How Louis Ducruet Scaled Eprezto Into a $1M+ Online Insurance Company in Just 2 Years
In this interview, Louis Ducruet, Founder & CEO of Eprezto, shares how he built Central America’s first 100% digital insurance broker into a $1M+ business by eliminating friction and rebuilding trust in a low-trust market. From personally handling early customer support to using AI to scale operations, his journey shows you how focus, trust-driven growth, and relentless simplification can compound into sustainable revenue over time.
1. Tell us your name, your company name, and what your business does.
My name is Louis Ducruet, and I’m the Founder and CEO of Eprezto.
Eprezto is the first 100% digital insurance broker in Central America. We help people buy car and motorcycle insurance completely online, something that traditionally required paperwork, in-person visits, and a lot of friction.
The core problem we solve is simple: insurance in Latin America has historically been slow, confusing, and built on low trust. We wanted to make it fast, transparent, and digital, the way modern consumers expect.
2. What inspired you to start this business?
The inspiration came from seeing a huge market gap.
Insurance is essential, but the customer experience was stuck decades behind. People had to rely on agents, phone calls, and manual processes for something that should be simple.
The lightbulb moment was realizing that the problem wasn’t demand, it was access and trust. People weren’t avoiding insurance because they didn’t want it. They were avoiding it because the process was painful.
We believed that if we could digitize the subscription process and make it reliable, we could unlock an entire market.
3. Did you have a background in this industry before starting out?
I didn’t come from a traditional insurance background.
What helped most early on was my experience building digital products and understanding how technology can simplify legacy systems.
But honestly, the biggest skill that helped was learning directly from customers. In the beginning, we didn’t have the luxury of distance. We had to be extremely close to the user experience, because every small friction point mattered.
4. How did you land your first few customers?
For our first customers, there was no growth hack.
We were a tiny team, three people, and I was personally handling customer support. I was the one answering the chat, replying to emails, and speaking with early buyers.
That was critical because insurance is a low-trust product, especially online in Latin America. Customers needed to feel that someone real was behind the platform.
Those first 10–20 sales taught us everything:
- Where users hesitated
- What they didn’t understand
- What fears they had
- Where trust broke down
After every sale, we fixed something immediately, copy, UX, the flow, the steps, and then waited for the next interaction to validate the improvement.
That rapid feedback loop is what helped us reach our first 100 customers.
The lesson is timeless: don’t outsource learning early. Be on the front line yourself.
5. What was your business model when you started, and has it changed?
From day one, we focused on one thing: selling car insurance online.
We didn’t try to build a marketplace with ten products or multiple verticals. Our model was simple:
- Digital distribution
- Partnering with insurance carriers
- Earning revenue through policies sold
What differentiated us was the experience: simple, fast, and customer-first.
Over time, we added more automation and AI-driven systems, but the core model stayed focused.
That focus was one of the biggest reasons we succeeded.
6. What was your exact timeline to $1 million in revenue?
The journey wasn’t overnight.
In the first months, we were just trying to prove that people would actually buy insurance online.
- Month 1–3 was survival and learning.
- Month 6–12 was improving trust and removing friction.
- Year 2 was where we started scaling awareness campaigns and doubling down on what worked.
The path to $1M wasn’t one big leap, it was steady compounding through iteration, trust-building, and focus.
Also Read: How Nirmal Gyanwali Scaled WP Creative Into a $1M+ Web Performance Agency
7. What was the biggest turning point?
The biggest turning point was realizing that we didn’t need to be innovative everywhere.
Before Eprezto, I worked on multiple ideas at once. Most failed, not because they were bad, but because our attention was split.
Eprezto succeeded because we focused on doing one thing exceptionally well: digitizing insurance subscription.
Another turning point was investing heavily in trust.
Instead of chasing trends, we doubled down on awareness campaigns and reliability. We learned that in insurance, trust scales faster than cleverness.
8. What marketing channels worked best?
The most effective strategies were:
- Trust-driven awareness campaigns
- Customer education content
- Direct feedback loops from support
- Strong website conversion optimization
We didn’t rely on one viral channel. We relied on consistency.
The best marketing in our case was reducing friction and making the product feel safe.
9. Top 3 challenges while scaling?
1. Trust in a low-trust market
People were skeptical of buying insurance online. We overcame this through transparency, fast response time, and customer support.
2. Operational scaling
Support volume grows quickly. We built an AI chatbot that now handles about 70% of incoming conversations with a similar resolution rate.
3. Staying focused
Opportunities multiply as you grow. The discipline is saying no and protecting the core experience.
10. Was there a moment you felt like quitting?
Like most founders, yes.
Early-stage building is mentally heavy because progress is slow and uncertainty is constant.
What helped was remembering that momentum follows meaning. You don’t push through with pep talks, you push through by fixing real problems and watching customers benefit.
That creates motivation.
11. One mistake that taught you something invaluable?
My biggest early mistake was trying to do too much at once.
I used to believe success meant having multiple features, multiple projects, multiple bets.
Failure taught me that focus is more powerful than breadth.
One remarkable experience beats ten average ones.
That lesson reshaped everything.
12. What’s one thing about hitting $1M no one talks about?
It doesn’t feel like an endpoint.
It’s more like proof that the machine works, and then the real pressure begins: sustaining it.
Also, hitting $1M doesn’t remove uncertainty. It just upgrades the problems.
13. How did your role evolve?
In the beginning, I did everything, customer support, product, operations.
As we grew, I had to let go and build systems:
- Small autonomous teams
- Clear metrics
- Decision-making ownership
Autonomy became a key driver of productivity.
When hierarchy becomes too vertical, motivation drops. Keeping teams small and empowered has been essential.
14. If you started over, what would you do differently?
I would focus earlier.
I would spend even more time with customers directly.
And I would remove complexity faster instead of adding features too soon.
15. Where is your company today, and what’s next?
Today, Eprezto is scaling as a digital-first insurance platform across Central America.
We’ve built AI-powered systems for:
- Vehicle inspection
- Customer support
- Faster underwriting workflows
Next is expanding reliability, automation, and customer lifetime value through better retention and renewal experiences.
16. What are you obsessed with right now?
Right now, I’m obsessed with:
- CAC efficiency
- Conversion cost vs margin
- Scaling what works instead of chasing trends
- Using AI to remove friction from operations
We’re doubling down on proven strategies.
17. Do you still feel connected to the mission?
Yes, because the mission is still unfinished.
Insurance is still broken for millions of people. Making it digital, transparent, and accessible remains deeply meaningful.
18. Best advice for entrepreneurs trying to hit $1M?
Stay close to the customer.
Don’t scale before trust exists.
Do one thing exceptionally well.
And build momentum through focus, not noise.
19. Books, habits, or tools?
Two habits shaped my leadership:
- Weekly metric reviews grounded in reality
- Staying close to customer conversations
Tools that helped:
- AI copilots like ChatGPT and Gemini for pattern recognition in data
- Intercom + AI automation for support scaling
AI works best when it frees humans to do higher-value work.
Also Read: How Divya Gugnani Scaled 5 SENS to a $1M+ Fragrance Brand in Its 1st Year
20. Anything else you’d like to share?
The biggest lesson is that leadership is not about having all the answers.
It’s about building systems that surface truth, through data, customers, and empowered teams.
If you simplify relentlessly, trust people deeply, and stay focused long enough, growth becomes a consequence, not a goal.
👉 Inspired by Louis Ducruet’s journey building Eprezto into a $1M+ digital insurance platform—by removing friction, rebuilding trust, and simplifying how people buy insurance online? Share this story with a fellow founder. It might be the push they need to build something meaningful.
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