Josh Haynam grew up in the Central Valley of California just 100 miles from the tech center of Silicon Valley without any awareness of tech jobs or tech businesses when he lived there. He was a successful high school entrepreneur who supported himself through his college years with a digital SEO agency. Their experiments with custom website quizzes showed promising results, so Josh and his cofounder friends started a company to build the first lead-generation online quizzes as a standalone plugin for websites.
Interact quizzes showed promise with great customer value, but they struggled to sell their new solution to small business owners or marketers who had never seen quiz software before. They experimented, pivoted, and kept going for seven years before they finally reached $1 million ARR with some profits. The ups and downs continued with well-funded competitors, COVID booms and busts, target market pivots, and more.
Interact now is profitable and growing with nearly $3 million in annual recurring revenues, 11 remote employees, and thousands of customers—still without any outside equity funding. Every day, users complete millions of Interact quizzes on their customers’ websites.
Best quote from Josh:
“I think the biggest thing that I’ve been learning, especially of late, related to resilience and all these things, is not getting too up or too down. The situation we’re in right now looks incredibly positive, but it could change again.Â
“So I take it in stride and I’m going to enjoy this for what it is but not hold onto it because it might change and then things can go downhill. And so, appreciating what I have now, but not getting too attached to this continuing forever.
“This is why it is so important to have the other things we do like the four-day workweek and have your life going on. Because if you’re all in and that’s all you do, you can burn out like crazy. I’ve done that many times.”
In this episode, Josh explains:
- How his high-school and college entrepreneurial adventures lead him and his cofounders to create a new category of online quizzes for lead generation
- Why it took Interact 7 years to get to $1 million ARR and be profitable and sustainable
- The challenges of creating a new category with a new thing that their customers didn’t understand yet
- How they are using AI to help their quiz creation team members improve productivity and quiz quality
- Why they don’t use shady lead-generation and user-tracking tactics in their software at all
- What they wish they never had the influx of bigger customers during COVID that weren’t a good fit for the Interact solution
Interact Company Facts
- Founded:Â 2014
- Employees:Â 11
- Description: Interact has helped over 150,000 customers improve their hyper-personalized marketing nurture campaigns with smarter product recommendations and high-velocity lead generation.
- Funding: Self-funded with a minor small business loan that he paid off
- Headquarters: Josh lives in the San Francisco area and his team is remote
