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ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

indiehackers.com

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Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#31

Post by jacquesm »

thebiglebrewski wrote: post #24

Wow, this is pretty astounding. Congrats Nathan. Personally though, I don't get how this kind of marketing strategy works. I unsubscribe SO FAST from things that seem like mass emails that it just wouldn't work on me. I suppose I'm a huge exception to the general public? I'm even surprised when I look over at my girlfriend's gmail how many promotions she has (not in a separate tab).

> I'm even surprised when I look over at my girlfriend's gmail how many promotions she has (not in a separate tab).

That sample gives you a potential of 50% of the market, and in my experience you are the exception and she is the rule, adjust accordingly.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#32

Post by csallen »

thebiglebrewski wrote: post #24

Wow, this is pretty astounding. Congrats Nathan. Personally though, I don't get how this kind of marketing strategy works. I unsubscribe SO FAST from things that seem like mass emails that it just wouldn't work on me. I suppose I'm a huge exception to the general public? I'm even surprised when I look over at my girlfriend's gmail how many promotions she has (not in a separate tab).

ConvertKit targets professional bloggers, podcasters, and other content creators. Generally, people who subscribe to these types of newsletters are there for the content. Getting it automatically via email is a huge perk compared to having to remember on your own and then proactively go out and find it.

For example, Indie Hackers (the site that hosts this interview) has grown to about 8000 email subscribers in the past 6 months. My newsletter has 52% open rates and very low unsubscribe rates.

Even more extreme, Ben Thompson at Stratechery has upwards of 2000 people paying him $10/month to get his private newsletter.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#33

Post by dgudkov »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
dangrossman wrote: post #9

I loathe cold sales e-mails/calls myself, but this almost makes me want to hire sales people for Improvely.

People don't do it because they don't loath cold callers themselves they do it because it works. One example: when I was selling licensed software I don't think I ever managed more than $100K in annual sales (which to me seemed easy money). Enter Marco, my first employee. Before the year was out we had nice sales documentation to go with the products, the beginnings of a brand and $600K in sales...

Can you please share a bit more details what exactly Marco did? I'm about to hire our first sales/marketing person so anything that helps understand what such people do is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#34

Post by vram22 »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
dangrossman wrote: post #9

I loathe cold sales e-mails/calls myself, but this almost makes me want to hire sales people for Improvely.

People don't do it because they don't loath cold callers themselves they do it because it works. One example: when I was selling licensed software I don't think I ever managed more than $100K in annual sales (which to me seemed easy money). Enter Marco, my first employee. Before the year was out we had nice sales documentation to go with the products, the beginnings of a brand and $600K in sales...

Interesting, what was your product?

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#35

Post by ux-app »

jacquesm wrote: post #8
pdog wrote: post #2

Great interview. Most people would have given up after two years of zero growth and paltry revenue.

Almost every company ever took two to three years to establish themselves. It's not all that incredible. That simply distinguishes every successful business ever (with a few lucky exceptions) from the ones that failed because their owners gave up too early. Two years is about a minimum that you should be prepared to dedicate to your newborn business if you are at all serious about it. I've written a bit about this he…

> That simply distinguishes every successful business ever (with a few lucky exceptions) from the ones that failed because their owners gave up too early.

How do you know when to give up though? I've developed a great product, spent 4 years working on it and still only make enough to cover hosting bills. I'm toying with the idea of Throwing in the towel, but I'm plagued with "what ifs".

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#36

Post by charlesdm »

karambahh wrote: post #30
sixQuarks wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you kidding me? This guy is the definition of bootstrapped. How do you think he got that $55K? He was bootstrapping design courses - I've been following this guy for a few years.

