Our customers

In 2025, we further sharpened our market positioning. Today, we present ourselves even more clearly as a company that consistently stands for data privacy, Swiss security and quality – while also providing friendly, accessible, and competent support. This clarity has strengthened our brand and is increasingly visible externally.

This became evident in the new customers we were able to welcome last year. They include a Swiss private bank and a large Swiss health insurance provider, as well as Gebäudeversicherung Luzern, Theater Chur, and the municipality of Riehen. We also welcomed several healthcare organizations, an electrical wholesaler, a continuing education provider, a youth organization, a law firm, and several IT companies.

We are especially pleased by the diversity of these organizations – it shows that our approach works in very different contexts.

We were never completely satisfied with the privacy provisions of Google Analytics. We decided to use Friendly Analytics because the data is hosted entirely in Switzerland. We find the transparent, competent and above all personal advice very positive. We were particularly impressed by the short response time for individual inquiries.

Martin Niederberger

Head of Communications

We would like to thank all our customers for the trust they place in us.

A particular highlight for us is that Mautic itself has become one of our customers. Mautic is the open-source software that powers Friendly Automate and thus forms a central foundation of our work. Since December 2025, we have been the official host of Friendly Analytics for the Mautic project.

Companies are not required to give back to the open-source projects they benefit from. For us, however, we choose to show our appreciation. That is why we provide Friendly Analytics to the Mautic community free of charge – as a small contribution to the ecosystem that makes our work possible.

Finances: Moving toward MRR profitability

2025 was a year of growth for Friendly, particularly in terms of MRR, the recurring revenue from our software subscriptions.

After strong growth in 2020 and 2021, MRR growth slowed considerably between 2022 and 2024. We continued to grow, but step by step. In 2025, that dynamic changed noticeably: our MRR increased from CHF 22 171 at the end of 2024 to CHF 34 526 at the end of 2025 – a growth rate of 46%.

A key factor was the strategic decision in spring 2025 to offer Friendly Automate only to new Enterprise customers. In the short term, this led to stagnation in MRR. After a few months, however, it became clear that this move sharpened our positioning and strengthened our long-term growth.

Since launching consulting services in 2022, that part of the business has played an important role in stabilizing our finances. In 2025, consulting revenue reached a natural plateau, limited by our available capacity.

This development aligns with our strategy. Our goal is to become fully MRR-profitable soon, meaning consulting revenue will no longer be required to cover fixed costs but will instead be additive.

In the medium term, we plan to handle larger customer implementation projects increasingly through agency partnerships, allowing us to focus on our core business: reliably operating our software and providing direct support.

In 2025, we also reached an important milestone in our overall business development. We have posted a positive annual result since 2023, and since February 2024 we have been profitable every single month.

In June 2025, we were finally able to offset the accumulated losses from our early years. Since then, our cumulative result over the entire history of the company has been positive. As of the end of 2025, our total cumulative profit stands at CHF 33 313.

“I’m proud of what our team achieved in 2025. Our finances and structures have developed more positively than ever before. I’m looking forward to 2026.”

Stefan Vetter, our CEO

Taken together, these developments show that our model is increasingly standing on its own. Recurring revenue is gaining weight, fluctuations are decreasing, and we are moving closer to our goal of building Friendly as a stable and independent company for the long term.

Products: Major upgrade, growing interest

Our product portfolio remained stable in 2025. We continued to focus on our two core products: the marketing automation software Friendly Automate and the web analytics platform Friendly Analytics.

For Friendly Automate, 2025 was defined by a major and important upgrade. The underlying open-source software, Mautic, was updated from version 4 to version 5. This was more than a typical version update – the entire codebase was fundamentally reworked.

Due to the depth of this transition, the upgrade required significant resources over an extended period. It was demanding, but necessary. We managed the process well, and the upgrades are now largely complete.

Read more about the technical background and all new features of Mautic 5 in our blog post.

At the same time, we further refined the Friendly Automate design. Our goal is to provide customers with an optimized and even more cohesive user experience.

While Friendly Automate was shaped by this major technical step, demand for Friendly Analytics continued to grow steadily in 2025 – from the affordable and feature-rich Essential plan to the Professional plan for growing companies and the highly customizable Enterprise configuration.

Explore all Friendly Analytics plans and pricing here.

Digital sovereignty and data privacy continue to gain importance. As data breaches and security incidents at major tech companies regularly make headlines, awareness is growing. Swiss-hosted open-source software offers clear advantages in this context. This positioning continues to open up a relevant and growing market for us.

Our Team: Shared Leadership and Growth

In 2025, our team evolved noticeably.

After many years in which the primary business responsibility rested with Stefan, we were finally able to broaden the management structure. As of March 2025, Lukas Sigel took on the additional role of COO (Chief Operating Officer) alongside his existing role as CCO (Chief Customer Officer). Since then, Stefan and Luke have worked closely together on strategic, operational, and organizational matters.

“It was an important step for us to distribute responsibility more broadly. I’m pleased to be contributing more actively to shaping and further developing Friendly for the long term.”

Lukas Sigel, our COO & CCO

This has been a significant relief for Stefan and had an immediate, long-overdue effect: for the first time since founding Friendly, he was able to take a full vacation and truly switch off.

In March 2025, Lukas Frei also joined our customer team. He quickly found his footing and soon took on his own projects and customer responsibilities. At the end of 2025, he will leave Friendly again. We explained the background in our Open Startup Report for December 2025 and wish Lukas all the very best.

