Just hit $1000 MRR!

[ovixs90]

My little SaaS just hit $1000 MRR this week.

5 months ago I was working on a vitamin idea, building an AI stock photo library.

One day randomly, a viral tweet about getting free PR from HARO popped up in my feed.

Underneath, a startup CEO was complaining about not having time to read those HARO emails.

That struck me as my next pain killer idea.

I decided to build it as a big experiment.

And here's how it went:

• Built a prototype over 20 days
• Cold DM'd 15 people to get my first free user
• Launched on Hacker News, 3 views
• Launched on Reddit, went viral in this subreddit, 30 signups, 5 customers (Thank you!!)
• Made a typo with trial expiration date, converted 0 of the remaining 30 signups.
• Black Friday sale to get 2 more customers
• Attracted the wrong customer, all 2 of them churned
• Cold DM'd 10 influencers, 0 interest
• Holiday, no growth for a month
• Increased price, 0 new customer (surprise right?!)
• Experimented with 3 marketing channels
• Had mild success with one of them
• Doubled down and grew to $200MRR
• Hired my full time VA (best decision ever)
• Realized my conversion rate is s**t
• Fixed conversion rate by redesigning onboarding
• Added a cheaper tier, added 120MRR overnight.
• Added annual plan, 3 customers first week
• Grew to $400MRR
• Got yelled at by a customer
• Started having meetings with agency
• Realized their needs are much more sophisticated
• Received 4 investor offers
• Lost 2 of the first 3 customers
• One of them suggested a DFY service
• Sold $237 DFY productized link building service x5
• Hired a team to deliver the service
• Almost got scammed
• Starting to get inbound traffic from word of mouth
• Got 8 testimonials
• Grew to $600MRR
• Learned running an agency is hard
• Learned to run an agency
• Delivered 21 backlinks to 7 clients
• Sold $1k DFY packages to 3 customers
• Demo'd to 4 agencies, in talks with 2
• Got a user featured on Forbes
• Made $7k in revenue
• Crossed 1k MRR

Let's go!

 

[whiterobe]

@ovixs90 What was the idea?

 

[westtmd]

@whiterobe same, what’s that

 

[ovixs90]

@whiterobe It's an AI to help you with HARO (Help a reporter out)

 

[mothcorrupteth]

@ovixs90 Wtf is HARO?

 

[jesusisaliveforever]

@whiterobe https://www.presspulse.ai

 

[faithfully92]

@whiterobe literally explains it in the post

 

[micky123]

@faithfully92 Literally did not

 

[faithfully92]

@micky123 People’s reading comprehension these days is pathetic so I don’t blame you for missing it:

“””
One day randomly, a viral tweet about getting free PR from HARO popped up in my feed.

Underneath, a startup CEO was complaining about not having time to read those HARO emails.

That struck me as my next pain killer idea.

I decided to build it as a big experiment.

“””

Zombie

 

[micky123]

@faithfully92 So what’s the idea here? Since your reading comprehension is so great, what did they build? Not enough time to read HARO emails. Okay, there’s a million possible solutions to that, that’s the fucking idea???

 

[faithfully92]

@micky123 Zombie

 

[micky123]

@faithfully92 I have no idea what this is supposed to mean but it’s clear I’m dealing with someone whose brain is still forming, have a good day

 

[faithfully92]

@micky123 Reading comprehension so bad you don’t even know what Zombie means LMFAOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[walkbyfaithnotbysight]

@faithfully92 You're a bitch. Read and comprehend it.

 

[ovixs90]

@faithfully92 Haha that's my biggest marketing problem too - I need to educate most people on:
Website -> SEO -> backlinks -> HARO -> My AI. So to most people what I'm doing makes no sense

 

[jdannett]

@ovixs90 Whats a HARO and whats the painpoint here? You mentioned cold DMing a few times...how do you not get blocked/banned/land in spam when you do this? Which marketing channel was the most effective?

 

[ovixs90]

@jdannett painpoint is it takes too much time for people who's time are expensive.

I only did a small amount, maybe I did get blocked just dont know.

 

[patrickmiller]

@ovixs90 Did you drop a link, need this, gave up haro years ago, too much of a time suck.

 

[ovixs90]

@patrickmiller I sent you a DM.

 

[613jono]

@ovixs90 check out lemlist to warm your email—

https://www.lemlist.com/lemwarm