A second-time French founder walked into 20 factories, got 19 nos, and turned the one yes into eight separate software companies doing €2.2M a year across 180 factory sites — sold almost entirely through 100 tiny consultancies on commission
€1.6M run rate the year before · 180 factory sites live across a little over 80 client companies · €15K–€75K per site per year · 8 separate software lines/companies inside one studio · net revenue retention around +30% in-cohort · exactly 1 churned site out of 180 · raised €6M at €24M pre / €30M post, after putting in €800K of his own
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Renan Devillieres trained as an industrial economist, worked at the OECD, then consulted at McKinsey, co-founded a company in Brazil and sold his shares in it to Google Ventures. That exit money became the seed of OSS Ventures, which he started around 2019 with one thesis: factories bought a lot of software 30 years ago — he points out IBM made serious money selling to manufacturers — and then stopped. The installed base aged into what he calls the innovator's dilemma, Tesla proved software could touch every part of making things, and nobody in between was serving mid-market plants. His read on why: "nobody tech goes to factories and nobody from the factory is good to tech." He sized the gap at about €90 billion in Europe alone and more than €400 billion worldwide for manufacturing software. The first customer came from brute force. He went to 20 factories, pitched them on building good software for factories, and got one yes against nineteen nos. In 2019 the company finished at a €1.6M run rate. By the February of the interview it was €2.2M annualised, across 180 deployed factory sites and a little over 80 client companies, split into eight distinct software lines each run as its own company with its own team. He had raised €6M on a €24M pre-money valuation after investing €800K of his own — money he says he negotiated out of his wife, who allowed him 25% of everything they had, "and so I went with more." The stated goal was to double every year, to about €3.2M by that December.
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Create free accountEmail code only. No password.Data credibility: Founder interview on a rapid-fire SaaS podcast; every figure is self-reported with no dashboard, screenshot or third-party source shown, and none of it is audited. Founder-stated: €2.2M annualised revenue (he says "2.2 million euro per year" — the interviewer repeatedly says "dollar," so treat the currency as euros per the founder and note the ambiguity), €1.6M the prior year, 180 deployed factory sites, a little over 80 clients, €15K–€75K per site per year, 8 software lines, ~20 studio staff plus 50+ across the companies, ~35 engineers, 6 salespeople, ~100 value-added resellers paid commission in 12 months at 10–40% of first year, ~+30% in-cohort net revenue retention, 1 churned site out of 180, a €6M raise at €24M pre / €30M post, and €800K of his own capital. The fundraise valuation is described as floating with performance rather than fixed, so "€24M pre" is not a settled number. Market-size claims (~€90B Europe, >€400B worldwide) and the assertion that SAP's NPS in manufacturing is 4 are his, unsourced. The claim that SAP's quarterly reports show "minus 5% R&D, plus 5% M&A every quarter" is his characterisation, not a citation. Names are shaky in the auto-captions: the guest is introduced as Renan Devillieres and later transcribed as "Renault"; "Aisle Planner"-style garbles appear throughout. No revenue split per software line, no gross margin, no burn and no customer-acquisition cost are given, so profitability is unknown.