A highlight each year is our Friendly Retreat. In June 2025, we met for the fifth time – this time in the Lavaux region – celebrating Friendly’s fifth anniversary. We enjoyed the conversations, the hike through the vineyards, and the shared experiences. We look back on it fondly and are already looking forward to the next retreat.

From summer 2025 onward, we were also able to expand capacity in our technical and Analytics teams. We intensified our collaboration with Peter, who is involved in several new Analytics Enterprise projects. In October 2025, Matic increased his workload with us. His strong programming skills are already making a visible impact.

Looking ahead to 2026, we are especially pleased that Matic will make Friendly his primary employer and further increase his workload. We’re proud to have him take on this expanded role with us. His focus on automation continues to move us forward operationally and qualitatively.

«Let’s make 2026 the strongest year Friendly has seen so far!»

Matic Zagmajster, our talented developer

At the same time, we are preparing a significant expansion of our customer team. The new Customer Success Specialist role is close to being filled.

Partnerships: Expanding our network

Our stronger focus on Enterprise customers brings specific requirements. Enterprise clients often need individual customizations, complex setups, or prefer to outsource implementation to experienced experts.

Although we do offer consulting ourselves, our core focus remains clear: we want to position ourselves as a SaaS company built on recurring revenue (MRR). We see our primary role in providing a reliable, secure, and sustainable software environment and maintaining it technically over the long term. Becoming a traditional agency is not the path we intend to pursue.

With this in mind, we expanded our agency partnerships in 2025. We were especially pleased to begin collaborating with Vass (Liestal) and Unic (Bern, Zurich, and further offices in Germany and Poland), who have already referred valuable customers to us. The collaboration delivers real value for all parties involved.

Depending on the project, we support the technical implementation, while the agency handles strategic and operational execution. We plan to continue strengthening this network in 2026.

Here you can find all our partner agencies.

We are also closely connected to the open-source communities behind our products. In the Matomo ecosystem (Friendly Analytics), Peter has been part of the core team for over ten years.

In the Mautic community, Joey and Matic are actively involved. In November 2025, Joey, Luke, and Matic attended the Mautic World Conference in London, where they engaged in in-depth discussions, contributed to talks, and participated in the community sprint.

These events help us stay close to the software’s development and contribute meaningfully.

Another important part of our partnership approach is the active exchange with other commercial Mautic providers. We deliberately foster knowledge sharing and mutual support rather than competition. In some cases, we refer customers to one another when a project is a better fit elsewhere. We maintain a particularly close professional exchange with the German Mautic provider Leuchtfeuer.

These partnerships help us deliver sustainable, high-quality solutions without losing sight of our focus.

Marketing: Substance over noise

In 2025, our marketing continued to prioritize substance over volume.

“I hold myself to the standard of not publishing interchangeable, AI-generated content that already exists everywhere. I only write when I’ve taken the time to think things through and can provide real value that I stand behind.”

Kathrin Schmid, our CMO & CISO

Thoughtful content requires time and focus – these are limited, especially since Kathrin combines marketing responsibilities with her role as CISO and ISO lead.

We published three new case studies in 2025: with bofrost* suisse (for Friendly Analytics), Arbeitgeber Banken and ANAXAM (both for Friendly Automate).

These insights into real customer projects are central to our communication because they show how our software works in practice – and how personal support makes a difference.

One customer put it this way:

The other day I called Lukas with a problem and he informed Peter directly. The problem was solved within two hours – that’s never happened to me before. That’s very special. Try to reach someone at Google, have fun.

Livia Schwander

Digital Marketing Manager

You can find the three new case studies here.

We also published two in-depth blog articles: one on the release of Mautic 5 and another on Swiss alternatives to Google Analytics.

In 2025, we continued publishing our monthly Open Startup Reports. In fall, however, we decided to discontinue the monthly format by the end of the year.

As our business has matured and financial fluctuations decreased, the value of monthly reporting declined.

Starting in 2026, we will publish quarterly reports instead. This will also free up capacity for other meaningful content.

More on this in our Open Startup Report for December 2025.

Finally, in December 2025, our new website went live – thanks to the initiative and outstanding creativity of Nicolas Previdoli, who surprised us in spring with a compelling open sales pitch.

Annual goals: Visible progress

As part of our ongoing quality improvement under ISO 27 001 and ISO 9 001 – alongside many other internal initiatives – we defined a series of clearly measurable annual goals for 2025. We achieved several of them and partially achieved others. All of them served their purpose: helping us prioritize, make progress visible, and regularly reflect on what we are working toward.

One particularly meaningful milestone was increasing Stefan’s monthly salary to just over CHF 4 000 by year-end 2025. After years without a salary – and still only a symbolic CHF 1 000 at the start of the year – this marks an important step toward a sustainable structure.

The development of our profit margin is equally encouraging. In 2025, we reached our targeted annual margin of 12% exactly as planned.

Additionally, we improved support quality, slightly expanded consulting capacity, and maintained uptime of over 99.9% across our products.

One goal we deliberately postponed was the launch of a new product. Expanding our product portfolio remains a clear mid-term objective for us. In 2025, however, this was not realistic – primarily due to the unexpectedly high workload surrounding the upgrade to Mautic 5. As a matter of principle, we prioritize serving our existing customers reliably before launching new products or offerings. For that reason, we consciously moved this priority to a later stage.

