9 ms·

ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

289 points by nickhould 10y ago

pdog 10y ago
Great interview. Most people would have given up after two years of zero growth and paltry revenue.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  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 here: https://jacquesmattheij.com/it-takes-three-years-to-build-a-business https://jacquesmattheij.com/it-takes-three-years-to-build-a-...
  - ux-app 10y ago
    > 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".
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      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.
  - nathanbarry 10y ago
    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.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      Just tweeted your link, let's see how fast we can get your from $600K to $1M and up ;) Best of luck!
    - pixelmonkey 10y ago
      Echo'ed. SaaS founder here. We had two years of slow growth before the product/market fit hit and now, years later, we're generating millions in revenue. #1 piece of advice I give to SaaS founders is to watch the talk, "The Long Slow SaaS Ramp of Death" by CEO of Constant Contact. All good cooking takes time!
      - nathanbarry 10y ago
        This talk is so good.
  - graeme 10y ago
    Yup. My precarious period was juuuust under three years. It's eerily consistent, from other stories I've heard.
- dvcc 10y ago
  It's probably not a favorable idea here, but luck probably plays a large part in converting from X to Y a month. Of course, perseverance over a two-year period increases your chances, so it still has a ton of value.
karambahh 10y ago
«Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. This achievement is very impressive nonetheless. Growing a business even in a known environment is very hard, I know it first hand. It's especially interesting that he shares numbers, some I'd love to be able to do but money is particularly taboo in my field. Having your accountant and banker tell you that your numbers are actually very good compared to others despite being under the target you set to yourself is especially comforting. Having your banker call you and congratulate you because you're now largely cash flow positive is exhilarating.
- elastic_church 10y ago
  Yeah thats what bootstrapping is, having enough money to sustain yourself and capitalize the business without outside investors.
- borisyankov 10y ago
  This absolutely falls in the 'bootstrapped' category, as long as these are not $55k of VC money, but your own.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > «Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. That's exactly what it is. $55K is next to nothing for starting any kind of company, even if you quit your job and start as a freelancer (arguably the simplest kind of company) you'll need some capital to catch you if you have a dry spell. Business that get started on $0 are extremely rare.
  - karambahh 10y ago
    It is ten times the median savings an american family has [1] Once again I am not diminishing his accomplishments. I started my own company with the same amount of money but never claimed to have "bootstrapped"it. We on HN live in a bubble that amazes me. I know first hand how much it costs to start a company and how hard it is to raise a 1M€ (I heard it is as hard as raising 10M$ in the valley, but never tried to raise in the US so take that with a grain of salt!). I also know it is much, much harder to get your first 1M€ of revenue. Like one of my business angel once told me "il nest de bon argent que celui du client": the only good kind of money is the customer's. [1]http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/12/heres-how-much-the-average-american-family-has-saved-for-retirement.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/12/heres-how-much-the-average-am...
dangrossman 10y ago
I loathe cold sales e-mails/calls myself, but this almost makes me want to hire sales people for Improvely.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  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...
  - dgudkov 10y ago
    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.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      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/ http://web.archive.org/web/19961229205008/http://mattheij.nl... After: http://web.archive.org/web/19980507122555/http://mattheij.nl/ 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.
jacquesm 10y ago
Very clever, this is actually a sales pitch for the product more than a 'news story'. Props for using the success to further drive success.
- wwalser 10y ago
  If you're reading about the founder of a company, chances are you're reading content marketing for that founder's company. If you're listening to a podcast with a company founder as a guest — you're listening to content marketing. If you're attending a free event, webinar or watching a youtube video where company founders are talking about stuff — you're watching content marketing. I'm not saying this is bad. Content marketing basically converts at some rate relative to the value that consumers get from it so there is some merit to that. As long as people realize what their consuming, seems fine.
plesiv 10y ago
