From Idea to $5000 a Month in 5 Months

My MicroConf 2014 talk on growing Baremetrics.

https://baremetrics.io
https://demo.baremetrics.io

Transcript

1. From Idea to $5000 a Month in 5 Months What I learned building baremetrics.io
2. Josh Pigford @Shpigford
3. baremetrics.io
4. demo.baremetrics.io
5. Brief History
6. IDEA October 14
7. LAUNCHED November 14
8. Month 1 TIMELINE $0
9. Month 2 TIMELINE $1000 + 21
10. Month 3 TIMELINE $1650 + 30
11. Month 4 TIMELINE $3200 + 64
12. Month 5 TIMELINE $5300 + 94
13. Month 6 TIMELINE $8300 + 125
14. IN 1 YEAR SILICON VALLEY CRYSTAL BALL $4,100,000 + 65,000
15. 5 Takeaways
16. Build what you need, not what you think others need
17. You have a problem. Chances are you’re not a unicorn.
18. Worst case: You solved your own problem.
19. Charge from day one
20. All those product validation tips?
21. Bogus.
22. There is only one type of validation.
23. Money.
24. Charging money shouldn’t be scary.
25. Saving someone time or money or creating value?
26. Charge for it.
27. Think it’s not ready? Chances are, it is.
28. Stop trying to attain the perfect product
29. “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn
30. First version of Baremetrics? • Half the metrics • Forced stats in to calendar months • No deep-diving in to data • Updated once per day
31. First $2,000 of MRR came from that
32. Bought time to learn the intricacies of the problem I was solving
33. 2 months after launch: Rebuilt from scratch Result: Doubled MRR
34. Ship fast Ship frequently
35. 8 days of design & development
36. Spread across 30 days of juggling clients, 2 other SaaS products and international travel for 10 days
37. Ship it fast: you have no excuse.
38. After you ship it fast, keep shipping it fast
39. Shoot for small pieces of larger features
40. Price for the customers you want
41. $9 customer is an entirely different customer than $99
42. Focus on customers that aren’t price conscious
43. General Rule If the businesses you target don’t charge much money, don’t expect to make much money from them.
44. 1. Build what you need 2. Charge from day one 3. Stop trying to attain perfection 4. Ship fast & frequently 5. Price for customers you want
45. Josh Pigford @Shpigford josh@joshpigford.com
46. shpig.me/ideato5k