6 ms·

Getting to €20k in MRR in 90 days

91 points by blackdogie 11y ago

sillypog 11y ago
Is it recurring revenue if it hasn't recurred yet?
- beambot 11y ago
  Of course it is... they just don't know the churn rate (or CAC) yet -- both of which are crucial to the recurring revenue value equation.
- eonw 11y ago
  i would say no, i would call it, "potential recurring income". with only 90 days of data you don't really know how long each customer will stay, without more data you really don't know how many of those will stick around for another month. then again i dont count my eggs before they hatch.
bemmu 11y ago
I thought no-one would bother filling out contact details / CC number without getting to a desktop first. After looking at your data and then checking my own analytics, I'm wrong. Even for Candy Japan, I see 13% of conversions from mobile, 12% from tablet. And this despite the site not being designed for mobile at all. Sounds like fixing my mobile side might actually be a great opportunity for getting some more conversions.
- blackdogie 11y ago
  Plus there should be some SEO benefits too. So it should work two fold. I've seen a site of mine move from mid-30% mobile traffic this time last year, now up to over 50%. I was surprised with the amount and the change over the last 12 months.
- vjvj 11y ago
  The gulf between perceived and actual mobile phone usage is huge even now. People are willing to do a lot more on their phones than we expect. We have a long-ish sign up form for Car Quids yet half of our completions are done on mobile too.
  - niallharbison 11y ago
    We knew it would be a big channel but it was only when writing that post that it was driven home to me. 42%. And we still have so much to improve and speed up etc. The notion that people only sign up on desktops and get the credit card out there is dead now. People trust mobile for all sorts bow like you say
    - johnward 11y ago
      I think their is a group of people like my parents. They never really used computers and don't "get" them. Now that they have smartphones they are all over the web. My dad refuses to touch a computer but shops on his phone or ipad all the time.
      - alexchamberlain 11y ago
        I'm not denying this - I do see it in my in laws - but I don't get it. I'd be very interested in more research/anecdotes here.
- kaolinite 11y ago
  It's quite possible this changed with iOS7 with the introduction of iCloud Keychain, which enabled storage of credit card information. I've found myself buying a lot more stuff on the mobile web since then, things that previously I only would have bought on a desktop.
  - Avalaxy 11y ago
    Don't think so. The people with an iPhone are a minority. In Europe iOS only has a market share of 18% so I doubt that's a big factor.
    - georgiecasey 11y ago
      did you read the part of the post where he tells us sales by operating system? iOS is 33% and Android is 9%. it's a certain demographic that would buy a monthly box for their dog and i'd expect them to be mostly iPhone users
      - Avalaxy 11y ago
        Oops. no, I overlooked that. I'm proven wrong.
  - eonw 11y ago
    A company I do work for has been doing a million+ or more in monthly credit card sales from iOS and android devices since '08. The iCloud Keychain didnt really increase numbers measurably at all. When I started work for them I didn't believe so many people were willing to buy via mobile devices. Luckily, so was the competition, whom were not on their game and didnt want to accept such truths... so we ate their lunch. ;)
    - kaolinite 11y ago
      Are you talking about mobile web or mobile apps? I'm only referring to transactions that take place through the web browser. If you're talking about the mobile web though, fair enough - I find that surprising. It has certainly altered my habits.
mpeg 11y ago
I like the acquisition success story, people bash on Facebook ads but they're probably the best online channel when you have a very specific audience you want to target with high reach (dog owners, UK&I) Just doesn't work as well for retail products / subscriptions when your audience is not necessarily ready to buy, and you just end up with worthless likes and no conversions. For instance, FB targeting women 25-35 for online clothes shopping probably results in lower conversion rates than Google, even though the audience demographics could be the same, because search translates to buying intent.
- niallharbison 11y ago
  We wouldn't have had the growth we have had without Facebook. Its the most targeted and cost effective ad platform the world has ever seen. Not suited to every business of course but I do think a lot of people underestimate just how effective it can be.
  - Avalaxy 11y ago
    Don't you get tons of fake likes? Because my experience is that the majority of the likes I got were fake.
    - nine_k 11y ago
      I suspect the number, and the very presence, of likes on your company's page is inconsequential. What matters is the percent of conversions (that is, purchases) for ad impressions. FB can target ads very narrowly.
      - johnward 11y ago
        I've ran campaigns that targeted likes and I feel like many of them are phony but I've also ran target campaigns to lead pages as an affiliate and had success in the past.
    - shostack 11y ago
      If you are still running page like ads and not driving traffic offsite to your own pages, you are doing it wrong :)
pkaye 11y ago
I wonder what the gross profits are.
- niallharbison 11y ago
  Niall the CEO of company here. We are pretty close to 50 depending on where they ship to, what package people go on etc. It starts to get way more interesting with volume though at 5000+ boxes providing we get that far!
  - eonw 11y ago
    50 what? %, $, etc?
mrborgen 11y ago
Great job! May I ask how much money you set off to do marketing before you launched?
yarper 11y ago
This looks like such a good place to work. I love dogs and all doggie related things make me happy. No wonder you guys aren't having trouble getting customers.
- niallharbison 11y ago
  Its the one thing I didn't write about is that we all bring our dogs to work and are trying to build a world class culture as much as anything. When you do what you love its just doesn't even feel remotely like work!
  - yarper 11y ago
    Wow! Is it like a dog-creche or do you let them kind of roam the office? Please be sure to post to the HN who's hiring when you're looking!
johnward 11y ago
The fact that these boxes keep turning into successful small businesses is amazing to me. Especially when this box already has a competitor that I thought of as soon as I figured out what it is. The article wasn't as insightful as I hoped. Though I'm pretty impressed by that growth in 3 months. You often see things like SaaS growing much slower. I see people talk about taking years to scale to 20k in monthly recurring revenue and they did it in 3 months. I appreciate that they shared their story but it seems like mostly they built a following by sharing dog pictures on social media. Maybe that's the lesson? They did drop some info about AdWords not working which sounds like the targeting might have been weak or just not good for their target audience. The 100 conversions from a 10,000 person email list is very low for email. Most lists outperform any other media in conversion rates from my experience but those lists are filtered before people even join. It sounds like they have a bunch of people that simply like dogs and decided to join the mailing list. I could see why the conversion could be so low in that case. I still think focusing on a better mailing sequence is an easily hanging fruit to attack but it looks like social is working for you. It would be interesting to see churn numbers in a few months.
- aakilfernandes 11y ago
  > I appreciate that they shared their story but it seems like mostly they built a following by sharing dog pictures on social media. Maybe that's the lesson? I think the lesson is figure out your marketing channel before you build.
eonw 11y ago
20k is nice, but how profitable is it?
creznew 11y ago
Do you have some sort of deal/sponsorship with any of the product suppliers?
joelennon 11y ago
Great post Niall. Just wondering what groundwork you had laid down before the 90 days. Also, staggering numbers on the Bow Wow Times site. Do you think it's mainly down to the fact that people just love dogs (and articles about dogs) or is there anything you guys did that would be replicable for other B2C markets?
kpatterson 11y ago
Commenting for a later read. This is great stuff for getting the ball rolling.

