alfima.io: How Alexander Bünk Shut Down His 42-Employee Agency and Built a €63K MRR SaaS in 7 Months
"Happy Bootstrapping" Volume #42
Alexander Bünk from Hamburg built the largest German-speaking agency for creators and coaches together with his two best friends Finn and Marco – 42 employees, profitable, established. Then they shut it all down.
Since May 2024, the three run alfima.io, an all-in-one platform for creators and coaches that has now reached over 1,100 paying customers and €63,000 in monthly recurring revenue. A story about radical decisions, the courage to start over, and the realization that cold outreach doesn't work in the creator market.
This is a summary of Episode 154 of the “Happy Bootstrapping” Podcast (German).
The Founding Story
Alexander never went to university. Right after graduating high school, he founded AFM Media in 2017 with his best friends Finn and Marco – the name derived from the first letters of their names, just like alfima later. The three started with a 200-square-foot office in Hamburg, a shared apartment for €431, and €1,300 gross salary each. “We were dirt cheap, worked our asses off, and just wanted to get better,” Alexander describes the early days. The strategy paid off: The agency grew to become the largest in the German-speaking market for creators and coaches.
But despite the success, dissatisfaction grew. “You’re just building up others,” Alexander explains. The decisive moment came in 2024 with a Tony Robbins quote: “If you want to take the island, burn your boats.” The three shut down the agency completely – placed employees at other companies, terminated client contracts. The first line of code for alfima was written in November 2023.
The Product and Business Model
alfima combines everything creators need for their digital business: link-in-bio page, membership area for online courses, payment processor with just 4% transaction fees, landing page builder, calendar tool, and email marketing. “When you’re starting out, you need different software tools that you have to connect, pay for each one, learn each one. That’s bullshit,” Alexander sums up the problem.
The pricing: €49 per month for the basic plan, €69 for Pro. Of the 1,100+ customers, about 40% are full-time creators, 60% are building on the side. The team consists of the three founders, three developers, two support staff, and one videographer.
Marketing and Growth
The launch in May 2024 kicked off with a five-day challenge – a webinar every evening, ending with the software pitch. “In the first five days, we sold 93 annual licenses,” Alexander reports. The software went live one hour before the first webinar.
What came next was a lesson in humility. The agency contacts brought in only 30 users. Cold outreach was a complete failure:
“I made over 1,500 cold calls, we sent over 2,500 direct mailings. Not a single sale.”
The team got banned from Instagram three times.
What worked: webinars with partners and the affiliate program. Alexander has held 67 webinars since May. The affiliate program offers 40% lifetime commission and brought in about 450 of the 1,100 customers. On top of that, free onboarding calls – “We’ve had 2,844 conversations since May” – and weekly community calls with the founders.
Challenges and Bootstrapping Reality
“We made significant losses this year, don’t pay ourselves a salary, and are living off what we earned before,” Alexander admits openly. Working hours run 60-70 hours per week.
The biggest surprise was how little the agency background helped.
“We thought our agency experience would give us a real head start. It was almost a major disaster.”
The three have declined investor inquiries so far. “We want to build this business so we’re not dependent on investors.” The plan: reach profitability next year, then negotiate from a position of strength.
What I Learned in This Interview
Burn your boats works – if the team is right: Alexander and his co-founders completely shut down a profitable agency to focus entirely on the new product. This radical focus enabled the rapid build-up.
Cold outreach doesn’t work everywhere: Despite 1,500 cold calls and 2,500 direct mailings, there wasn’t a single sale. In the creator market, partnerships and webinars clearly beat traditional outbound.
Founding with best friends requires conscious nurturing: The three founders do activities every week that are purely for the friendship – separate from business. “If even a sheet of paper can fit between you, it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart.”
Learnings for Founders
Personal service as differentiation: alfima offers free onboarding calls for every new user – over 2,800 conversations in seven months. What seems expensive short-term brings customer retention and reviews long-term.
Aggressive affiliate commissions pay off: 40% lifetime commission sounds like a lot, but it brought in a third of all customers. For high-margin SaaS, this can beat expensive paid acquisition.
Agency network ≠ product customers: The switch from service to product business requires new sales channels. Existing contacts often convert worse than expected.
Founder-led community calls build trust: Every Tuesday there’s an open Q&A with the founders. It doesn’t scale perfectly, but creates closeness that VC-funded competitors can’t offer.
Annual licenses at launch create commitment: Instead of monthly subscriptions, alfima launched with annual licenses. This brought immediate cash flow and committed users.
Happy Bootstrapping is a German podcast where I interview bootstrapped founders, indie hackers, and solopreneurs about their startup journeys.
Over the years, I’ve connected with many successful entrepreneurs who have built e-commerce shops, SaaS platforms, mobile apps, content businesses, or hybrid models.
Furthermore I am a bootstrapper myself and growing my DevOps-as-a-Sercice and Web Operations Company “We Manage”.