"Younger guys, you've gotta come to the census of, look, we're not gonna make any money on this for the next 5 years, let's just shut up, do what we need to do, and let's get there." This brutally honest advice comes from someone who would know—a 24-year-old CEO whose company is scaling at 4X annual growth.
Meet Liam Gerada, co-founder and CEO of Krepling, a no-code e-commerce infrastructure platform that's quietly building the backbone for merchants across all continents. From a failed sneaker resale business that nearly killed his entrepreneurial dreams to raising capital from Jason Calacanis, Liam's journey strips away the Silicon Valley glamour to reveal what building a startup actually looks like.
In this candid conversation, you'll discover why 65% of customers churned the moment they started charging, how brutal honesty from 2 out of 200 contacted merchants shaped their entire product strategy, and why staying personally connected to customers as a CEO isn't just nice—it's essential for survival.
Watch the full interview now on EO's YouTube channel! Below is the complete transcription of the interview. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability.
Key Highlights:
"I think a lot of stuff is glamorized, not just in startup culture and Silicon Valley, a lot of shit is glamorized. Younger guys, you've gotta come to the census of, look, we're not gonna make any money on this for the next 5 years, let's just shut up, do what we need to do, and let's get there."
"You're not thinking about the money, you're not thinking about the customers, you kind of just, it's your own consensus of I'm doing this no matter what."
"We're growing around 4X year over year. We have merchants in all continents now, which is mad."
"The second we turn this thing into a paid product, we lost, I think, 65% of our customers churned."
"We reached out to about 200 customers, merchants that we knew, these aren't just cold emails, these are guys that we knew that we'd expect to give us a call back, 2 responded to us."
"Once you figure it out and you think, OK, this can actually, what I'm building here can actually benefit people, I think that's when it becomes something exciting, and that feeling is worth everything."
"You're not thinking about the money, you're not thinking about the customers, you kind of just, it's your own consensus of I'm doing this no matter what."
"We're growing around 4X year over year. We have merchants in all continents now, which is mad."
"The second we turn this thing into a paid product, we lost, I think, 65% of our customers churned."
"We reached out to about 200 customers, merchants that we knew, these aren't just cold emails, these are guys that we knew that we'd expect to give us a call back, 2 responded to us."
"Once you figure it out and you think, OK, this can actually, what I'm building here can actually benefit people, I think that's when it becomes something exciting, and that feeling is worth everything."
From Malta to Silicon Valley Dreams
Tell us about yourself and your background growing up.
Liam: My name is Liam Gerrada, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Krepling. Krepling in its simplest form is a composer. No code e-commerce platform. In a world where integrations, tools, different front ends are often very disconnected, Krepling essentially is that infrastructure layer that brings everything together without having to write a single line of code. So we're growing around 4X year over year. We have merchants in all continents now, which is mad. We cater towards merchants who are business owners and entrepreneurs, and Krepling essentially is the product that they need to build out this infrastructure.
I'm 24 years old. Definitely the younger side. My dad is from Malta, my mum's from the UK. They both grew up in South Africa, had my brother and myself. We then immigrated to an island called Malta. Malta is a tremendous place. It's got such a culture there where a young person growing up, you kind of are free to explore different elements of your childhood. Whether you're getting off to mischief, going out, whether you're just figuring out what type of things you like, and that's just a great environment I think to build something or to experience.
And whether it's anything, whether it's music, whether it's startup culture, whether it's just trying out new things, Malta's a really great place to experiment and really find yourself. Obviously Malta's not very Silicon Valley, so you're kind of away from the noise, you're not really in a world where you kind of see what's going on. So when we moved over to the US when I was around 16-17, at the time I was studying sciences at high school, like chemistry, biology and physics, which I absolutely hated.
I dodged homework a lot. I preferred to spend my time hanging out with friends, doing video games, that was my thing. I wasn't really into the whole study thing. And I think at a young age you never really know what you enjoy until it's too late. That's probably the reason why I wasn't good at studying, was I was doing shit I didn't like to do.
I'm 24 years old. Definitely the younger side. My dad is from Malta, my mum's from the UK. They both grew up in South Africa, had my brother and myself. We then immigrated to an island called Malta. Malta is a tremendous place. It's got such a culture there where a young person growing up, you kind of are free to explore different elements of your childhood. Whether you're getting off to mischief, going out, whether you're just figuring out what type of things you like, and that's just a great environment I think to build something or to experience.