Looking ahead to 2026, this objective remains in place – complemented by new initiatives. These include internal salary increases, further automation, and targeted team expansion.

Financially, we are targeting a profit margin of 10% for 2026 – a figure we have adjusted downward from the previously communicated 15% due to the upcoming investments in our team. At the same time, we plan to increase Stefan’s paid workload to 80%. We aim to grow our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by at least another 30% in 2026 in order to comfortably cover the targeted margin and the anticipated costs.

Financial growth is not an end in itself for us. Our primary focus remains having satisfied customers and satisfied team members who enjoy working with us. We grow so that we have the resources to achieve that even better.

One final important goal concerns our infrastructure: in 2026, we aim to end our dependency on Amazon AWS, which we currently use for email delivery. The development of our own email infrastructure is already underway.

Outlook

We are entering the new year with good energy. As mentioned, we are currently in the middle of a recruiting process – something new for us in this form and a process that has required significant focus. We received more than 100 applications for our open position, many of them highly compelling. Kathrin invested considerable effort in building up her expertise in recruiting and, together with Luke, designed and implemented a structured selection process.

The process is now close to completion, and we look forward to welcoming a new team member soon.

Beyond that, we are looking ahead to 2026 with anticipation. We are excited about new customers, further partnerships, and the continued development of our product portfolio.

We also welcome the surprises and challenges that each year brings. They are making business life dynamic and engaging.

We genuinely enjoy working in the company we have built together. That sense of enjoyment is present in our daily work. As Joey put it:

“I’m looking forward to a great 2026 – with the most amazing team I’ve ever worked with!”

Joey Keller, our CTO

With that mindset, we step into the new year.

Der Beitrag More focus, clear impact: Open Startup Year in Review 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

December at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 34 526 CHF (-0.2 %)
• Consulting revenue: 9 305 CHF (-5 %)
• Total revenue: 43 831 CHF (-1 %)
• Costs: 41 794 CHF (-3 %)
• Profit: 2 037 CHF (+43 %)
• Profit margin: 4.7 %  (+45 %)
• Active customers: 186 (+1 %)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 0.5 % (-75 %)
• Website visits: 3 079 (+9 %)

These were the key developments in December:

Revenues: longer sales cycles, MRR slightly down

As we increasingly work with privacy-sensitive enterprise customers, our sales cycles tend to be longer. In this segment, closing a contract usually involves extensive legal reviews: both sides exchange and refine documents, complete questionnaires, discuss and revise proposals, and walk through concrete use cases.

These steps are essential for a long-term, successful collaboration, and we approach them with care and responsibility. As a result, we do not close a new enterprise subscription every single month.

In December, no larger new subscription started. Due to two smaller new customers and one churn, our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions temporarily declined by -0.2 % to CHF 34 526.

(Spoiler: a major enterprise subscription starts in January — and we are very much looking forward to it.)

Our consulting revenue came in at CHF 9 305 in December, which is a very strong result given vacation absences and the holiday season.

Overall, our total revenue declined slightly by -1 % in December to CHF 43 831.

Costs: new expenses for brand protection

Our salaries remained unchanged in December. However, since the consulting workload of our Analytics freelancer, Peter Boehlke, fluctuates from month to month and was a bit lower again in December, our total salary costs decreased by around CHF 1 400.

This month, we are reporting salary costs for Lukas Frei for the last time. Lukas had been working with us since March 2025 on a small workload, and we truly valued our collaboration with him.

Starting in January 2026, Lukas wants to simplify his life. Even without his work at Friendly, he balances multiple jobs alongside family life and personal time. We wholeheartedly support his decision and wish him all the very best.

Our marketing costs increased slightly again in December, this time for a less pleasant reason. A young Swiss software company has been using the term “Friendly” in its company name for several months. We engaged in direct conversations but were ultimately unable to agree on a solution that seemed fair to both parties, which is why we are now taking legal steps to protect our brand. Most of the resulting costs are covered by our legal expenses insurance. The remaining costs will be amortized over the coming months.

Expenses for product, administration, and donations remained unchanged. We recorded slightly lower costs in the area of events and team culture.

As a result, our total expenses decreased by -3 % compared to the previous month, amounting to CHF 41 794 in December.

Here are all our costs including salaries for December 2025 in detail:

The next chapter of our Open Startup Reports

As mentioned in the teaser, this is the final Open Startup Report in its current format.

Let’s be clear right away: we will remain transparent. What will change is the format — and that change reflects how our business has evolved.

In Friendly’s early years, we were fully in startup mode. Every month brought a crisis, a success, a change, or a new idea.

Our finances fluctuated significantly, and month after month we reported on new highs and lows.

By now, things have stabilized. We are growing slowly and steadily, improving our internal structures, gradually expanding our team, and planning further product development.

The months no longer feel like a roller coaster. And what happens to our finances from one month to the next no longer feels like the most interesting story to tell.

We therefore decided to continue the Open Startup Report in a new quarterly format called Open Startup Quarterly.

With a quarterly cadence, we can provide a clearer overview and a better interpretation of Friendly’s long-term financial development.

We also plan to expand the reports in terms of content and share more behind-the-scenes insights — for example into our teams, ongoing projects, strategic considerations, and key learnings. We are currently working on the exact format.

