Semrush IPO: Founders Letter

60 years of dreaming between two people

Dmitri and I have known each other for 30 years. Everything we do together encapsulates the essence of dreams. The beauty of being a dreamer is that you never get tired of it. You start dreaming as a child and you continue to do so for the rest of your life. Despite dreams being different, they all move you further along your journey — big or small. Subconsciously the success we achieve in life is a function of our dreams.

Marketing for dreamers

We used to dream of inventing a program to solve problems so complex that solving them could change the world. Like most kids, we spent our time dreaming but never could have imagined that one day it would turn into a reality. Who would have thought our toolkit would be a cog that could turn the wheel of digital marketing? Or that over 900 employees would one day work together with us. And that the concept of online visibility would be something so unique yet so in demand — not only for us, but for seven million users worldwide that have explored Semrush during the 12 years of its existence. 

Solving the solution

The nature of marketing is constantly evolving. We believe that everyone is a marketer or is on their way to become one — whether they know it or not. In the beginning, we envisaged Semrush as the ultimate tool for ourselves — simply to solve our needs. Yet due to demand, we converted it into a product that marketers rely on to help them achieve their own dreams — online recognition for their most valuable target audience. 

Semrush lives in parallel with the world of marketing — this is a great place to be for organic growth, development, new metrics and channels.

A platform beyond our wildest dreams

Over the past 12 years we developed different tools — so many that users actually started referring to us as the ‘Swiss Army knife of SEO tools.’ 

But dreams lead us, right? We decided to build upon the tools we originally created, to go above and beyond to create a complete platform for marketers. After raising only $37 million in capital since our founding in 2008, we now serve over 67,000 paying customers in over 142 countries as of December 31, 2020. Our compelling value proposition, effective go-to-market strategy, and recurring revenue model drives efficient unit economics, and our capital efficient model enabled us to grow to over $144 million in ARR as of December 31, 2020.

Who we are if we stop? 

We dream that in the future, marketing is not an overly difficult profession. We believe it should be a skill that is accessible to everyone, much like the skill of using the Microsoft Word or Excel. 

We envision that artificial intelligence and automation will empower people to innovate which will lead to an explosive growth in goods and services. Marketers will need to figure out how to talk about these innovations, through what channels and to which audiences. Semrush is here to help our users achieve those measurable results.

In years to come, our dream is about 1 billion marketers who will better understand: Who their audience is, their key interests, how to best interact, as well as analyse and predict consumer trends. Who we are if we stop dreaming? 

So many dreams ahead.
We invite you to dream with us.

Oleg and Dmitri.