And whether it's anything, whether it's music, whether it's startup culture, whether it's just trying out new things, Malta's a really great place to experiment and really find yourself. Obviously Malta's not very Silicon Valley, so you're kind of away from the noise, you're not really in a world where you kind of see what's going on. So when we moved over to the US when I was around 16-17, at the time I was studying sciences at high school, like chemistry, biology and physics, which I absolutely hated.
I dodged homework a lot. I preferred to spend my time hanging out with friends, doing video games, that was my thing. I wasn't really into the whole study thing. And I think at a young age you never really know what you enjoy until it's too late. That's probably the reason why I wasn't good at studying, was I was doing shit I didn't like to do.
The $400 Shoe That Started Everything
How did you first get into entrepreneurship?
Liam: I'm a big fight fan, I love boxing, UFC mixed martial arts, you know I launched a few Instagram pages at the time, and we actually got a couple of followers who were from the UFC, some fighters, which was pretty cool. I was building a couple of Instagram pages at the time.
Travis is my brother, so we've always been together. He was saving for a pair of shoes, and he ended up buying these really cool pair of Jordans. I remember asking him how much it cost, and it was something like $400 which is just crazy for a pair of shoes. And then when we started looking at the retail price, we found out those shoes actually go for like $230.
This is where we discovered that there really was a gap between those who are sneaker enthusiasts and those who are essentially just resellers. Looking to buy shoes and sell them at a higher price, and those who just want to buy the shoes to wear the shoes. And this was the first time we kind of got together and said, look, let's actually try solve a real problem.
Travis is my brother, so we've always been together. He was saving for a pair of shoes, and he ended up buying these really cool pair of Jordans. I remember asking him how much it cost, and it was something like $400 which is just crazy for a pair of shoes. And then when we started looking at the retail price, we found out those shoes actually go for like $230.
This is where we discovered that there really was a gap between those who are sneaker enthusiasts and those who are essentially just resellers. Looking to buy shoes and sell them at a higher price, and those who just want to buy the shoes to wear the shoes. And this was the first time we kind of got together and said, look, let's actually try solve a real problem.
What was your first business venture?
Liam: Yeah, we got together and we built a consignment marketplace. What if we take a shoe, sell it minus the 20, 60 or 80% resale price, essentially cut out the reseller and sell them at a price that makes sense to people who just wanna buy the shoes to have the shoes.
The biggest problem we found with our target audience was we were after people who wanted cheap sneakers. We found a way that we could actually give people the ability to pay on credit for these sneakers. You could buy a sneaker and pay, let's say nothing upfront, get the sneaker and pay it off within 5 years.
We launched the whole thing, and I think every purchase we had, almost no one would pay off the sneaker. People would eventually purchase, get the sneaker, they'd sell it, which is what resellers tend to do, and we'd chase them and say, look, hey, you're about 5 months out from your full payment, what's the deal? And they're like, no, we've sold the sneaker, we've moved on, or they'll just never respond.
And this was very low margin business. I'm sure a couple of customers benefited from that, that could have really killed us, had that gone further. We had about 15 orders on that, customers didn't pay at all, we wouldn't be able to sell that business. We would have gone out for sure.
The biggest problem we found with our target audience was we were after people who wanted cheap sneakers. We found a way that we could actually give people the ability to pay on credit for these sneakers. You could buy a sneaker and pay, let's say nothing upfront, get the sneaker and pay it off within 5 years.
We launched the whole thing, and I think every purchase we had, almost no one would pay off the sneaker. People would eventually purchase, get the sneaker, they'd sell it, which is what resellers tend to do, and we'd chase them and say, look, hey, you're about 5 months out from your full payment, what's the deal? And they're like, no, we've sold the sneaker, we've moved on, or they'll just never respond.
And this was very low margin business. I'm sure a couple of customers benefited from that, that could have really killed us, had that gone further. We had about 15 orders on that, customers didn't pay at all, we wouldn't be able to sell that business. We would have gone out for sure.
The Shopify Epiphany
How did this lead to Krepling?
Liam: I think when I went to college, I decided to pick accounting and economics, maybe focus on the business side. Right after I sold the previous business, I actually was able to use that, leverage that to actually get a scholarship. I always had said, look, I kind of was doing that, but I'm thinking of dropping out. Knowing wholeheartedly I am not going to be finishing this degree. I'm going into the start-up, I'm doing full-time.
