'Archbee is Built Out of Frustration with Available Tools': Startup Interview with Dragos Bulugean

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.

I have 10+ years of experience as a software architect and tech consultant. Until recently, I solo bootstrapped Archbee after an attempt to build a product as an intrapreneur. In 2015, I tried to start an internal business, more precisely an AI sales prediction software for big fast-food chains. I built an impressive MVP, but I didn't have the skills or the knowledge of what it means to sell to large companies. That's when I realized that the best thing is to build something where I understand the end-user: software developers. For the last 5+ years, I've been following what happens in the startup world, and I envisioned building the next unicorn 🦄.

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

Archbee is a docs tool for software and product teams and solves an unsexy problem, but critical: software documentation. Archbee is built out of frustration with available tools, and we focus on engineering people's needs. It started as an internal tool for software documentation. Still, it expanded, and now it's a CMS & hosting platform for a product, developer, and API docs with the power of team async doc collaboration. It's a unified platform where technical people can work together along with design, sales, or marketing teams.

What is the origin story?

The origin story starts with a problem I also had. While consulting tech companies, I realized that whenever more than ten people implement a project, most teams need to write documentation because the slows down the development process. Most of the knowledge management solutions out there are generic — a catch-all for all the teams in a company. Software teams have been using Confluence or Slite, but these don't bring much more than Google Docs.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

I tried to build a team with people that are complementary to each other. A startup needs people who understand the scrappy mentality and know-how to get from A to B by their own research. For example, each team member must spend at least 10% of their time doing customer service. We started with a backend dev, a front-end dev, and a growth marketer, looking to expand similarly. We all work remotely, and we try to be asynchronous.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

I’d be working for a startup, or start an eSports team.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Our customers are the ones that measure our success, and it shows in the metrics. With a 100% self-service model, Archbee has been growing on average by 15% MoM, and when we get a new customer, they stick and expand with an NRR of 100%+.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

We started with a Product-Led-Growth model, and I knew I was on something when I launched on Product Hunt and got #1 Product of the Day with 0 marketing spend. The most exciting part is the qualitative feedback we get from our users. Most of the time, anecdotes are stronger than raw numbers: "Archbee makes building our docs enjoyable, and I'm a developer, so you know that's saying something" - this is the type of feedback we constantly get when people try our product.

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

Not excited about the technology itself, but the problems it could solve. It’s a means to an end.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

Not only myself, but the team reads HackerNoon. It is a no-brainer to share our story where intelligent people share and read stories.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Stop f***** around and build it.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

Good products always win, because the competition is a marathon with separate tracks and different time clocks.