I am absolutely not claiming he didn't work very hard to start his company or earning his money. I am neither claiming he's bad or wrong or anything like that. Like jacquesm said it's probably more of a problem of definition between a dominant one and mine (in other words, looks like I am wrong ). I have seen people starting companies with nothing, not even a roof on their heads. I started a company with the amazing…

Given how easy it is these days for a developer to make €50k (e.g. by contracting on a day rate fee for a company), there really is no need to eat noodles for years. You do work for 6 months, save up €50k, and live frugally (but not crazy frugal) for a while.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#37

Post by jacquesm »

dgudkov wrote: post #33
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't do it because they don't loath cold callers themselves they do it because it works. One example: when I was selling licensed software I don't think I ever managed more than $100K in annual sales (which to me seemed easy money). Enter Marco, my first employee. Before the year was out we had nice sales documentation to go with the products, the beginnings of a brand and $600K in sales...

Can you please share a bit more details what exactly Marco did? I'm about to hire our first sales/marketing person so anything that helps understand what such people do is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

He sat me down for three days to interview me what the product(s) did (there were three of them: webcam, rtslave and webpay), made an A4 sheet with notes about market, product, USPs and features. Then each of those became a little brochure and a web-page to go with it.

He then found out where our potential customers hung out and started a conversation with them, asked if he could mail them an information package and when given permission did so.

Everything looked pretty spiffy (for the time), website and documentation linked up in a very recognizable way (a little family of buttons with a common theme adapted for each product).

before Marco:

http://web.archive.org/web/19961229205008/http://mattheij.nl...

After:

http://web.archive.org/web/19980507122555/http://mattheij.nl...

I don't have any samples of that documentation any more, but it's long ago.

Essentially Marco 'packaged' the product in a way that made sense to potential users, where I was totally relying on happy customers telling other potential customers (which worked, but I failed to recognize that many of our customers saw our product as their competitive edge and they would rather keep that to themselves).

Interesting turn to the story: we still work together.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#38

Post by nathanbarry »

jacquesm wrote: post #8
pdog wrote: post #2

Great interview. Most people would have given up after two years of zero growth and paltry revenue.

Almost every company ever took two to three years to establish themselves. It's not all that incredible. That simply distinguishes every successful business ever (with a few lucky exceptions) from the ones that failed because their owners gave up too early. Two years is about a minimum that you should be prepared to dedicate to your newborn business if you are at all serious about it. I've written a bit about this he…

Love this. I think early on I had the same idea as the commenter above—that 2-3 years without results is the anomaly and means it's time to move on.

Hopefully we can tell more stories to show that two years really should be your minimum commitment to just get traction.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#39

Post by jacquesm »

ux-app wrote: post #35
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every company ever took two to three years to establish themselves. It's not all that incredible. That simply distinguishes every successful business ever (with a few lucky exceptions) from the ones that failed because their owners gave up too early. Two years is about a minimum that you should be prepared to dedicate to your newborn business if you are at all serious about it. I've written a bit about this he…

> That simply distinguishes every successful business ever (with a few lucky exceptions) from the ones that failed because their owners gave up too early. How do you know when to give up though? I've developed a great product, spent 4 years working on it and still only make enough to cover hosting bills. I'm toying with the idea of Throwing in the towel, but I'm plagued with "what ifs".

4 Years is getting to the point of having to admit defeat, though there are examples of companies that hit their stride that late or even later. The biggest - and most important to me - indicator is if there is a trend or if it is flatlining. If there is a trend and you have the stamina keep going, if it is flatlining or even declining it might be the point to throw the towel in, but first have a chat with some other people to see if they can spot something obvious (but not obvious to you!) that you might do to improve things.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#40

Post by jacquesm »

vram22 wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't do it because they don't loath cold callers themselves they do it because it works. One example: when I was selling licensed software I don't think I ever managed more than $100K in annual sales (which to me seemed easy money). Enter Marco, my first employee. Before the year was out we had nice sales documentation to go with the products, the beginnings of a brand and $600K in sales...

Interesting, what was your product?

I pioneered streaming video to the browser, so the primordial 'webcam' server software (initially SGI only, later also on the PC), a piece of software to 'reflect' a single stream to many users (which you could cascade, sort of a primitive CDN for video) and a module that allowed pay-per view and a system to do the actual pay-per-view transactions. All this happened between 1995 and 1998, at which point the product became free by tying it to a service (camarades.com), which I shut down on Jan. 1st this year.
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