When we're doing the sneaker business, we had seen what was going on with Shopify from the app marketplace. The average merchant, they're using MailChimp for the email, they're using HubSpot to track those emails. They're using about 2 or 3 third party tools to send out custom invoicing. All in all, you have about 4 tools they're using for emails. What if you could just bring that down to 1 or 2?
So our approach was instead of shipping it with hundreds of integrations available, we focused on integrations we knew merchants were going to use and perfected that. From the early days we surveyed that most merchants at the mid-market category and the entrepreneur category are not developers. That's not to say that some merchants don't grow towards more developer-focused, that's OK, but merchants shouldn't be pushed into this idea where we're now too big, we have to become developers.
So by being a no code solution, you're essentially giving different departments of the organization to conjure to levels that they previously knew they never could. And we just hypothesized there had to be a better way. And a better solution to help merchants navigate the chasm of building an infrastructure.
When we're doing the sneaker business, we had seen what was going on with Shopify from the app marketplace. The average merchant, they're using MailChimp for the email, they're using HubSpot to track those emails. They're using about 2 or 3 third party tools to send out custom invoicing. All in all, you have about 4 tools they're using for emails. What if you could just bring that down to 1 or 2?
So our approach was instead of shipping it with hundreds of integrations available, we focused on integrations we knew merchants were going to use and perfected that. From the early days we surveyed that most merchants at the mid-market category and the entrepreneur category are not developers. That's not to say that some merchants don't grow towards more developer-focused, that's OK, but merchants shouldn't be pushed into this idea where we're now too big, we have to become developers.
So by being a no code solution, you're essentially giving different departments of the organization to conjure to levels that they previously knew they never could. And we just hypothesized there had to be a better way. And a better solution to help merchants navigate the chasm of building an infrastructure.
200 Calls, 2 Responses
How did you validate the initial product?
Liam: The product was a mess. I was not happy with it. We weren't technical, so there's no way we can make it look great, but we wanted to prove a concept first. We wanted to show that 1, an infrastructure platform can make sense, 2, that it can be no code, and 3, merchants wanna see this, and that was all we were focused on.
We reached out to about 200 customers, merchants that we knew, these aren't just cold emails, these are guys that we knew that we'd expect to give us a call back, 2 responded to us. So the first 5 merchants we went to, and I said, look, ignore how bad this looks. Once you've tried it out, let us pitch you what the vision is.
And I think that was how we approached the first 5 or 10 customers was we give it to them for free, and then after that free week, we kind of said, look, before you give us feedback, let me tell you what we're thinking with this. We ship this really bad product, let them try it. They could see what it's like to build out different integrations under one hub. They could see what it's like to run a detailed workflow that combines your MailChimp, your PayPal, your data from your e-commerce.
They get a feel of what it's like to actually have a centralized system that has all the integrations in one piece, that communicates with each other, and what it's like to build out in no code in real time. And then we say to them, look, here's what we're thinking, and that's kind of when the ball dropped for those customers that were like, wow, I can see where this can go. But I don't think they would have got it unless they tried it first.
And then they'd come to us and say, well, what about this, we really found benefit in using this kind of workflow or this kind of system, so the customers kind of helped us build the first product without us realizing.
We reached out to about 200 customers, merchants that we knew, these aren't just cold emails, these are guys that we knew that we'd expect to give us a call back, 2 responded to us. So the first 5 merchants we went to, and I said, look, ignore how bad this looks. Once you've tried it out, let us pitch you what the vision is.
And I think that was how we approached the first 5 or 10 customers was we give it to them for free, and then after that free week, we kind of said, look, before you give us feedback, let me tell you what we're thinking with this. We ship this really bad product, let them try it. They could see what it's like to build out different integrations under one hub. They could see what it's like to run a detailed workflow that combines your MailChimp, your PayPal, your data from your e-commerce.
They get a feel of what it's like to actually have a centralized system that has all the integrations in one piece, that communicates with each other, and what it's like to build out in no code in real time. And then we say to them, look, here's what we're thinking, and that's kind of when the ball dropped for those customers that were like, wow, I can see where this can go. But I don't think they would have got it unless they tried it first.