I'm aware that market is possibly the best kind of fitness evaluator for what kind of ideas the world needs - but every time I see smart people getting excited about making good money by doing what's been done so many times before makes me sad. These kind of stories should be a hopeful example for people who are not yet able to make a comfortable living, but as a community we shouldn't glorify them nearly as much as we do at the moment.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  I don't like the glorification either. I miss the days where Tinkerers build things just to do it. That said, I'm afraid we will never go back to those days. Its just too cool to be filthy rich in too many circles. I remember watching that movie about Facebook, and cringing. I could just feel the shift in attitudes. That said, I'm glad founders are telling their stories of success. Get it out there. I haven't read this post yet, but plan to. I remember a few months ago a guy had a domain website selling .io domains. He had a auction type site, and yes--"it's hard work tracking down .io domain owners to see if they want to sell." I have no reason to question the guy, but something just didn't add up. I did some further research, and it looks like he bought thousands of the .io domains early on, and that's the secret to his success, but what do I know. On a different note, I had a acquaintance who was always chasing the big bucks. He once told me, I will start dating again when I make my money. He spent so much time chasing the dream. I once invited him on a rafting trip. He said, "Just too busy with my business." I said, "We have females going?" He said, "No--I have to get these patents done." (Patents he got from my ideas, but I didn't care; they weren't great ideas.) He always had some business in the works. He took investment money from guys who shouldn't be investing in risky investments. My final straw with the guy is when he took 10 grand from a Mechanic. This 10 grand was all this Mechanic's savings. I haven't seen the guy in eight years. Last night I decided to look him up. I saw his obituary. I had a weird feeling he died about a month ago, but when I looked him up; he was on YouTube pitching another business. Last night I got a weird feeling again, and looked him up. He died a out a month ago, of complications of esophageal cancer. I've been thinking about him all day. When I look back, he was so consumed with making it big, he was no fun to be around. He couldn't talk, nor cared about anything besides his current business. I got it kinda, but felt he was missing out on life. As men we are judged on how much money we make, and it needs to change. Society ferrits it out of us with the American required question, "What do you do?" I'm so tired if that question. I am not what I do? We should just stop answering it? I know it's not nice to talk about the dead, but he was cheap, deceitful, and so selfish. He was always concerned with getting the edge on everyone--including his "friends". He thought he was more clever than everyone, but he was an open book. He used to do this one trick. After dinner, we would all pay our bill, and tip well. We would be at the door, and he would always go back to the table--"To make sure the tip was sufficient." He would go back and take back a few dollars. Yea--I caught him red handed one time, and wasn't suprised, but felt it was a petty act. I thought, just like ____. I'm glad he decided to skip the movie he was invited to. Anyways, after all those big buck speeches. After all the delayed gratification. After hiding money because he was always on the end of a lawsuit. After never helping out anyone, without $ signs in the back of his head. After--oh I will eventually be very happy. After all those years chasing something big; he just died in Feburary.
going_to_800 10y ago
Note to myself: I need to build a tool for bloggers.
artursapek 10y ago
I had no idea "professional bloggers" were such a lucrative market.
- GuiA 10y ago
  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.
  - brilliantcode 10y ago
    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)
    - moeamaya 10y ago
      Damn, we do the same. Their marketing truly is powerful that we pay for something we'll need "real soon"
    - wheelerwj 10y ago
      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.
      - brilliantcode 10y ago
        I feel pretty stupid that my impulse purchases are now SaaS subscriptions. Intercom's marketing is doing something right clearly.
- shubhamjain 10y ago
  Most bloggers already use some sort of email marketing software. Having used Mailchimp, I can say that it falls into the category of software that solves the problem but isn't delightful to use. In addition to that, it lacks several features that could make automation easier, so you're pretty much out of options if you want to automate a series of emails. Convertkit grew remarkably well because it tapped into the right problems. I think people often underestimate how giant of market "email marketing" is.
djb_hackernews 10y ago
> concierge migrations This was a hack I used on an eventually failed software venture. We were in an incubator and had about $10k and the start of a pivot. We hired 3 contractors to build an MVP in about 2 weeks. We focused on the core functionality of the product. Since we used Rails we also were able to use a module that gave us a nice admin UI around our data model. This let us do the data entry for pilot members while we got feedback on the core product. Since we were providing a way for vendors to sell products with complex facets (prices in multiple currencies, descriptions in multiple languages, complex product availability etc) we could control the data entry and also avoid building complex wizard UIs for users that surely would be given up on with our limited value prop at the time. Thinking back on that hack I think it is definitely something I'd do again.
- mattragland 10y ago
  Cool to hear others are using the process, even in the past :) Wrote a bit more about what migrations were like for us here: https://artplusmarketing.com/the-silver-bullet-in-convertkits-rapid-growth-177ecb2fbe26 https://artplusmarketing.com/the-silver-bullet-in-convertkit...