To stay up to date and not miss the first edition of the new Open Startup Quarterly, feel free to follow Stefan on LinkedIn or sign up for our newsletter here:

The first Open Startup Quarterly for Q 1 2026 will be published in April.

Conclusion

We close the month of December with a profit* of CHF 2 037 and a profit margin of 4.7 %.

Despite the tight margins of the past two months (see November), our overall profit margin for 2025 came in exactly at 12.0 %, precisely meeting our annual target.

With Stefan’s salary at CHF 4 025, we also exacly met our annual target. We would have liked to increase it further this month, but decided against it in order to reach our targeted annual margin.

With that, an eventful year comes to an end. We will soon share more in our Open Startup Year in Review 2025. We are looking forward to a friendly 2026 together!

* Friendly has fully recovered its early-stage losses as of June 2025. Our monthly profit now only comes with the caveat that Stefan, our founder, still isn’t paying himself a full salary for his work – we’re working on it.

Der Beitrag The last monthly report: Open Startup Report December 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

November at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 34 602 CHF (+3 %)
• Consulting revenue: 9 816 CHF (-28 %)
• Total revenue: 44 418 CHF (-6 %)
• Costs: 42 995 CHF (+9 %)
• Profit: 1 423 CHF (-81 %)
• Profit margin: 3.2 %  (-80 %)
• Active customers: 185 (-1 %)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 2.1 % (+1 %)
• Website visits: 2 835 (+12 %)

These were the key developments in November:

Revenues: Our TRR surpasses CHF 1 million

Our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions increased by +3 % in November, reaching CHF 34 602.

This brings our total recurring revenue (TRR) to over one million Swiss francs, landing at CHF 1 029 681. A quiet milestone we’re genuinely happy about.

Behind this number lies a lot of patience, thought, ideas, and careful day-to-day work. As a bootstrapped company, we’ve earned every single franc ourselves – and that feels good.

Our consulting revenue declined this month to CHF 9 816. This is within the range of normal fluctuations and remains at a solid level overall.

The number of active customers also declined slightly. Two new customers were offset by four churns, mainly smaller customers from our early days. As our customer profile continues to shift toward larger enterprise clients, we are still gaining more MRR than we lose.

Overall, total revenue in November fell by -6 % to CHF 44 418.

Costs: Higher expenses for salaries, marketing, and events

In November, our payroll costs increased again by more than CHF 1 000. While salaries for almost all team members remained unchanged, our Analytics freelancer Peter Boehlke worked more consulting hours for our customers.

He supported customers with setting up Friendly Analytics, configuring tracking parameters, assisting with data exports, and providing valuable training on how to use the software effectively.

Our marketing costs also increased. As previously announced, we are paying the designer of our new website, Nicolas Previdoli, a substantial voluntary additional bonus for his outstanding work. In total, we are paying him three times the originally agreed amount. We are amortizing this bonus over the coming months.

In the area of events and team culture, we recorded a higher one-off expense: we supported Joey, Matic, and Luke in attending Mautic World Conference 2025 in London, which took place in early November.

Engaging with the Mautic community – the open-source software behind Friendly Automate – is a given for us and enriching for both sides. At the conference, we shared our knowledge in a talk, contributed to the community sprint, deepened partnerships, and had many inspiring conversations.

Expenses for product development, administration, and donations remained unchanged.

As a result, our total costs for November amounted to CHF 42 995, an increase of 9 % compared to the previous month.

Here are all our costs including salaries for November 2025 in detail:

A new storefront for Friendly

It’s finally here: our long-awaited new website has been live since December 8, 2025. We’re very happy about it and proud of the result.

Read more about it in our blog post.

Conclusion

At the end of the month, we’re left with only a small profit of CHF 1 423, resulting in a slim profit margin of 3.2 %.

On both the revenue and cost sides, this tight result is driven by one-off events, which means we can treat it as an outlier.

We remain profitable and have a stable growth outlook – that’s what matters to us.

* Friendly has fully recovered its early-stage losses as of June 2025. Our monthly profit now only comes with the caveat that Stefan, our founder, still isn’t paying himself a full salary for his work – we’re working on it.

Der Beitrag One Million in TRR! Open Startup Report November 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

What started with a sales pitch from copywriter and web designer Nicolas Previdoli turned into a genuinely great collaboration over the past few months.

We don’t usually respond to sales pitches – but this one immediately stood out. It was clear from the start that Nico had put real thought into it. His first draft was already so well developed that large parts of it made their way almost unchanged into the final version.

Working with Nico over the past months has been a real pleasure. We’re impressed by his ability to clearly identify and communicate our USP, as well as by his friendliness, clarity, speed, and team mindset.

The result is a new virtual shop window that reflects our mindset, our products, and our value proposition far better than before. Clear, calm, and focused on what matters.

Our company logo and product logos have also been refreshed, giving them a new look that we like a lot.

We’re very happy with the result – and, of course, always glad to hear your feedback.

Der Beitrag A new shop window for Friendly: Our new website is live erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

October at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 33 467 CHF (-0.5%)
• Consulting revenue: 13 675 CHF (+2%)
• Total revenue: 47 142 CHF (+0.1%)
• Costs: 39 620 CHF (+1%)
• Profit: 7 522 CHF (-6%)
• Profit margin: 16.0%  (-6%)
• Active customers: 187 (-1%)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 2.1% (n/a)
• Website visits: 2 532 (+3%)

These were the key developments in October:

Revenues: MRR flat, consulting strong

Our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions remained flat in October at CHF 33 467.