91 points by blackdogie 11y ago

sillypog 11y ago

Is it recurring revenue if it hasn't recurred yet?

beambot 11y ago
Of course it is... they just don't know the churn rate (or CAC) yet -- both of which are crucial to the recurring revenue value equation.
eonw 11y ago
i would say no, i would call it, "potential recurring income". with only 90 days of data you don't really know how long each customer will stay, without more data you really don't know how many of those will stick around for another month. then again i dont count my eggs before they hatch.

bemmu 11y ago

I thought no-one would bother filling out contact details / CC number without getting to a desktop first. After looking at your data and then checking my own analytics, I'm wrong. Even for Candy Japan, I see 13% of conversions from mobile, 12% from tablet. And this despite the site not being designed for mobile at all. Sounds like fixing my mobile side might actually be a great opportunity for getting some more conversions.

blackdogie 11y ago
Plus there should be some SEO benefits too. So it should work two fold. I've seen a site of mine move from mid-30% mobile traffic this time last year, now up to over 50%. I was surprised with the amount and the change over the last 12 months.
vjvj 11y ago
The gulf between perceived and actual mobile phone usage is huge even now. People are willing to do a lot more on their phones than we expect. We have a long-ish sign up form for Car Quids yet half of our completions are done on mobile too.
- niallharbison 11y ago
  We knew it would be a big channel but it was only when writing that post that it was driven home to me. 42%. And we still have so much to improve and speed up etc. The notion that people only sign up on desktops and get the credit card out there is dead now. People trust mobile for all sorts bow like you say
  - johnward 11y ago
    I think their is a group of people like my parents. They never really used computers and don't "get" them. Now that they have smartphones they are all over the web. My dad refuses to touch a computer but shops on his phone or ipad all the time.
    - alexchamberlain 11y ago
      I'm not denying this - I do see it in my in laws - but I don't get it. I'd be very interested in more research/anecdotes here.
kaolinite 11y ago
It's quite possible this changed with iOS7 with the introduction of iCloud Keychain, which enabled storage of credit card information. I've found myself buying a lot more stuff on the mobile web since then, things that previously I only would have bought on a desktop.
- Avalaxy 11y ago
  Don't think so. The people with an iPhone are a minority. In Europe iOS only has a market share of 18% so I doubt that's a big factor.
  - georgiecasey 11y ago
    did you read the part of the post where he tells us sales by operating system? iOS is 33% and Android is 9%. it's a certain demographic that would buy a monthly box for their dog and i'd expect them to be mostly iPhone users
    - Avalaxy 11y ago
      Oops. no, I overlooked that. I'm proven wrong.
- eonw 11y ago
  A company I do work for has been doing a million+ or more in monthly credit card sales from iOS and android devices since '08. The iCloud Keychain didnt really increase numbers measurably at all. When I started work for them I didn't believe so many people were willing to buy via mobile devices. Luckily, so was the competition, whom were not on their game and didnt want to accept such truths... so we ate their lunch. ;)
  - kaolinite 11y ago
    Are you talking about mobile web or mobile apps? I'm only referring to transactions that take place through the web browser. If you're talking about the mobile web though, fair enough - I find that surprising. It has certainly altered my habits.

