
How we doubled prices twice without losing customers | J.Y. Delmotte @BuddiesHR
From saas.unbound by Anna Nadeina
May 11, 2026 · 1h 0m · Season 6 · Episode 19
About this episode
J.Y. Delmotte discusses his experience with BuddiesHR, including pricing strategies and growth channels.
J.Y. Delmotte co-founded six startups, went through YC, and is now running BuddiesHR — a suite of Slack apps doing $56K MRR. In this one he gets unusually specific about what's working, what flopped, and what could kill the business. We get into the Slack Marketplace SEO play that captured 90%+ of inbound (and why it's nearly impossible to replicate now), what happened when he doubled the price twice, the existential risk of building on Slack, and the co-founder split that got lawyers involved. For SaaS founders thinking about growth channels, pricing leverage, and building a business that can actually be sold. In this episode: → The Slack Marketplace SEO play that captured 90%+ of inbound → Why doubling the price twice barely lost any customers → The platform risk of building on Slack — and the escape plan → Why 40 founder interviews shaped the roadmap before any code → The co-founder split that got lawyers involved → Selling KarmaLinks and TalkFluence: two acquisitions, smooth handoffs ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:05 — Introduction & Guest Background 1:18 — Why J.Y Built Buddies HR 2:00 — What Is Buddies HR? 4:14 — Platform Risk & Slack Dependency 14:18…
People in this episode
Host: Anna Nadeina
Guest: J.Y. Delmotte
Topics covered
- pricing strategy
- SaaS growth
- Slack apps
- startup challenges
- co-founder dynamics
- marketplace SEO
Keywords
- BuddiesHR
- pricing
- SaaS
- Slack Marketplace
- growth channels
- co-founder split
- acquisitions
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: BuddiesHR, Slack, KarmaLinks, TalkFluence, YC
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