in Ukraine per month. Although this figure is a little lower, compared to the pre-pandemic period, there is an objective explanation—Ukrainian courts did not work or worked in a limited mode during quarantine, so the decision on bankruptcy at that time simply did not take place.
As of Website Builder, about 37% of all world startups stop their work due to lack of capital or profitability. Also, 77% of the interviewed businesses said that they faced a potential failure in 2020 as a result of a pandemic.
However, it does not mean that the Ukrainian startup that sells a virtual product has no chance. For example, the success of the Stripo platform for creating email templates proves that relevant ideas boost the world, and the crisis gives an obvious impetus to strong concepts.
When the service was launched in February 2017, it was positioned as a simple drag-n-drop email editor. However, it became kind of the flagman of email template creation in general. Now Stripo drives trends in business and advertising correspondence, constantly expanding its portfolio.
Since its establishment, the company did not attract investments, because it was built on the bootstrap principle (self-sufficiency). The annual recurring revenue (ARR) of the company is currently more than $2 million a year.
Today, the templates of this service are used by over 500,000 clients from 182 countries, making Stripo one of the world leaders in email design.
"While working with a new email campaign, the task of the marketer is to make its customers interact with letters, and anticipate a new mailing. To do this, you need to adhere to three basic rules: modern design, the correct adaptive interface on different devices and a variety of functional opportunities”, says Anton Savchenko, marketing specialist at Stripo.
For several months, the Stripo team studied the needs and requests of marketers. It turned out that experts spend a huge amount of time creating newsletters. At the same time, poorly structured emails with a weak visual part often remain unread or not read to the end.
According to statistics in the United States, mailers for pets’ owners have the highest Open Rate indicator (22.1%), the second place is taken by architectural solutions (19.9%), and information technologies keep the third position (18.8%). The pharmaceutical industry, accounting and hobbies take the last positions.
Stripo allows its customers to create traditional HTML email templates and AMP letters. The service is integrated with more than 60 ESP, CRMs and slots. In order to facilitate the work of marketers and accelerate it, specialists have created a web browser plugin for an email editor which helps to automate email creation.
The case of Stripo proves that even in crisis conditions you can create a useful product that will always have demand. The platform that allows email marketers to easily create the professional distribution of any level of complexity became a successful decision. Pandemic and the transition of most processes to online accelerated the development of email marketing, and this industry can’t exist without new solutions.