deleted 10y ago
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scardine 10y ago
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/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
- GuiA 10y ago
  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 bundles, he only needs to sell 1/15th of what he'd need to sell if the book were $20; and that of the people who would buy the $20 book, there are probably more than 6% of them who will buy the $300 book; but it's still pretty offputting. I'm certainly glad that I didn't have to buy K&R's C book as a $200 package complete with "file templates" and an "audio book" and "an exclusive skype session with the authors who will give you personal feedback on your C program"!
  - scardine 10y ago
    I got it for $79 in July, 2015. Not cheap also.
  - graeme 10y ago
    Here, $29: https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-Independence/dp/1612060919/ https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-... I read it in 2013, and it's probably earned me at least $100,000. That's being veeeery conservative. Not everyone will have that experience, of course. I had an existing book series, and Authority gave me an idea for how to repurpose it into a larger business. As for the package on his site: he probably wants to avoid support. You get a lot of it with a $20 price point, and as he wrote in the article, he's focussing on converkit. Whereas with the amazon listing, amazon handles all customer support. (I learned that lesson with my own books. My amazon royalties are smaller than my overall business, but I'm still very glad to get them, because there's basically zero admin work required.)
thebiglebrewski 10y ago
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).
- graeme 10y ago
  Did you sign up for them? That's a big difference. I have a ton of spam promotions that come when I join a service. I want the service, not the marketing! But sometimes I want to follow what someone says, so I sign up. I read that stuff very attentively. Services like convertkit tend to be used for the latter use cas: deliberate signups by interested people.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > 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.
  - thebiglebrewski 10y ago
    Haha I know, I know, terrible stats practice. Just saying.
- csallen 10y ago
  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.
acconrad 10y ago
I'm an idiot
- nathanbarry 10y ago
  Did you read the article you linked beyond the first paragraph?
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    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.
    - nathanbarry 10y ago
      Yep, it was a link to this article (http://nathanbarry.com/investment/ http://nathanbarry.com/investment/) about "how ConvertKit raised $1.8m from a large group of angel investors". Just read more than the title before commenting. ;)
GrinningFool 10y ago
> 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. That's my favorite line from the post. People in the middle stages of building a long-term business have this tendency to think it's somehow wrong to take some portion of the profit for yourself - most believe it should be reinvested or redistributed. 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.
thekevan 10y ago
Nathan, thanks for telling your story! I'd like to hear what your take is on something I thought when reading this article. One factor in ConvertKit's success is that RSS is still sort of broken. My thinking is that a big benefit of the service is that I can sign up for my favorite blogger or YouTuber to email me when they post something new, rather than checking the page a couple times a week and finding nothing new half the time. I've never found an effect RSS service for myself and I suspect many, many others feel the same. If we had, the content providers we love would reply on that instead of being a potential customer for you.
- nathanbarry 10y ago
  That's true. What's odd to me is that I'm not actually sure why or how RSS is broken, but bloggers are finding again and again that the engagement happens on the email list. Even though objectively RSS should be a much better experience. It just hasn't connected with bloggers and readers in the same way that email does.
dogas 10y ago
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 https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/4266-senior-rails-engineer
- cwbrandsma 10y ago
  Former coworker of Nathan here. Will concur that he is smart and fun to work with.
graeme 10y ago
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 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/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority-case-studies/
- nathanbarry 10y ago
  Hey Graeme! Good to hear from you. Send me an email. I'd love to hear specifics on how the book and course sales are doing now!
cyberferret 10y ago
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?
- shahzeb 10y ago
  Where are his e-books? Would love to check out what he's written about. Edit: Here: http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    That is one of them! :) To be honest, I bought "Authority" but never got around to reading it - I am not an ebook author myself so just put it aside until one day I decide to write a book. The other books of his that I found very useful (and inspirational) are "The App Design Handbook" and "Designing Web Applications". They are here: http://nathanbarry.com/books/ http://nathanbarry.com/books/
grogenaut 10y ago
his blog has an ssl issue on firefox
- nathanbarry 10y ago
  Someone else mentioned this. Is there a link that is going to https that should be http?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