Since shifting our focus more toward enterprise customers, the pace of customer growth has slowed – but each new enterprise customer brings in significantly more revenue. As a result, overall our MRR has grown faster in 2025 than in previous years.

At the same time, we increased our consulting revenue by another +2% to CHF 13 675.

This result was driven by custom setups and onboarding projects, training sessions, in-house development, and newsletter creation. Our October clients included a bank, a hospital, a nonprofit organization, several insurance companies and online retailers, and a public sector entity.

As mentioned before, our consulting business has reached a high plateau. The trend lines in this chart reflect that:

Total revenue in October rose slightly by +0.1% to CHF 47 142.

Costs: Salary increases for Luke, Joey, Kathrin and Stefan

Personnel costs increased by over CHF 2 000 in October due to salary increases for Luke, Joey, and Kathrin – in recognition of their contributions to Friendly’s recent growth.

We also increased Stefan’s salary to CHF 4 025 – meaning we’ve already reached our 2025 goal of paying him CHF 4 000 per month, two months earlier than planned.

Additionally, our developer Matic expanded his capacity from 10% to 30% as of October, allowing us to further strengthen our technical team.

Product, events, and admin costs remained mostly unchanged.

Our marketing expenses declined in October, as we completed depreciation of our Friendly rebranding project (reveal coming soon!). That said, we’ll continue to recognize related expenses over the coming months, as we’ve decided to award a bonus to our designer Nicolas Previdoli in appreciation of his outstanding work on the rebranding.

In September, we had made a one-time larger donation to Mautic. Excluding that, our monthly contributions to nonprofit causes and memberships have returned to their usual level.

All in all, our October expenses amounted to CHF 39 620 – up only 1% from the previous month, despite the salary increases.

Here are all our costs including salaries for October 2025 in detail:

Conclusion

In October, we recorded a solid profit* of CHF 7 522 with a profit margin of 16%.

That marks 21 consecutive months of positive results. We’re now in a position to build reserves and invest in new team members – more info coming soon on our career page.

* Friendly has fully recovered its early-stage losses as of June 2025. Our monthly profit now only comes with the caveat that Stefan, our founder, still isn’t paying himself a full salary for his work – we’re working on it.

Der Beitrag Annual goal reached – and pay raises for the team: Open Startup Report October 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

September at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 33 620 CHF (+14%)
• Consulting revenue: 13 471 CHF (+15%)
• Total revenue: 47 091 CHF (+15%)
• Costs: 39 086 CHF (+8%)
• Profit: 8 005 CHF (+58%)
• Profit margin: 17%  (+38%)
• Active customers: 189 (+2%)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 0.0% (-100%)
• Website visits: 2 466 (+7%)

These were the key developments in September:

Revenues: MRR surpasses CHF 30 000, consulting on a high plateau

In September, our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions reached CHF 33 620, representing growth of +14% compared to August.

That means our MRR has now passed the CHF 30 000 mark – faster than ever before.

It took us 16 months to reach our first CHF 10 000 in MRR (May 2021). Growth then slowed: it took another 40 months to pass the CHF 20 000 mark (September 2024). Now, just 12 months later, we’ve exceeded CHF 30 000.

We’re proud of this progress – made possible by bold and thoughtful decisions from our leadership, the creativity and dedication of our team, and the trust and satisfaction of our customers.

The number of active customers increased from 186 to 189 in September, with a churn rate of 0%.

Consulting revenue reached a strong CHF 13 471. In consulting, we’ve now hit a (high) plateau that we can only expand with additional team resources. That’s something we’re planning – although our main strategic focus is on growing our software revenue and partnering with reliable agencies.

Total revenue in September was CHF 47 091 – up +15% from the previous month.

Costs: Increasing our donation percentage

We paid higher salary costs again in September. Our freelance Analytics consultant Peter Boehlke was involved in several projects and billed more hours this month.

(A small correction to last month’s report: Stefan’s gross salary has not yet reached CHF 3 862, as previously stated, but is currently CHF 3 450. The CHF 3 862 shown in the far-right column of the cost table includes our employer contributions.)

In the product area, we added a new backup server. Costs related to team culture, events, admin, and marketing changed only slightly.

September also marked the final write-off from our rebranding project – and our new website is almost ready to go live! We’re excited to share it soon. You can already see a small preview from our outstanding designer Nicolas Previdoli on LinkedIn.

As our revenue has grown significantly over the past year, we’ve recalculated our donation percentage and increased our monthly contributions from CHF 391 to CHF 535.

We now donate CHF 130 each (up from 80 CHF) to SWISSAID, Swiss Food Bank, and the Swiss Refugee Council.

In our early years, we weren’t yet able to fully meet our 1%-of-revenue donation commitment. That’s why our current donation percentage includes a small monthly amount to reduce this historical deficit. To accelerate the process, we’ve also decided to provide one-time, larger support for Mautic, the open-source project behind Friendly Automate.

Total expenses in September were CHF 39 086 – up +8% from August.

Here are all our costs including salaries for September 2025 in detail:

Conclusion

We closed September with a strong profit* of CHF 8 005 and a profit margin of 17%. Our average monthly margin for 2025 now stands at 12.8%.

Thanks to this steady growth, we’re planning a round of salary adjustments in October – more on that in our next Open Startup Report.

