Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

indiehackers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 124 posts

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

#91

Post by graeme »

Congrats on the success Nathan! I was at your workshop in Boston back in 2013, and read Authority in 2013. It inspired me to launch https://lsathacks.com (I had an existing book series).

I've now released video courses on the site, things are going very well revenue wise, and I'm on a steady path of much further growth. I honestly don't know what would have happened had I not read Authority back when I did.

Very inspiring to see what you've done with Convertkit, and it's making me consider more direct sales.

p.s. Here's an early writeup you did, in case you don't remember. http://nathanbarry.com/authority-case-studies/

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

#92

Post by polysaturate »

blennon wrote: post #86
polysaturate wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but that seemed like a really trending market. Anyway, do you know if there are any articles, etc about their experiences?

This is not meant to be a dig but just an observation for you to think about. Your last two comments are about how it isn't or shouldn't be possible to make money. It's true that market opportunities are hard to find, but you'll never find one if all you see is the "yes, buts". You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

No offense taken. I'm just trying to have a healthy optimism about writing, marketing and selling a book. 500k and 120k in sales seems like outliers. Would just be great to hear more about those experiences though.

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

#93

Post by cyberferret »

Congrats - I've been following Nathan's journey for a few years now. I am not a customer of his web app, as his product was not built for what I do, but nevertheless I have been reading his annual 'report cards' and have bought a couple of his e-books.

Just curious for those that are lambasting his methods of marketing - how do you sell or market your products or services? Are you even involved in the marketing & sales aspect of a business, or is your role just coding, devops, finance or other?

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

#94

Post by dgudkov »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
dgudkov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thank you! PS. The point about keeping to themselves is spot on.

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

#95

Post by moeamaya »

brilliantcode wrote: post #60
GuiA wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is; the trick is to sell expensive shit to the "aspiring professional bloggers" demographic. Just like the best way to live off a 4 hour work week is to write a book about how you too can live off a 4 hour work week.

Marketing is such a powerful thing. For instance I pay $60 CAD / month to intercom.io for a website that isn't even built. THAT's powerful. Made me pay for shit I don't even use (but going to real soon....I keep telling myself that)

Damn, we do the same. Their marketing truly is powerful that we pay for something we'll need "real soon"

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

#96

Post by cwbrandsma »

dogas wrote: post #85

Dir. of Engineering at ConvertKit here. We're hiring![1] Nathan is super smart, genuine, honest and generous. Our culture is a reflection of his personality, which makes ConvertKit a fantastic company to work for. [1]: https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/4266-senior-rails-engineer

Former coworker of Nathan here. Will concur that he is smart and fun to work with.

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

#97

Post by hackerboos »

scardine wrote: post #21

I 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/

Reviews are pretty mixed on Good Reads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18070394-authority

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

#98

Post by hackerboos »

GuiA wrote: post #46
scardine wrote: post #21

I 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/

The fact that you can't buy the book alone for $20 or so - but instead have to buy some sort of premium package that starts at $179 - is a definite put off for me, and also makes me wonder whether the content of the book is that deep/interesting, or if it's a trick to get the buyer so involved emotionally with the purchase that they'll end up believing it was absolutely worth it. I get that by selling $300 book bundl…

Ironically that's covered in the book. Raise prices until a drop-off - although I always thought that rule was for B2B not B2C - consumers are far more picky over the price.

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

#99

Post by wheelerwj »

brilliantcode wrote: post #60
GuiA wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is; the trick is to sell expensive shit to the "aspiring professional bloggers" demographic. Just like the best way to live off a 4 hour work week is to write a book about how you too can live off a 4 hour work week.

Marketing is such a powerful thing. For instance I pay $60 CAD / month to intercom.io for a website that isn't even built. THAT's powerful. Made me pay for shit I don't even use (but going to real soon....I keep telling myself that)

impulse purchase are a real bitch... although I don't think I've ever heard intercom.io described as an impulse buy before...

Seriously though. If you've ever built a company, there will be times when you wish you had that extra $60 sitting in your account. Cancel until you are ready.

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

#100

Post by wheelerwj »

nathanbarry wrote: post #71
acconrad wrote: post #70

I'm an idiot

Did you read the article you linked beyond the first paragraph?

Haha, the comment has since been edited (I'm guessing) but it must have linked to your post about how ConvertKit raised $1.8M.

I'm guessing this because I too spent a very confused 30 seconds before realizing I just got trolled. Well played.

Post reply on HN