ConvertKit
October 12, 2023
It’s January 2013 in Boise Idaho and Nathan just set himself an ambitious goal.
He is going to invest $5k in building a SaaS web application and aims to grow it to $5k MRR in six months.
After six months of hard grind, Nathan lands on $2,480 MRR.
Surely growth would continue up to the $5k goal over the coming months to allow Nathan to hit the goal in maybe twelve months?
Unfortunately not, by October 2014, monthly revenue had slid down to $1,207.
In the end, it took 23 months and a further $50k investment for ConvertKit to reach $5k MRR.
But fast forward to May 2019, ConvertKit has sent 851,000,000 emails and enabled $273,482,000 in earnings for its 19,000 customers over the previous 12 months.
Today MRR is $1.7m – SaaS business growth at its absolute best.
How did he do it?
This episode of Confessions of a B2B Marketer explains 🤓
What did we learn?
- SaaS business can start on the side, but to grow – they need full time attention from their founders.
- What are the skills that you or your cofounders can develop BEFORE embarking on the hard journey of building a SaaS business?
- Forget your blog, social channels and email list. Find a database of prospects and hit them one after another until you’re over $50k MRR.
- Niche down and focus on the group of customers that you serve best (and that serves you best)
- When you find a growth channel that works: go HARD.
- Consider building a smooth, data gathering, customer experience improving onboarding flow for your SaaS…
- All tribes thrive when they come together in person – when is your next event?
- What are your brand values and have you truly internalised them?
- If you go freemium, ensure that you “get paid” by your users in the form of exposure to the people they communicate with.
- What are the skills or assets you can build NOW that will lead to the immaculate conception of your SaaS business or next killer growth strategy?
- Baremetrics for ConvertKit
- Why the Future Belongs to Creators - Nathan Barry at ConvertKit Craft + Commerce 2019
- ConvertKit: Nathan Barry’s Bumpy Road To $1.7m MRR
- Derrick Hicks on LinkedIn
- Check out our awesome sponsor Fame, they start and grow the world's most profitable B2B podcasts
Confessions of a B2B Marketer is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Check out our five most downloaded episodes:
Check out our five most downloaded episodes:
- How To Start A Movement with David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals
- Chris Walker Rants On Dark Social, Creating Demand & Company Building
- CEO Spends 70% Of Time On His Personal Brand? Guillaume Moubeche Shares All
- OLD WAY/NEW WAY with Adam Robinson of Retention.com
- Nathan Latka Shares His “King-Maker Strategy"
Hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn with any questions or feedback, I reply to them all.
Guest submissions here: fame.so/cbe-guest
Guest submissions here: fame.so/cbe-guest