By Tony Harcourt | The Startup Founders Club
Introduction
Some founders chase unicorn valuations. Others chase real problems. Alex Millar is firmly in the second camp. As co-founder of Hudled and Rechargely, he’s helped businesses take control of their software spending—first by helping them track it, then by helping accounting firms manage it at scale.
Alex’s journey took him through VC funding, product pivots, scrappy MVPs, and hard conversations with himself and his team. In this conversation, we dig into what he’s learned, what he got wrong, and what he wishes more SaaS founders would take seriously.
Starting Hudled in the Middle of a Storm
In 2020, while the rest of the world was grinding to a halt, Alex joined Antler’s startup accelerator and met his co-founder through a Facebook post. He’d just sold a childcare sharing startup—perfect timing, as it turned out, because lockdowns made the business model unworkable.
What emerged from the Antler program was Hudled: a platform to help companies track and manage their software subscriptions. As an accountant by training, Alex saw firsthand how quickly businesses could lose visibility over what tools they were paying for—and what they were actually using.
The early version of Hudled pulled data from Xero and gave businesses a simple dashboard: which subscriptions they had, what they were spending, and when payments were due. “Everyone’s had that moment,” he told me, “where you realise you’re still paying for something you forgot about.”
Initially, Hudled was aimed at finance leaders inside growing startups. The team believed that if they could just make subscription management more visible, teams would quickly find ways to cut waste and optimise their stack. And for many, it worked. But the early days weren’t smooth sailing.
A Thoughtful, Cautious Approach to VC
Hudled started with backing from Antler, but Alex and his team went on to raise almost $1M across follow-on rounds. Still, he’s cautious when talking about VC.
“There are fewer and fewer businesses that are truly venture-scale,” he said. Unless you’ve got a clear path to a billion-dollar outcome within 7–10 years, it’s likely not the right fit.
The real cost? Time and focus. “Fundraising takes you away from customers. It’s easy to burn months pitching instead of building.”
He’s not anti-VC. But he believes it’s only worth pursuing if your business model, market, and team can support the aggressive growth those investors are looking for. If not? You’re better off keeping things lean and sustainable.
His advice? Think hard before raising. And if you don’t need to—don’t.
Community Before Product
One of the smartest things the Hudled team did was to build a Slack community of finance leaders before they wrote a line of code.
What started as a 15-person group quickly became something larger. “People started helping each other,” Alex said. “We didn’t talk about Hudled. We just created value.”
That community turned into their early funnel. They ran in-person meetups. They built goodwill. And when Hudled finally launched, the audience was warm.
“It opened so many doors for us,” he said. “And it made everything—from outbound to onboarding—way easier.”
They also discovered that when customers see you as part of their community—not just someone selling into it—they’re more likely to open up. Product feedback flows more freely. Feature requests are more thoughtful. And customer relationships are stronger from day one.
What They Got Wrong
Despite the traction, Hudled had a key issue: users weren’t paying enough.
“We confused usage with product-market fit,” Alex told me. “There was adoption, but the monetisation wasn’t strong. That led to roadmap decisions that didn’t align with what we needed to hit our next milestones.”
Instead of doubling down on what drove revenue, they talked about transaction volume and network effects—metrics that sounded good but didn’t tie directly to sustainable growth.
Alex is brutally honest about it. “It’s easy to feel further along than you really are,” he said. “But if you’re not being honest about where you are, you’re building on shaky ground.”
That realisation led to a major pivot.
The Birth of Rechargely
The real pivot came when Alex noticed something odd in how accounting firms were managing client software spend. Firms with 20 staff were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually—but hiding large parts of that cost from internal systems.
“They were paying for software on behalf of clients—but not tracking it properly, and not billing it back,” Alex said. That inefficiency created an opportunity.
Rechargely was born.
This time, the team did things differently. Before writing a line of code, they validated pricing. “We asked them to commit to paying double what they were paying us for Hudled,” Alex said. “They said yes. That told us everything we needed to know.”
They also built the product in close partnership with those early firms. “They were paying for it before it launched. That’s the best signal you can get.”
A Sharper Product and a More Focused Team
Compared to Hudled, Rechargely had a clearer scope.
“We weren’t trying to do everything,” Alex said. “Just one key flow. That clarity changed everything—fewer internal debates, faster product decisions, and better customer outcomes.”
The team focused on two metrics: revenue and billable usage. Everything else was secondary.
Even the product roadmap became simpler. “If it didn’t help more firms manage more billable clients, we didn’t build it.”
The shift wasn’t just tactical—it was cultural. With a more defined customer problem and a clearer commercial path, the team operated with more alignment and less stress.
Founders Should Understand the Tech
Alex isn’t a developer. But he works next to them every day.
“You don’t need to write code,” he told me. “But you need to understand how the system works. You should know what the tables look like, how the data is structured, and what JSON means.”
That knowledge has been crucial in both companies. It helps him make better product decisions, ask smarter questions, and earn the respect of the engineering team.
“If you want to lead a SaaS company, you need to learn just enough tech to be dangerous.”
He also points out how the landscape is changing. “With AI tools, prompt engineering, and low-code platforms, there’s less excuse than ever to be completely non-technical.”
What He’d Do Differently (Next Time)
“If we built Rechargely today,” Alex said, “we’d probably do it differently again. AI has changed so much in the last year. And we’d be even more ruthless about saying no to customer requests that aren’t aligned.”
His point? You can’t build for everyone. “If you want to go fast, find the customers who match your thesis—and ignore the rest.”
Alex is also more intentional now about building features around monetisation. “You don’t get infinite cycles. If the feature doesn’t help us make money or retain users, it probably doesn’t make the cut.”
Founder Insights: Three Big Lessons
As we wrapped up, I asked Alex the same three questions we ask every guest.
1. What’s the biggest misconception first-time SaaS founders have?
“They think building is easy. But the last 10% of any product takes forever. And if you interrupt engineers too much, you make it even worse.”
2. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made?
“Believing we were further along than we were. You’ve got to be honest about revenue, usage, and retention. If you don’t face the data, you’ll make bad bets.”
3. What advice would you give every founder?
“Talk to your customers. Always. As a founder, people will open up to you in a way they never would to a rep or AE. That’s your edge—use it.”
Final Thoughts
Alex Millar didn’t set out to build a viral unicorn. He set out to fix a broken part of modern business—and built two real companies doing exactly that.
If you’re in the trenches of SaaS, wondering whether to raise, pivot, or rebuild—Alex’s journey offers something better than a blueprint. It offers perspective.
- Start with a real problem.
- Validate with real money.
- Track metrics that actually matter.
- And always—always—talk to your customers.
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