28 January 2024
12 months in
A year ago we shipped Floree to our first three pilot tenants. Today there are 47 paying shops on the platform across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with AED 18M of GMV processed. Here's what worked, what didn't, and what we're building next.
What worked
- The FTA invoicing turned out to be the single most-cited reason shops switched to us. Three different tenants told us their previous POS was producing invoices the FTA had already rejected.
- Tax-invoice QR codes. Customers scan them. Shops print them on the receipt. Compliance teams love them. They're live ahead of the FTA's mandatory rollout.
- The wholesaler marketplace pilot. Closed alpha with 9 wholesalers; the shops on it placed 64% more wholesale spend than the control group, and saved 8% on average via the price-comparison view.
What didn't
- The first attempt at an AI marketing autopilot. We tried generating Instagram captions automatically; tenants didn't trust the output and turned it off. We're shipping v2 with stricter brand-voice constraints in Q1.
- A free tier. We launched a free Starter plan in May and reverted in September — the conversion to paid was 4%, far below the cost of supporting free users. Going forward Floree is paid from day one with a 14-day free trial.
What we're building next
- A native iOS app (the team is on it)
- The wholesaler marketplace going public
- A self-serve corporate portal so the customer's HR team places gift orders directly
- Stripe Connect for tenants who want to bypass net-30 entirely
Onwards. Year two starts now.