289 points by nickhould 10y ago

pdog 10y ago

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

jacquesm 10y ago
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 here: https://jacquesmattheij.com/it-takes-three-years-to-build-a-business https://jacquesmattheij.com/it-takes-three-years-to-build-a-...
- ux-app 10y ago
  > 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".
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    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.
- nathanbarry 10y ago
  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.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Just tweeted your link, let's see how fast we can get your from $600K to $1M and up ;) Best of luck!
  - pixelmonkey 10y ago
    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!
    - nathanbarry 10y ago
      This talk is so good.
- graeme 10y ago
  Yup. My precarious period was juuuust under three years. It's eerily consistent, from other stories I've heard.
dvcc 10y ago
It's probably not a favorable idea here, but luck probably plays a large part in converting from X to Y a month. Of course, perseverance over a two-year period increases your chances, so it still has a ton of value.

karambahh 10y ago

«Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. This achievement is very impressive nonetheless. Growing a business even in a known environment is very hard, I know it first hand. It's especially interesting that he shares numbers, some I'd love to be able to do but money is particularly taboo in my field. Having your accountant and banker tell you that your numbers are actually very good compared to others despite being under the target you set to yourself is especially comforting. Having your banker call you and congratulate you because you're now largely cash flow positive is exhilarating.

elastic_church 10y ago
Yeah thats what bootstrapping is, having enough money to sustain yourself and capitalize the business without outside investors.
borisyankov 10y ago
This absolutely falls in the 'bootstrapped' category, as long as these are not $55k of VC money, but your own.
jacquesm 10y ago
> «Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. That's exactly what it is. $55K is next to nothing for starting any kind of company, even if you quit your job and start as a freelancer (arguably the simplest kind of company) you'll need some capital to catch you if you have a dry spell. Business that get started on $0 are extremely rare.
- karambahh 10y ago
  It is ten times the median savings an american family has [1] Once again I am not diminishing his accomplishments. I started my own company with the same amount of money but never claimed to have "bootstrapped"it. We on HN live in a bubble that amazes me. I know first hand how much it costs to start a company and how hard it is to raise a 1M€ (I heard it is as hard as raising 10M$ in the valley, but never tried to raise in the US so take that with a grain of salt!). I also know it is much, much harder to get your first 1M€ of revenue. Like one of my business angel once told me "il nest de bon argent que celui du client": the only good kind of money is the customer's. [1]http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/12/heres-how-much-the-average-american-family-has-saved-for-retirement.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/12/heres-how-much-the-average-am...

dangrossman 10y ago

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

jacquesm 10y ago
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...
- dgudkov 10y ago
  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.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    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/ http://web.archive.org/web/19961229205008/http://mattheij.nl... After: http://web.archive.org/web/19980507122555/http://mattheij.nl/ 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.

jacquesm 10y ago

Very clever, this is actually a sales pitch for the product more than a 'news story'. Props for using the success to further drive success.

wwalser 10y ago
If you're reading about the founder of a company, chances are you're reading content marketing for that founder's company. If you're listening to a podcast with a company founder as a guest — you're listening to content marketing. If you're attending a free event, webinar or watching a youtube video where company founders are talking about stuff — you're watching content marketing. I'm not saying this is bad. Content marketing basically converts at some rate relative to the value that consumers get from it so there is some merit to that. As long as people realize what their consuming, seems fine.

plesiv 10y ago

I'm aware that market is possibly the best kind of fitness evaluator for what kind of ideas the world needs - but every time I see smart people getting excited about making good money by doing what's been done so many times before makes me sad. These kind of stories should be a hopeful example for people who are not yet able to make a comfortable living, but as a community we shouldn't glorify them nearly as much as we do at the moment.