And we’re preparing to expand our team – keep an eye on our career page, where we’ll soon publish a new opening.

* Friendly has fully recovered its early-stage losses as of June 2025. Our monthly profit now only comes with the caveat that Stefan, our founder, still isn’t paying himself a full salary for his work – we’re working on it.

Der Beitrag 30 000 CHF MRR! Sharing the Growth: Open Startup Report September 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

August at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 29 452 CHF (+6%)
• Consulting revenue: 11 677 CHF (+12%)
• Total revenue: 41 129 CHF (+7%)
• Costs: 36 063 CHF (+3%)
• Profit: 5 066 CHF (+55%)
• Profit margin: 12.3%  (+44%)
• Active customers: 186 (-3%)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 2.6% (n/a)
• Website visits: 2 303 (-7%)

These were the key developments in August:

Revenues: Strong growth in software and consulting

In 2025, we’ve been able to significantly accelerate our software revenue growth – from an average of +1.8% per month in 2024 to an average of +3.7% per month so far in 2025.

In August, we performed even better: our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions rose by a solid +6% to CHF 29 452.

And that’s despite a relatively high churn rate of 2.6% – with five fewer active customers compared to July.

This growth is primarily driven by new enterprise customers, for whom we’ve been expanding our capacity since spring (as reported in our April update). We’re pleased with this development and continuing to pursue this strategy.

Consulting revenue also grew significantly, up +12% to CHF 11 677. August projects included the setup of a larger enterprise instance, various custom solutions, analytics implementations, newsletter design work, and customer training sessions.

Our consulting clients included a business association, a pharmaceutical company, several insurance providers, a vehicle manufacturer, a hospital, a fintech startup, an international non-profit, and an e-commerce retailer.

Working with companies and organizations from such a wide range of industries continues to be an exciting and rewarding challenge each month.

Our total revenue in August grew by a healthy +7% to CHF 41 129.

Costs: Stefan’s salary nearly at CHF 4 000, cost increase remains moderate

Thanks to the positive business performance, we were able to raise Stefan’s salary again in August. His nominal workload is now 30%, and his salary increased from CHF 3 218 in July to CHF 3 862.

At the beginning of 2025, we had set a goal to raise Stefan’s monthly salary to CHF 4 000 by the end of the year. That felt like an ambitious goal at the time: Stefan didn’t take any salary at all during our first four years in business, and his symbolic salary of CHF 500 remained unchanged for nine months (from April 2024 to December 2024).

It wasn’t until January 2025 that we began steadily increasing his salary with a clear focus. We didn’t expect to come this close to our goal already in August. Now it’s looking very likely that we’ll not only reach but exceed it in 2025.

We also payed a higher compensation for our analytics expert Peter Boehlke in August, as he worked more hours for us.

Product and admin costs remained stable, while event and marketing expenses declined slightly.

In total, our August expenses amounted to CHF 36 063 – a moderate increase of 3% compared to the previous month.

Here are all our costs including salaries for August 2025 in detail:

Conclusion

In August, we recorded another solid profit* of CHF 5 066 with a profit margin of 12.3%.

Our average monthly profit margin for 2025 so far is also exactly 12.3%.

That puts us well on track to hit – or even exceed – our second financial goal for 2025: achieving a stable monthly margin of 12%, compared to 9.2% in 2024 and 3.3% in 2023.

We’re excited to see what the coming months bring.

* Since June 2025, Friendly has fully offset its cumulative early-stage losses. Our monthly profit now only comes with the caveat that Stefan, our founder, still isn’t paying himself a full salary for his work – we’re working on it.

Der Beitrag Our goals are within reach: Open Startup Report August 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

July at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 27 834 CHF (+0.3%)
• Consulting revenue: 10 436 CHF (-46%)
• Total revenue: 38 270 CHF (-19%)
• Costs: 34 991 CHF (+4%)
• Profit: 3 279 CHF (-76%)
• Profit margin: 8.6%  (-70%)
• Active customers: 191 (–)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 0.0% (-100%)
• Website visits: 2 468 (-3%)

These were the key developments in July:

Revenues: Solid levels in MRR and consulting

Our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions increased slightly by +0.3% to CHF 27 834.

Consulting revenue dropped by -46% to CHF 10 436 – but only after the exceptional spike of CHF 19 403 in June. Compared to May (CHF 10 778), July was in line with expectations.

Consulting projects in July included custom development of a Mautic plugin, the setup of an enterprise instance, analytics optimizations, and Automate training sessions.

So after a record month in June, July marks a return to normal operations – with stable revenue, consistent MRR, and a steady customer base.

We see this as a success: Last year in July 2024, we were in the middle of a summer slump. This year, despite vacation absences, we managed to maintain solid numbers.

Our total revenue in July was CHF 38 270 – down -19% from June, but up +8% compared to May.

We’re back to sustainable, day-to-day business.

Costs: Slight increase in payroll costs

Our payroll costs rose by just over CHF 1 000 in July. This increase was mainly due to overtime by our developer Matic Zagmajster, who hasn’t been mentioned much in previous reports. Matic played a key role in the delivery of the above-mentioned plugin project, which brought substantial value to our customer – and we’re happy to recognize his contribution here.

For the second month in a row, we expanded our server capacity, which resulted in slightly higher product-related costs.

Marketing, events, admin and donation expenses remained largely unchanged.

