Startup Spotlight #98: Fisherman

Fisherman’s Automated Site Technology (FAST) is revolutionizing web development by creating faster, cheaper, and more effective business websites.

Mar 15, 2021

Latest F2F Case Study - Case Study: Finary's Product-Market Fit Journey Starts With 'Building For Yourself' To Build Something Useful For Others

I got the chance to speak with Ameet Kallarackal, co-founder and CEO of Fisherman, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.

Fisherman was founded by Ameet Kallarackal and Nick Loeper in 2018 with the mission of democratizing the web for small businesses. In late 2019, the two launched FAST (Fisherman Automated Site Technology) that could automatically build a complete website in under 5 minutes, and since then they’ve raised a seed round, hired their core team, and built thousands of websites for local businesses.

Kallarackal was previously on the founding team of Campus Insights, which provided user testing research to tech companies targeting college students. Campus Insights helped brands like Venmo, GoFundMe, and AirBnB better understand how to create and sell products for a young millennial audience, before eventually being acquired by Harvard Student Agencies. He also worked on the Product team at Blue Apron and as an Android developer based in Medellin, Colombia. He was a Gabelli Presidential Scholar at Boston College, where he studied Computer Science and Management. Outside of entrepreneurial ventures, he plays violin and soccer, and writes short story fiction.

Enter Your Email Below To Receive Startup Spotlights In Your Inbox 3X Per Week:

Startup Spotlight: Fisherman

Fisherman cofounders Ameet Kallarackal (left) and Nick Loeper (right).

Problem: An effective online presence is table stakes for small businesses to survive, but over 50% of them still don’t have a usable website. Many small business owners lack the time, money, or technical knowledge to pay an agency to run their web presence or do it themselves, so they’re at a massive disadvantage compared to larger businesses that have dedicated marketing & tech budgets and teams.

Market: We’re targeting the 14 million US-based independent small business owners that do not have a usable website, beginning with restaurants.

Solution: Our software automatically converts a business’s name and address into a complete, SEO-rich website in less than 5 minutes. Our team and software continue to maintain and update everything so that our clients can be successful online with 0 effort.

Team: Ameet is a second-time founder, primary responsibilities include managing Business Development, Customer Success, and Marketing, setting strategy, fundraising, and building organizational culture.

Recent Success:

Kallarackal: One thing we’ve been successful at is helping our restaurant clients stay open and busy through COVID. COVID has been a disaster for the restaurant industry as a whole, with well over 100k restaurants closing down because of the pandemic. In March 2020, we decided to make our services completely free for 6 months for any restaurant that needed a website. Hundreds of restaurants signed up, and we’ve seen less than 2% of them cancel each month. We’ve been able to help our clients drive significant web traffic and online ordering volume to most clients and keep hanging in there.

Recent Struggle:

Kallarackal: Restaurants have been scrambling to understand how to stay afloat through COVID and adjust to all the constantly shifting protocols. Fisherman is one of the core pieces of technology for these businesses, so clients often ask questions to our Customer Support team beyond websites and digital marketing. As a small team, the influx of support questions that came in this past year was at times difficult to handle, as we tried to balance the breadth and depth of demands. We’ve been able to expand our Customer Success team and build processes, but we always feel like we can do more to support our clients.

Founder Advice:

Kallarackal: One piece of advice I have for entrepreneurs is to think bigger. Running a company takes a tremendous amount of time and energy, and it can be easy to get stuck in the cycle of spending that energy on day to day needs rather than bigger picture items that move the needle or to focus on a business problem that is ultimately not as large as it initially seems. Especially in the early days when you don’t have a team and you’re responsible for a variety of functions, a lot of entrepreneurs can get stuck in the weeds. It’s critical to set aside time to consistently reassess market size and vision while incorporating new learnings from the day to day operations.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Kallarackal: Here are three founders you should check out next!

Branick Weix, Founder of Aryeo: Aryeo is a leading content management platform for the real estate industry.
Peter MacDonald, Founder of Wunderlite: Wunderite is a data exchange that aims to bring efficiency to the commercial insurance marketplace, transparency to stakeholders, and actionable insight to decision-makers.
Max Friedman, Founder of Givebutter: Givebutter is an online fundraising platform powering more than $100 million in donations per year for over 30,000 organizations and causes.

Who should I profile next? Leave your suggestion in the comments:

Why you should become a paid subscriber to Founder to Founder:

Get connected to elite tech entrepreneurs through in-depth Founder Case Studies
Receive exclusive documents crafted by top founders on how to build your company
Access a growing audience of venture capitalists, product managers, software engineers, and people passionate about technology
Hear real, raw experiences from entrepreneurs that you won’t see anywhere else

Previous F2F Case Studies:

Previous Startup Spotlights:

If you enjoyed this article, feel free to check out my other work on LinkedIn. Follow me on Twitter @fredsoda, on Medium @fredsoda, and on Instagram @fred_soda.