I'm an idiot
Did you read the article you linked beyond the first paragraph?
ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
71–80 of 124 posts
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree that is entirely hypothetical and Elon Musk is an interesting example. I know he is sometimes risking a very large proportion of his private capital on his new ventures, but I would never have called that "bootstrapping". (Once again, let me re-iterate that I have understood that "my" definition of boostrapping is not correct) To me, a billionaire going all out on a new project is in a better financial, busines…
If you don't get deals because you don't shower then that's a solved problem since Roman times and you should only blame yourself ;) Other than that, yes, billionaires have some advantages that us ordinary mortals do not have. But to stick with Elon Musk, he wasn't born a billionaire (but he did go to a private school, but that's not unheard of in SA). Once you're past $1M net worth or so the game gets easier, someti…
> If you don't get deals because you don't shower then that's a solved problem since Roman times and you should only blame yourself ;)
Absolutely!
> Once you're past $1M net worth or so the game gets easier, sometimes a lot easier.
I sometimes feel that difficulty of doing business is halved with very order of magnitude, being friends with business owners whose net worth are between 10k€ and 50M€. My 50M€ friend has access to things my 10k€ wouldn't even believe exists.
50M€ is "let me talk to the ministry chief of staff about this. I'll also talk to the CEO of a fortune 500 company about this mild inconvenience"
10k€ is queuing at the city building in the hope that maybe someone will do something about the closed road leading to your shop.
> But $1M vs $1B doesn't make much of a difference if the business tanks and you've invested all of your capital in your own business.
> And that's the main reason you don't see billionaires usually spending all their money on their own projects: they spread the risk around to avoid possibly losing it all.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Echo'ed. SaaS founder here. We had two years of slow growth before the product/market fit hit and now, years later, we're generating millions in revenue. #1 piece of advice I give to SaaS founders is to watch the talk, "The Long Slow SaaS Ramp of Death" by CEO of Constant Contact. All good cooking takes time!
This talk is so good.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#74Wow, 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).
Others have responded but I'll throw in another way to look at it. They aren't subscribing to an email list per se, the are signing up to get reminders when a content provider--that they are already interested in viewing the content from--releases said content.
It's more of a notification via email than the email itself.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#75I love his book "Authority" (not affiliated with the author, just got a lot of value from it). It states that one of the best moves to make a claim of expertise is writing a book, and contains a framework to write a book about something you know in ~3 months. http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
I can confirm.
I co-wrote a book on "growth hacking" (https://secretsaucenow.com), which really serves as a hand-held, step-by-step guide to user acquisition. (I originally called it "user acquisition" but unfortunately "growth hacking" performed 4x better in A/B tests). It was really hard to do, but wow. Sometimes the self-promotional marketing feels kind of cheesy to me, but man, it's so worth it.
First there's the cash. We've sold over $120,000 worth in the past 9 months, and did it direct without any publisher, so that's all straight into our pockets (after fees). I now have 2-3 people reaching out per week asking me if I can work for them, including big/successful YC companies.
I'm turning all of those down, but I feel like if I ever needed a job again or wanted to go freelance I could do it 100x easier because of a book.
I'm pretty proud of the book; I think the book is really good, and so far as I've found it's the only actionable Internet marketing guide out there. I put a ton of thought, effort, and energy into it. But I had no idea that a book could have such an effect in a day and age that's seemingly flooded with this kind of information.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#76 > Since we haven't raised money and aren't planning on a
> big exit, I want to continue to pay myself well through
> distributions so that offers to buy the company continue
> to be easy to decline.
This doesn't take into account that claiming a portion as yours is an investment - it's an investment to secure your own continued long-term interest in the project.
Clearly you wouldn't do it to the point where the company is suffering - but to the point where maybe you're just not growing as fast? Or have to do to add some features? Often a worthwhile tradeoff.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#77I love his book "Authority" (not affiliated with the author, just got a lot of value from it). It states that one of the best moves to make a claim of expertise is writing a book, and contains a framework to write a book about something you know in ~3 months. http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
Huh. "Buy my (assuredly terrible, amateurish, e-)book!" or "sign up for a free PDF copy of my book!" is one of the quickest ways to lower my opinion of a person (or website). Immediately digs a giant hole that they then have to climb out of to convince me they're not scumbag get-rich-quick scam artists or one of their hangers-on or imitators, assuming I don't just close the tab immediately on seeing that kind of thin…
So, wait, anyone who writes an eBook and would like to sell it is a scumbag? Unless there is a clear association with a real publisher or university? Is this opinion specific to marketing or do you hold the same disdain to programming books as well?
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#78I love his book "Authority" (not affiliated with the author, just got a lot of value from it). It states that one of the best moves to make a claim of expertise is writing a book, and contains a framework to write a book about something you know in ~3 months. http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
I can confirm. I co-wrote a book on "growth hacking" ( https://secretsaucenow.com ), which really serves as a hand-held, step-by-step guide to user acquisition. (I originally called it "user acquisition" but unfortunately "growth hacking" performed 4x better in A/B tests). It was really hard to do, but wow. Sometimes the self-promotional marketing feels kind of cheesy to me, but man, it's so worth it. First there's t…
Second time in a week I've seen you post about this(not a dig). Not quite sure there is the same sort of market for 120k in eBook sales for programming books, but your success definitely helps me hold hope my pre-sale continues to gain traction.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can confirm. I co-wrote a book on "growth hacking" ( https://secretsaucenow.com ), which really serves as a hand-held, step-by-step guide to user acquisition. (I originally called it "user acquisition" but unfortunately "growth hacking" performed 4x better in A/B tests). It was really hard to do, but wow. Sometimes the self-promotional marketing feels kind of cheesy to me, but man, it's so worth it. First there's t…
Second time in a week I've seen you post about this(not a dig). Not quite sure there is the same sort of market for 120k in eBook sales for programming books, but your success definitely helps me hold hope my pre-sale continues to gain traction.
Talk to the people who wrote the first book on Meteor.js. I know they pulled in over $500k.
That's probably a unique case because in the beginning the documentation was so bad, but especially in new and esoteric programming languages/methods $50 is no big deal, and there are lots of willing buyers. I'd bet the HaskellBook authors pulled in 100k+ too.
Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Second time in a week I've seen you post about this(not a dig). Not quite sure there is the same sort of market for 120k in eBook sales for programming books, but your success definitely helps me hold hope my pre-sale continues to gain traction.
Talk to the people who wrote the first book on Meteor.js. I know they pulled in over $500k. That's probably a unique case because in the beginning the documentation was so bad, but especially in new and esoteric programming languages/methods $50 is no big deal, and there are lots of willing buyers. I'd bet the HaskellBook authors pulled in 100k+ too.
True, but that seemed like a really trending market. Anyway, do you know if there are any articles, etc about their experiences?