I studied how Trello went from being bootstrapped to a $425 million acquisition. Here is what I found

[alfie13]

@randel Yeah so during that time a lot of products were shutting down so the trello users thought that since trello was free it would shut down too and users began to churn

 

[randel]

@alfie13 Okay, interesting. I would not have thought of that.

 

[sara23]

@alfie13 Real truth is: already have an audience of 30k+ engaged followers on Twitter.. The rest will come if you have PMF.

Having acquired a following is the biggest growth hack in any business you want to start.

 

[alfie13]

@sara23 True that! But then again it's not so black and white. Like for example Jason Cohen's WP engine got a lot of traffic thanks to his famous blog but no paying customers. He had to do things the "normal" way to get paying customers like the rest of us mortals. So while having an audience is super useful it doesn't guarantee success ig

 

[jessicams]

@alfie13 How much did it cost in the first year, to support infrastructure for 500.000 non-paying users ? They must have been throwing a lot of money at it initially.

 

[alfie13]

@jessicams They had cash to bootstrap this thing thanks to their prev ventures ( a dev focused tool was very successful i forgot their name)

 

[anotheruser]

@alfie13 Ya that's the real secret. Not needing a full time job to divert your focus is a huge advantage.

 

[alisa471]

@alfie13 Random: I’ve been to Joel’s place and met Taco. He’s a lovely dog but very old and nearly blind these days

 

[alfie13]

@alisa471 I think he passed away recently

 

[thomass]

@alfie13 The sad thing is Trello was actually considered a failure because it sold sub-unicorn valuation, which is an odd stance.

 

[alfie13]

@thomass Yeah exactly but For most of us that's life changing money!

 

[claireu1111]

@alfie13 Trello's journey? Fascinating! Reminds me of my early startup days.

 

[alfie13]

@claireu1111 Really? That's fascinating! What's your startup?!

 

[texasmustang]

@alfie13 Does anyone else use this kind of inviting users to unlock some features?

 

[alfie13]

@texasmustang I think webflow did something similar in their YC days - refer a user and get a discount on the pro tier. I like this strategy a lot.

Helps solve user acquisition + user expansion with one Swift move

 

[texasmustang]

@alfie13 Interesting approach, any other similar strategies used by companies?

Would love to learn more

 

[hapagirl82]

@alfie13 Bookmark

 

[alfie13]

@hapagirl82 Needs to be a bookmark manager for reddit lol

 

[ktfw]

@alfie13 "I watched some interviews and read articles" doesn't equal to "I studied"
You have no clue what actually worked for them, why and when

Carefull with what advice you adopt for your saas..

Create feedback loops with your customers, learn and iterate.

 

[fundementalzero]

@alfie13 They simply chose an overwhelming product (Jira) and made a product with subset of features + audience yes