And then they'd come to us and say, well, what about this, we really found benefit in using this kind of workflow or this kind of system, so the customers kind of helped us build the first product without us realizing.
The Jason Calacanis Two-Sentence Pitch
How did you approach fundraising?
Liam: Krepling wasn't something we could mimic. Something like that already exists. There was AWS that did a lot for the SaaS world of infrastructure. Shopify was a great front-end tool. There was Magento and WooCommerce make a lot of noise, but in terms of a pure infrastructure tool that was not developer-driven, that was no code focused, that allowed integrations to play a part in a more centralized system, there wasn't something like that that we could mimic.
We'd have to build a lot of it from scratch, and which means a lot of money. It's gonna have to be burned building this. We knew nothing about raising money, but our pre-seed started off, we got introduced by the team at Launch and Jason Calacanis, who I at the time got to know through YouTube videos. I kind of watched his channel to understand what it's like to raise, build a startup. So I kind of knew who he was. For him, his team to reach out to us was pretty intense.
And I remember preparing all night for this call, and I got on the call, went ahead, did the pitch, and I think he said about two sentences. I think he said, tell us about your business. I went through about a 5, 10 minute pitch. The second sentence was, thank you for telling us about your business. That was end of call.
I spent the whole week just thinking what I could have done different, what could I have done better. A week later I got an email saying they'd love to make an investment of $100,000 which was insane. I think from that point onwards, we really got a key into the realm of raising capital.
We'd have to build a lot of it from scratch, and which means a lot of money. It's gonna have to be burned building this. We knew nothing about raising money, but our pre-seed started off, we got introduced by the team at Launch and Jason Calacanis, who I at the time got to know through YouTube videos. I kind of watched his channel to understand what it's like to raise, build a startup. So I kind of knew who he was. For him, his team to reach out to us was pretty intense.
And I remember preparing all night for this call, and I got on the call, went ahead, did the pitch, and I think he said about two sentences. I think he said, tell us about your business. I went through about a 5, 10 minute pitch. The second sentence was, thank you for telling us about your business. That was end of call.
I spent the whole week just thinking what I could have done different, what could I have done better. A week later I got an email saying they'd love to make an investment of $100,000 which was insane. I think from that point onwards, we really got a key into the realm of raising capital.
The 65% Churn Wake-Up Call
What happened when you started charging for the product?
Liam: From then on we built out a better looking product. When we got to fundraising, I'd focused solely on fundraising and removed a lot of the connection with customers. We let the product be completely free for the first year, the second we turn this thing into a paid product, we lost, I think, 65% of our customers churned.
People love the product, they don't want to pay for the solution, it's just good enough to be free. And that is another challenge now is, OK, how do we make this actually worth for customers to go into their pocket and pay for this. Instead of, we had this idea of, OK, let's make it free for longer, gain more exposure, we decided to do the opposite, we said now we're not gonna accept any free customers.
Let's start again from scratch. Any customer comes to us now, we're gonna make them pay for it, let them tell us why they won't pay. What bugs you, what do you wish you could change? What if we were to remove this tomorrow and we're gonna do it, what's your feedback?
We found out that customers don't like the website builder, they don't like the ability to build inventory. This stuff's really bad, you change this. That's all done by Shopify and Magento. We want something new that's gonna make sense to us as a merchant, and you kind of start the exercise again from scratch, which was painful, but what we ended up having was at least a baseline, $15 a month. Here's what customers will pay for this product, which is a good starting point, and that's kind of, we went through the exercise about 3 times, so eventually we got to around $35 a month as a pricing point.
People love the product, they don't want to pay for the solution, it's just good enough to be free. And that is another challenge now is, OK, how do we make this actually worth for customers to go into their pocket and pay for this. Instead of, we had this idea of, OK, let's make it free for longer, gain more exposure, we decided to do the opposite, we said now we're not gonna accept any free customers.
Let's start again from scratch. Any customer comes to us now, we're gonna make them pay for it, let them tell us why they won't pay. What bugs you, what do you wish you could change? What if we were to remove this tomorrow and we're gonna do it, what's your feedback?
We found out that customers don't like the website builder, they don't like the ability to build inventory. This stuff's really bad, you change this. That's all done by Shopify and Magento. We want something new that's gonna make sense to us as a merchant, and you kind of start the exercise again from scratch, which was painful, but what we ended up having was at least a baseline, $15 a month. Here's what customers will pay for this product, which is a good starting point, and that's kind of, we went through the exercise about 3 times, so eventually we got to around $35 a month as a pricing point.
