Chad Stephens – You Can't Make Money From a Form
About Chad
Chad Stephens is a Melbourne Founder and angel investor. He co-founded 1Form with Chris Koch in 2006, which REA Group acquired in 2014, and then Fillr, which Rakuten acquired in 2020. He has made around 120 startup investments and is now building Formlytics, a data capture platform that uses links and QR codes.
Chad Stephens grew up in Bayside, walked out of two university degrees and was running a cafe in Brighton when he and his housemate Chris Koch started building ideas after hours. A venue search engine came first and didn't work. Then four of them tried to rent a house in Brighton, filled out the same paper application over and over, and that became 1Form.
Chad talks through funding it with maxed-out credit cards, a bank loan for a car they never bought and the sale of the cars they already had, then moving back home. He explains how they won over the property managers who shaped the product, the $5 button that finally made money, and a sale to REA Group that dropped from $17 million to $15 million a week before signing.
He also covers Fillr, which burned $300,000 a month, pivoted to mobile checkout for buy now, pay later apps, and sold to Rakuten after COVID derailed a Series B in March 2020. He finishes with three life lessons and a look at his next venture, Formlytics.
What's covered · 20 chapters
- 00:00Cold open: "You can't make money from a form"
- 00:43Welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Chad Stephens
- 02:24Growing up in Bayside, tennis dreams and the milk bar plan
- 04:30The black sheep of six kids, and running a cafe in Brighton
- 06:21VenueHQ, the first idea that didn't work
- 07:06Four blokes, one Brighton rental and the application that became 1Form
- 11:18Maxed-out credit cards, a car loan with no car, and moving back home
- 14:19Winning over property managers with no marketing budget
- 20:41Lunch in an empty restaurant and pitching the people behind Carsales
- 26:12The GFC, and the $5 button that finally made money
- 32:03Hiring, growing and the squiggly signature
- 36:13A team of five, 50% margins and testing the US
- 43:17Selling 1Form to REA Group: $17 million, then $15 million
- 47:55Fillr: burning $300,000 a month and pivoting to mobile checkout
- 51:57COVID, the Series B and selling to Rakuten
- 55:05Angel investing and building Formlytics
- 56:30Life lesson 1: if friends and family love your idea, pivot
- 58:45Life lesson 2: a blocked road is just a stop sign
- 1:00:44Life lesson 3: know your strengths, and who to partner with
- 1:03:06Closing thoughts + outro
Articles from this episode
How to sell to an industry that has never heard of you
1Form had no marketing budget and no reputation. Chad Stephens won property managers one at a time by building everything the best of them asked for.
Read article →How to monetise a free product you can't charge for
1Form couldn't charge tenants to apply, so Chad Stephens charged $5 to save their details. The first payment came in within an hour of going live.
Read article →When a big company says it will build your idea itself
REA Group told 1Form's founders it would build their idea itself. Eight years later it bought the company, and cut the price a week before signing.
Read article →