Startup Instant Brings CMS To Custom Built Websites

Describe Instant in 50 words or less.

Instant brings content management to custom built websites. By adding our script to your existing website, anyone in your company with an account can edit texts and change images directly on the page itself.

How did you discover the need for this content management system? What problem are you solving?

My co-founder Sander and myself have been working together at several startups. At each of those, we experienced the same problem: within the scope of custom software development, content management is a big pain.

A regular CMS is great for simple websites, but hardly useful when programming innovative applications. As a result, in custom software every text update – yes, even the smallest correction of a typo – usually requires a developer. Therefore, content management can become very expensive over time.

Without any proper solutions available on the market, we decided to create our own service that would solve the issue once and for all.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

We are a SaaS company, so our KPI is the number of active accounts. However, success is not just measured in numbers. To us it is also important to create something that people actually like and cherish. We very much value the feedback of our users and we strongly believe that their hapiness is an indicator of our success.

In order not to loose track of our main goal, namely become the #1 alternative to conventional CMSs, we use several tools to keep track of our progress. When prioritizing a new feature, we ask ourselves the following two questions: “Will this feature attract new users? And will it facilitate the life of our current users?”

Bootstrapped or financed: What fuels your startup now and what will in the future?

We started this company in April 2016, when we got selected for the Rockstart Accelerator Program in Amsterdam. For now, Rockstart is our only investor, but we are in the midst of closing an Angel seed round, which should give us enough runway to get to the end of 2017 – by then we will be profitable and we’ll use funding as a way to scale faster.

What were the biggest challenges you faced building your startup?

Our biggest challenge is to figure out how to grow our user base really fast, keep them active and convert them into paying users.

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

We stand out by doing something that hasn’t been done before and by doing it in a way that is technologically outstanding. We get a lot of attention through writing blog posts about our unique

serverless architecture and people who read about our approach to server architecture, are also curious to find out more about our approach to content management.

What do you look for in team members?

We hire smart, ambitious people who are kind and have good personalities. It is often more important to have someone on your team who gets along really well with others and is eager to learn, than someone who is very experienced, but doesn’t really understand your company culture. Always be nice – that’s our motto.

Why would a talent join your team?

We are two experienced founders who know how to run a successful startup. We try to create a relaxed working environment that is a combination of both, fun and serious business. We hope to attract people who grow with us and who value the opportunities and the freedom we offer them as their employer.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

Developing this service to scratch our own itch, getting hundreds of users to sign up and suddenly ending up as a real company in Amsterdam’s greatest accelerator program.

7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

In a few years, static sites built using static site generators, reactJs or just plain HTML, will be the standard in web development. Ipso facto, Instant will be the standard tool for adding content management to a static website.

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

Just do it. Having the guts to start a company is actually the hardest part, not running it.

 

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