A few months ago I wrote about the difficulty of self-funding a rapidly growing startup. If you haven’t read that yet, go and do that now. I’ll wait. Here’s the quick timeline: JAN 2013 — Started on the idea for ConvertKit JUN 2013 — Reached $2,000 a month in recurring revenue (MRR). SEP 2014 — Revenue declines to $1,330 […]
It doesn’t get easierEarlier this week LeadPages released their ConvertKit integration. For over 2 years that has been our most requested integration—even losing us accounts that didn’t want to use the workaround copy/paste integration. But that objection is gone now. And we have almost all of the major integrations our customers request. Our sales process just became easier. […]
Solving the cash problems from self-funding rapid growth“If you grow too fast it can kill the business.” After spending years fighting for even a tiny bit of growth, ConvertKit was now facing a totally different kind of problem: more growth than we could support. In October, November, and December we were averaging growing 40% per month. Recurring revenue went from $25,000 in […]
Knowing when to quitThat company or project you started isn’t working out. You were excited, early customers were excited, but once you launched nothing really happened. Even worse, it’s not a total failure. You made some money. Not enough to grow, but at least a few people paid for it. When do you pull the plug and move […]
2015 in review — 1 year after I quit bloggingWow. What a year. At the end of last year I made the largest business decision I’ve ever made: stop working on my very profitable training business (to the tune of $20,000 to $50,000 per month!) and instead put all my time, effort, and money into my failing software company. I also almost entirely stopped […]
Growing ConvertKit to $30,000 in Monthly Recurring RevenueA year ago I made the decision to focus full-time on ConvertKit—which at the time was a failing product with only $1,337/month in revenue. In order to turn it around I… Focused full-time on just ConvertKit—ignoring my other businesses and products. Invested $50,000. Hired my dream team. And worked like crazy. You can read that […]
Unsolicited AdviceThe rock skipped five times across the water before sinking into a small wave. Not bad, considering the water was rough. As Barrett searched for another rock to beat his new record, we discussed a new idea: what if we gave people all our advice and opinions they never asked for? I was with four of […]