Staying Connected When You're Scaling 4X
How do you maintain customer obsession while scaling?
Liam: I think at the beginning it's easy to be customer obsessed because you have so few customers. What's difficult is, how can you maintain that level of customer obsession when you have 3 or 4x amount of customers, and that's not easy, and I think what we kept it simple was every customer we had or every customer that we, a large customer that we felt was gonna be impactful to the vision and the mission, that's gonna contribute a significant amount of our revenue. I would spend my own time and hours getting to know that customer.
Funnily enough, most of our insight actually came from our customers after we raised the pre-seed round, because those customers were coming into almost a newer product and also a newer company. You know, we had dollars to spend on features they came with, and we almost removed this barrier of customer platform discussion, more of person to person. Those customers who were honest with us and just kept it almost a friendly level, we really could reiterate the platform on that.
Till this day, I'm the account manager for about 10 to 15 of our customers myself. I spend time with our customers on calls, understanding their needs, and regardless of how big we get, I constantly keep myself in connection with our customers, having that baseline feel of a customer.
It's easy as a growing company to lose that connection between what is an actual customer and what looks good on a balance sheet, and I think that's difficult, removing that barrier of what is great MRR figures and great figures for a C deck and to what is actually living breathing customers is essential, so keep it simple, just be a voice for your customers, be there for your customers, understand your customers. We're getting better at it, you know, we're not the best at it for sure.
Funnily enough, most of our insight actually came from our customers after we raised the pre-seed round, because those customers were coming into almost a newer product and also a newer company. You know, we had dollars to spend on features they came with, and we almost removed this barrier of customer platform discussion, more of person to person. Those customers who were honest with us and just kept it almost a friendly level, we really could reiterate the platform on that.
Till this day, I'm the account manager for about 10 to 15 of our customers myself. I spend time with our customers on calls, understanding their needs, and regardless of how big we get, I constantly keep myself in connection with our customers, having that baseline feel of a customer.
It's easy as a growing company to lose that connection between what is an actual customer and what looks good on a balance sheet, and I think that's difficult, removing that barrier of what is great MRR figures and great figures for a C deck and to what is actually living breathing customers is essential, so keep it simple, just be a voice for your customers, be there for your customers, understand your customers. We're getting better at it, you know, we're not the best at it for sure.
The Unglamorous Truth About Building
What's your advice for young entrepreneurs?
Liam: I think a lot of stuff is glamorized, not just in startup culture and Silicon Valley. Generally speaking, a lot of shit is glamorized. I think we never really thought let's go ahead and build something bigger. Whenever we found a problem or a bottleneck, we thought let's give it a shot and solve it. And I think what happened was those bottlenecks grew bigger.
We really saw a small problem with the sneakers, we're like, OK, you know, let's just try to go after resellers, and then you're kind of like, this whole process also quite hard. Building an e-commerce store is not easy. There should be a better way to do that and you know building an e-commerce enablement company, and I think for us, each one problem leads to the next, and that's the kind of experience I've had.
If you enjoy building things, go for it, but it's difficult. You're not thinking about the money, you're not thinking about the customers, you kind of just, it's your own consensus of I'm doing this no matter what. Once you figure it out and you think, OK, this can actually, what I'm building here can actually benefit people, I think that's when it becomes something exciting, and that feeling is worth everything.
But getting there and making the mistakes, yeah, I wouldn't wish that upon anyone, so be with caution for sure.
We really saw a small problem with the sneakers, we're like, OK, you know, let's just try to go after resellers, and then you're kind of like, this whole process also quite hard. Building an e-commerce store is not easy. There should be a better way to do that and you know building an e-commerce enablement company, and I think for us, each one problem leads to the next, and that's the kind of experience I've had.
If you enjoy building things, go for it, but it's difficult. You're not thinking about the money, you're not thinking about the customers, you kind of just, it's your own consensus of I'm doing this no matter what. Once you figure it out and you think, OK, this can actually, what I'm building here can actually benefit people, I think that's when it becomes something exciting, and that feeling is worth everything.
But getting there and making the mistakes, yeah, I wouldn't wish that upon anyone, so be with caution for sure.
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