icantdrive55 10y ago
I don't like the glorification either. I miss the days where Tinkerers build things just to do it. That said, I'm afraid we will never go back to those days. Its just too cool to be filthy rich in too many circles. I remember watching that movie about Facebook, and cringing. I could just feel the shift in attitudes. That said, I'm glad founders are telling their stories of success. Get it out there. I haven't read this post yet, but plan to. I remember a few months ago a guy had a domain website selling .io domains. He had a auction type site, and yes--"it's hard work tracking down .io domain owners to see if they want to sell." I have no reason to question the guy, but something just didn't add up. I did some further research, and it looks like he bought thousands of the .io domains early on, and that's the secret to his success, but what do I know. On a different note, I had a acquaintance who was always chasing the big bucks. He once told me, I will start dating again when I make my money. He spent so much time chasing the dream. I once invited him on a rafting trip. He said, "Just too busy with my business." I said, "We have females going?" He said, "No--I have to get these patents done." (Patents he got from my ideas, but I didn't care; they weren't great ideas.) He always had some business in the works. He took investment money from guys who shouldn't be investing in risky investments. My final straw with the guy is when he took 10 grand from a Mechanic. This 10 grand was all this Mechanic's savings. I haven't seen the guy in eight years. Last night I decided to look him up. I saw his obituary. I had a weird feeling he died about a month ago, but when I looked him up; he was on YouTube pitching another business. Last night I got a weird feeling again, and looked him up. He died a out a month ago, of complications of esophageal cancer. I've been thinking about him all day. When I look back, he was so consumed with making it big, he was no fun to be around. He couldn't talk, nor cared about anything besides his current business. I got it kinda, but felt he was missing out on life. As men we are judged on how much money we make, and it needs to change. Society ferrits it out of us with the American required question, "What do you do?" I'm so tired if that question. I am not what I do? We should just stop answering it? I know it's not nice to talk about the dead, but he was cheap, deceitful, and so selfish. He was always concerned with getting the edge on everyone--including his "friends". He thought he was more clever than everyone, but he was an open book. He used to do this one trick. After dinner, we would all pay our bill, and tip well. We would be at the door, and he would always go back to the table--"To make sure the tip was sufficient." He would go back and take back a few dollars. Yea--I caught him red handed one time, and wasn't suprised, but felt it was a petty act. I thought, just like ____. I'm glad he decided to skip the movie he was invited to. Anyways, after all those big buck speeches. After all the delayed gratification. After hiding money because he was always on the end of a lawsuit. After never helping out anyone, without $ signs in the back of his head. After--oh I will eventually be very happy. After all those years chasing something big; he just died in Feburary.

going_to_800 10y ago

Note to myself: I need to build a tool for bloggers.

artursapek 10y ago

I had no idea "professional bloggers" were such a lucrative market.

GuiA 10y ago
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.
- brilliantcode 10y ago
  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)
  - moeamaya 10y ago
    Damn, we do the same. Their marketing truly is powerful that we pay for something we'll need "real soon"
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    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.
    - brilliantcode 10y ago
      I feel pretty stupid that my impulse purchases are now SaaS subscriptions. Intercom's marketing is doing something right clearly.
shubhamjain 10y ago
Most bloggers already use some sort of email marketing software. Having used Mailchimp, I can say that it falls into the category of software that solves the problem but isn't delightful to use. In addition to that, it lacks several features that could make automation easier, so you're pretty much out of options if you want to automate a series of emails. Convertkit grew remarkably well because it tapped into the right problems. I think people often underestimate how giant of market "email marketing" is.

djb_hackernews 10y ago

> concierge migrations This was a hack I used on an eventually failed software venture. We were in an incubator and had about $10k and the start of a pivot. We hired 3 contractors to build an MVP in about 2 weeks. We focused on the core functionality of the product. Since we used Rails we also were able to use a module that gave us a nice admin UI around our data model. This let us do the data entry for pilot members while we got feedback on the core product. Since we were providing a way for vendors to sell products with complex facets (prices in multiple currencies, descriptions in multiple languages, complex product availability etc) we could control the data entry and also avoid building complex wizard UIs for users that surely would be given up on with our limited value prop at the time. Thinking back on that hack I think it is definitely something I'd do again.

mattragland 10y ago
Cool to hear others are using the process, even in the past :) Wrote a bit more about what migrations were like for us here: https://artplusmarketing.com/the-silver-bullet-in-convertkits-rapid-growth-177ecb2fbe26 https://artplusmarketing.com/the-silver-bullet-in-convertkit...