mpeg 11y ago

I like the acquisition success story, people bash on Facebook ads but they're probably the best online channel when you have a very specific audience you want to target with high reach (dog owners, UK&I) Just doesn't work as well for retail products / subscriptions when your audience is not necessarily ready to buy, and you just end up with worthless likes and no conversions. For instance, FB targeting women 25-35 for online clothes shopping probably results in lower conversion rates than Google, even though the audience demographics could be the same, because search translates to buying intent.

niallharbison 11y ago
We wouldn't have had the growth we have had without Facebook. Its the most targeted and cost effective ad platform the world has ever seen. Not suited to every business of course but I do think a lot of people underestimate just how effective it can be.
- Avalaxy 11y ago
  Don't you get tons of fake likes? Because my experience is that the majority of the likes I got were fake.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    I suspect the number, and the very presence, of likes on your company's page is inconsequential. What matters is the percent of conversions (that is, purchases) for ad impressions. FB can target ads very narrowly.
    - johnward 11y ago
      I've ran campaigns that targeted likes and I feel like many of them are phony but I've also ran target campaigns to lead pages as an affiliate and had success in the past.
  - shostack 11y ago
    If you are still running page like ads and not driving traffic offsite to your own pages, you are doing it wrong :)

pkaye 11y ago

I wonder what the gross profits are.

niallharbison 11y ago
Niall the CEO of company here. We are pretty close to 50 depending on where they ship to, what package people go on etc. It starts to get way more interesting with volume though at 5000+ boxes providing we get that far!
- eonw 11y ago
  50 what? %, $, etc?

mrborgen 11y ago

Great job! May I ask how much money you set off to do marketing before you launched?

yarper 11y ago

This looks like such a good place to work. I love dogs and all doggie related things make me happy. No wonder you guys aren't having trouble getting customers.

niallharbison 11y ago
Its the one thing I didn't write about is that we all bring our dogs to work and are trying to build a world class culture as much as anything. When you do what you love its just doesn't even feel remotely like work!
- yarper 11y ago
  Wow! Is it like a dog-creche or do you let them kind of roam the office? Please be sure to post to the HN who's hiring when you're looking!

johnward 11y ago

The fact that these boxes keep turning into successful small businesses is amazing to me. Especially when this box already has a competitor that I thought of as soon as I figured out what it is. The article wasn't as insightful as I hoped. Though I'm pretty impressed by that growth in 3 months. You often see things like SaaS growing much slower. I see people talk about taking years to scale to 20k in monthly recurring revenue and they did it in 3 months. I appreciate that they shared their story but it seems like mostly they built a following by sharing dog pictures on social media. Maybe that's the lesson? They did drop some info about AdWords not working which sounds like the targeting might have been weak or just not good for their target audience. The 100 conversions from a 10,000 person email list is very low for email. Most lists outperform any other media in conversion rates from my experience but those lists are filtered before people even join. It sounds like they have a bunch of people that simply like dogs and decided to join the mailing list. I could see why the conversion could be so low in that case. I still think focusing on a better mailing sequence is an easily hanging fruit to attack but it looks like social is working for you. It would be interesting to see churn numbers in a few months.

aakilfernandes 11y ago
> I appreciate that they shared their story but it seems like mostly they built a following by sharing dog pictures on social media. Maybe that's the lesson? I think the lesson is figure out your marketing channel before you build.

eonw 11y ago

20k is nice, but how profitable is it?

creznew 11y ago

Do you have some sort of deal/sponsorship with any of the product suppliers?

joelennon 11y ago

Great post Niall. Just wondering what groundwork you had laid down before the 90 days. Also, staggering numbers on the Bow Wow Times site. Do you think it's mainly down to the fact that people just love dogs (and articles about dogs) or is there anything you guys did that would be replicable for other B2C markets?

kpatterson 11y ago

Commenting for a later read. This is great stuff for getting the ball rolling.