EP 67: "I Didn’t Pay Myself for 3 Years" - How Agorapulse Built a Thriving Business

What does it really take to build a successful SaaS business from scratch with no funding? Emeric Ernoult knows the answer all too well - he went three years without a salary while bootstrapping Agorapulse, now one of the world's leading social media management platforms.

The journey began in 2000 with a community-building software before "social media" was even coined as a term. For nearly a decade, his team struggled with a product that was ahead of its time and in the wrong market (France, in French). The pivotal shift came when they recognized Facebook's dominance and evolved their offering to meet what social media managers actually needed daily: tools to manage comments, schedule posts, and measure results.

Emeric's breakthrough innovation - the social media inbox - transformed how professionals handle online communications. Rather than the chaotic column view popularised by early tools like Hootsuite and TweetDeck, Agorapulse organised incoming content chronologically like an email inbox. This seemingly obvious solution propelled them from zero to $5 million in revenue before competitors eventually copied it.

Emeric categorises his costliest mistakes: hiring without clearly defining roles, ignoring gut feelings about unsuitable candidates, delaying necessary terminations, creating overly complex pricing models, and attempting go-to-market strategies without proper expertise. "I can count the smart things I've done on two hands," he admits, "but I'd need several bodies to count my mistakes."

Today, Agorapulse is tackling social media's biggest challenge: proving ROI. Their patent-pending technology connects social activities directly to website conversions, showing which specific posts, comments, and replies drive business results. It's this innovation that's helping social media managers finally gain the respect and budgets they deserve from sceptical executives.

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