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scardine 10y ago

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/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority/

GuiA 10y ago
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 bundles, he only needs to sell 1/15th of what he'd need to sell if the book were $20; and that of the people who would buy the $20 book, there are probably more than 6% of them who will buy the $300 book; but it's still pretty offputting. I'm certainly glad that I didn't have to buy K&R's C book as a $200 package complete with "file templates" and an "audio book" and "an exclusive skype session with the authors who will give you personal feedback on your C program"!
- scardine 10y ago
  I got it for $79 in July, 2015. Not cheap also.
- graeme 10y ago
  Here, $29: https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-Independence/dp/1612060919/ https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-... I read it in 2013, and it's probably earned me at least $100,000. That's being veeeery conservative. Not everyone will have that experience, of course. I had an existing book series, and Authority gave me an idea for how to repurpose it into a larger business. As for the package on his site: he probably wants to avoid support. You get a lot of it with a $20 price point, and as he wrote in the article, he's focussing on converkit. Whereas with the amazon listing, amazon handles all customer support. (I learned that lesson with my own books. My amazon royalties are smaller than my overall business, but I'm still very glad to get them, because there's basically zero admin work required.)

thebiglebrewski 10y ago

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).

graeme 10y ago
Did you sign up for them? That's a big difference. I have a ton of spam promotions that come when I join a service. I want the service, not the marketing! But sometimes I want to follow what someone says, so I sign up. I read that stuff very attentively. Services like convertkit tend to be used for the latter use cas: deliberate signups by interested people.
jacquesm 10y ago
> 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.
- thebiglebrewski 10y ago
  Haha I know, I know, terrible stats practice. Just saying.
csallen 10y ago
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.

acconrad 10y ago

I'm an idiot

nathanbarry 10y ago
Did you read the article you linked beyond the first paragraph?
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  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.
  - nathanbarry 10y ago
    Yep, it was a link to this article (http://nathanbarry.com/investment/ http://nathanbarry.com/investment/) about "how ConvertKit raised $1.8m from a large group of angel investors". Just read more than the title before commenting. ;)

GrinningFool 10y ago

> 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. That's my favorite line from the post. People in the middle stages of building a long-term business have this tendency to think it's somehow wrong to take some portion of the profit for yourself - most believe it should be reinvested or redistributed. 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.

thekevan 10y ago

Nathan, thanks for telling your story! I'd like to hear what your take is on something I thought when reading this article. One factor in ConvertKit's success is that RSS is still sort of broken. My thinking is that a big benefit of the service is that I can sign up for my favorite blogger or YouTuber to email me when they post something new, rather than checking the page a couple times a week and finding nothing new half the time. I've never found an effect RSS service for myself and I suspect many, many others feel the same. If we had, the content providers we love would reply on that instead of being a potential customer for you.

nathanbarry 10y ago
That's true. What's odd to me is that I'm not actually sure why or how RSS is broken, but bloggers are finding again and again that the engagement happens on the email list. Even though objectively RSS should be a much better experience. It just hasn't connected with bloggers and readers in the same way that email does.

dogas 10y ago

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 https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/4266-senior-rails-engineer

cwbrandsma 10y ago
Former coworker of Nathan here. Will concur that he is smart and fun to work with.

graeme 10y ago

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 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/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority-case-studies/

nathanbarry 10y ago
Hey Graeme! Good to hear from you. Send me an email. I'd love to hear specifics on how the book and course sales are doing now!

cyberferret 10y ago

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?

shahzeb 10y ago
Where are his e-books? Would love to check out what he's written about. Edit: Here: http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
- cyberferret 10y ago
  That is one of them! :) To be honest, I bought "Authority" but never got around to reading it - I am not an ebook author myself so just put it aside until one day I decide to write a book. The other books of his that I found very useful (and inspirational) are "The App Design Handbook" and "Designing Web Applications". They are here: http://nathanbarry.com/books/ http://nathanbarry.com/books/

grogenaut 10y ago

his blog has an ssl issue on firefox

nathanbarry 10y ago
Someone else mentioned this. Is there a link that is going to https that should be http?

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