In total, our costs amounted to CHF 34 991 in July – a 4% increase again over the previous month.

Here are all our costs including salaries for July 2025 in detail:

Conclusion

Our profit* for July came in at a solid CHF 3 279, with a profit margin of 8.6%.

After June’s high-flying profit of CHF 13 598, July might feel modest – but this is where our strength lies: We’re focused on sustainable growth, not quick wins.

July brought us back to the ground – but onto solid, healthy ground.

* Since June 2025, Friendly has fully offset its cumulative early-stage losses. Our monthly profit now only comes with the caveat that Stefan, our founder, still isn’t paying himself a full salary for his work.

Der Beitrag After an exceptional month – back to normal business: Open Startup Report July 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

June at Friendly in numbers

• Software revenue: 27 754 CHF (+12%)
• Consulting revenue: 19 403 CHF (+80%)
• Total revenue: 47 157 CHF (+33%)
• Costs: 33 559 CHF (+4%)
• Profit: 13 598 CHF (+316%)
• Profit margin: 28.8%  (+213%)
• Active customers: 191 (+1%)
• Churn Rate (lost customers): 1.1% (n/a)
• Website visits: 2 550 (+6%)

From red to black: Friendly reports first cumulative profit

June 2025 marks a milestone in the history of Friendly: for the first time since our founding, our total result over the entire business period is in the black. While we’ve been consistently profitable month after month for more than a year now, the losses from our early days hadn’t yet been fully offset.

To make Friendly possible during those initial, loss-making years, our founder Stefan Vetter had invested not only his time but also personal funds and borrowed money from friends. That makes this moment all the more meaningful – for the company, and also for Stefan personally.

Closing the chapter on early losses means a lot to me. The trust and patience have paid off. I’m proud of what we’re building together.

Stefan Vetter, Founder and CEO of Friendly

Here’s a full overview of our business figures from 2020 until today:

	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025 until June
TRR	26 823 CHF	117 391 CHF	156 327 CHF	188 691 CHF	234 589 CHF	146 885 CHF
Consulting	0	0	18 385 CHF	90 313 CHF	122 191 CHF	70 089 CHF
Annual Revenue	26 823 CHF	117 391 CHF	174 712 CHF	279 004 CHF	356 780 CHF	220 974 CHF
Costs	-52 672 CHF	-133 038 CHF	-205 736 CHF	-266 038 CHF	-321 850 CHF	-190 368 CHF
Annual profit/loss	-25 849 CHF	-15 647 CHF	-31 024 CHF	+12 966 CHF	+34 930 CHF	+30 606 CHF
Total profit/loss	-25 849 CHF	-41 496 CHF	-72 520 CHF	-59 554 CHF	-24 625 CHF	+5 981 CHF

It was the record-breaking numbers in June that made us cross that line.

Revenues: Record results in MRR and consulting

After our major business decision in April to pause new Automate subscriptions, our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) from software subscriptions initially plateaued, just as expected.

In the meantime, we used part of the freed-up capacity to focus on acquiring new enterprise clients – and it paid off. In June, our MRR jumped by 12% – the highest growth rate we’ve ever recorded – reaching CHF 27 754.

This positive momentum also affected our consulting revenue, which rose by a remarkable 80% to a record high of CHF 19 403.

Major projects included setting up an enterprise instance, developing custom solutions for an insurance company, and hosting several analytics training sessions.

Our total revenue thus increased from CHF 35 515 in May by 33% to CHF 47 157 in June.

Costs: Another salary increase for Stefan

Thanks to the strong revenue development, we increased Stefan’s salary again in June – now CHF 2 875 gross for a 25% nominal workload. We’re on a solid path to reaching our goal of CHF 4 000 per month for Stefan by the end of the year.

His increased salary, along with higher compensation for our freelancer Peter Boehlke, led to increased personnel costs.

In marketing, commission payments were higher, and we continued the amortization for our upcoming Friendly rebranding (here’s a small preview).

Our hosting costs also rose slightly due to an upgrade in server capacity. On the other hand, a major amortization ended in June, so overall product-related costs went down slightly.

Since we held this year’s team retreat in Lavaux a bit earlier than last year’s, the amortizations for both retreats overlap for two months. Still, overall expenses for events and team culture decreased slightly.

Administration and donations remained unchanged.

This brings our total costs for June to CHF 33 559, an increase of 4% compared to the previous month.

Here are all our costs including salaries for June 2025 in detail:

Conclusion

June closed with the highest monthly profit* in our company’s history: CHF 13 598, a 316% increase compared to May.

Our profit margin reached 28.8%.

We’re aware that this level of performance won’t necessarily be sustainable in the coming months – consulting volume tends to fluctuate, and several team members have vacations planned in July.

Still: we’re enjoying this moment.

And finally! We can’t fully retire our disclaimer just yet – but we can shorten it:

* “Profit” with the restriction that Stefan does not yet pay himself a full salary for his work and, as the sole founder without investors, still has to make up for the loss so far.

Der Beitrag Record month and turning point – Friendly hits cumulative profit: Open Startup Report June 2025 erschien zuerst auf Friendly.

It’s a chance to take a short break together from our everyday work, which we spend in places we choose ourselves: Stefan in the beautiful Swiss Thurgau, Luke in Nussbaumen near Baden, Luki in Lucerne, Kathrin in Bern, and Joey in Budapest.

