RB2B reposted this
CEO @ Retention.com & RB2B | Person-Level Website Visitor Identity | Push LinkedIn Profiles to Slack in Real-Time, 100% Free!
Over the past 10 years, I’ve bootstrapped startups $0-$1M three times. Each time was TWICE as fast with HALF the resources. Here’s the breakdown of what I did, how long it took, and how many FTEs we had: 1. Robly Email Marketing January 2014 - May 2015 - Took 17 Months, staff of 25 when we hit it - Entirely sales-led - We had a call center to book a $35/mo subscription and did a 1-to-1 manual onboarding (it was a really, really good list) - Stalled out at $3m ARR, sold to PE in 2020 for $10m 2. GetEmails (now Retention.com) November 2019 - April 2020 - Took 27 weeks, staff of 6 when we hit it - Did Facebook ads, drove a 15min demo - Diana Ross did a thousands of them - Currently $21.7m ARR, 27% total margin 4.5 years later 3. RB2B March 2022 - June 2022 - Took 16 weeks, staff of 5 when we hit it - Founder-brand driven Inbound-led Outbound (mostly Linkedin) - Check out our dashboard (in comments 👇) for up-to-the-minute metrics TAKEAWAY: Startups are HARD. The longer you do this, the more skilled you become at the craft. We’re all looking to capture lightning in a bottle. Each swing you take, you’re closer to it. Keep building.
What does inbound-led outbound mean?
Does that mean the next one will be in 2 months from 0 - $1M ?
Adam Robinson how did you test / find out which GTM motion would be the best fit? Each one is completely different
Amazing. I would love a high level overview of how you'd build Robly Email Marketing starting again. $35/month is crazy affordable and if it delivers results, you'd have life long subscribers I am putting this here because for most people, starting a side business and getting to $2,000 / month, $5,000 / month, or $10,000 / month, would change their lives Hope to hear your thoughts
Can't wait to binge watch "Two Days to 200M ARR: The Adam Robinson Story" on Netflix when it comes out
Some other challenges that founders may face include: Too much information Too much advice Dreaming too big Some things you can't control You can't do it alone You'll likely change direction Startups or anything you do will be HARD. Question is, How long are you willing to consistently improve? THAT effort matters.
It's crazy how with startups, the more at-bats you have, the higher your batting average increases
And just think…a few more years and you’ll be as good as all the ppl this year who “got laid off but turns out to be great because it allowed me to do side hussle full time and now at 2.2m ARR within 5 weeks, and here is screen shot of a non relevant Hubspot report to prove it”
Adam Robinson What I really love about you is how you change yourself with the industry shift: On the marketing side: From cold calling ➜ Facebook ads ➜ content marketing Many people will stick to the old tactics that were working for them in the past and still hoping it will work the same way. Also on the startup side, your move from e-commerce to content was on the spot.
Tribe, Private Equity
1moLove this - always appreciate these posts. Curious how long it took you to build the initial product/service offering for each. For example, how long did it take you to build RB2B? (first version / pre-launch).