During our retreat, we spend a weekend together in real life – with meaningful conversations, delicious meals, and relaxed shared experiences.

This year, we had a special reason to celebrate: 5 years of Friendly!

To mark the occasion, we met in early June 2025 among the vineyards of Lavaux, on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Lavaux: Vineyards with a View

Lavaux is one of the most impressive wine regions in Switzerland – and perhaps one of the most beautiful in Europe. Stretching between Lausanne and Montreux, the area covers around 800 hectares of terraced vineyards cascading down to Lake Geneva.

Since 2007, Lavaux has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site – not only for its natural beauty but also for the centuries-old cultural landscape shaped with great care by generations of winemakers.

The region is best known for its Chasselas grape, which yields light, mineral white wines. But you’ll also find expressive reds here, especially Pinot Noir. And Lavaux offers more than just wine: Narrow villages with charming stone houses, historic wineries, and spectacular views of the lake and alps make this a truly magical place.

The Open Wine Cellars

Every year over Pentecost weekend, dozens of winemakers in the canton of Vaud open their doors and invite the public to taste their wines. With a tasting glass in hand, you can walk from village to village through the vineyards, stopping at participating wineries along the way. Friendly hosts, regional specialties, music – and of course, plenty of exciting wines await.

The Caves Ouvertes attract many visitors every year – not just from the region: As we heard from our hotel, some guests even travel all the way from the US just for this weekend.

The welcoming atmosphere of the event, combined with the extraordinary landscape right on the lake, makes the Open Wine Cellars of Vaud an experience known far beyond Switzerland.

The perfect occasion to toast to five years of Friendly.

Off to a Refreshing Start

From the moment I got on the train, everything was organized. It felt great – I felt very well taken care of.

Lukas Frei, our Customer Happiness Manager

For Stefan, Luki, and Luke, the retreat got off to a relaxed start – with coffee in the train’s dining car and views of the passing Swiss countryside. Once in Lausanne, Luke took on the role of tour guide and showed us a few of his favorite spots in the city before we refueled with excellent burgers at Green Van.

After checking into the Hotel Rivage Lutry, we headed straight to the lake – a dip in the cold water was the perfect refreshment after the journey.

The start was great – Luke showed us Lausanne, we had burgers, and went swimming in the lake.

Stefan Vetter, our CEO

Kathrin joined us in the afternoon, and we ended the day together at Bleu Lézard – with good food, happy conversations, and excitement for the weekend ahead.

One small downside: Joey unfortunately couldn’t join this year’s retreat due to family reasons.

Fine Wining by the Lake

On Saturday, after a generous breakfast, we set off for our vineyard hike. From Lutry, we took a beautifully restored paddle steamer across Lake Geneva to Rivaz. The ride itself was already a highlight.

In Rivaz, we visited the Lavaux Vinorama and watched Une Année Vigneronne – a powerful documentary about the winegrowing year (trailer). It showed us just how much craftsmanship and manual labor goes into each bottle of wine.

We then set off on foot through the vineyards, following the route from wegwandern.ch.

Just above Rivaz, we stumbled across a small, standalone hut in the vineyards and met Madame Dubois from Didier Imhof Wines. She welcomed us warmly and invited us to taste her wines. The red Malbec – a new grape variety for the region – stood out: bold, with subtle barrel-aged notes. It was Kathrin’s favorite.

We continued through the picturesque slopes toward Epesses. The weather was kind to us – it never rained while we were on the road, only during breaks.

That was the case at Clos des Moines, right by the trail, where we found shelter just in time. Under the canopy, with wine, cheese, chocolate, and the sound of alphorns, waiting out the rain turned out to be a perfect little interlude.

We passed quickly through the village of Epesses – it was very busy – and continued toward Riex in high spirits and with lively conversation.

It was great to see almost the whole team in person again. We had deep conversations about Friendly, current developments, and future plans. It felt good to speak so openly and directly.

Lukas Sigel, our COO & CCO

A bit further up, in Chenaux, we discovered Domaine Badoux-Parisod – a small, welcoming winery with expressive red wines. We sat in the garden with a view over the vineyards, enjoyed the wines – and treated ourselves to raisin ice cream. Of course.

Full of impressions, we strolled back through the vineyards around Grandvaux and Aran toward Lutry, tasting a few more wines along the way and enjoying the conversations, the old paths, and our constant companion to the left: the calm lake.

My takeaway from the wine hike: It’s worth starting early – the winegrowers have more time to talk to you. I especially enjoyed the small, tucked-away wine cellars right in the vineyards – away from the busy villages.

Kathrin Schmid, our CMO & CISO

Tired and content, we arrived back in Lutry. After a short rest at the hotel, we headed out to dinner at Wagyu, a Japanese steakhouse right on the harbor. We enjoyed sushi, hot pot, and steak and enjoyed a relaxed end to our retreat.

My memory of the retreat: very beautiful area, great views, great conversations. A truly enjoyable experience.

Stefan Vetter, our CEO

We’re proud of how far we’ve come with Friendly – and excited about the years to come.

Behind the Scenes: The Bill

At Friendly, we cover all retreat costs for our team members. And, as always, we open our books and share what the retreat cost us this year.

Here are all expenses for our 2025 retreat, including travel, accommodation, food, and activities:

Der Beitrag 5 Years of Friendly! Our Team Retreat No. 5 in Lavaux erschien zuerst auf Friendly.