
ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business - nickhould
https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit
======
djb_hackernews
> concierge migrations

This was a hack I used on an eventually failed software venture. We were in an
incubator and had about $10k and the start of a pivot. We hired 3 contractors
to build an MVP in about 2 weeks. We focused on the core functionality of the
product. Since we used Rails we also were able to use a module that gave us a
nice admin UI around our data model. This let us do the data entry for pilot
members while we got feedback on the core product. Since we were providing a
way for vendors to sell products with complex facets (prices in multiple
currencies, descriptions in multiple languages, complex product availability
etc) we could control the data entry and also avoid building complex wizard
UIs for users that surely would be given up on with our limited value prop at
the time.

Thinking back on that hack I think it is definitely something I'd do again.

~~~
mattragland
Cool to hear others are using the process, even in the past :)

Wrote a bit more about what migrations were like for us here:
[https://artplusmarketing.com/the-silver-bullet-in-
convertkit...](https://artplusmarketing.com/the-silver-bullet-in-convertkits-
rapid-growth-177ecb2fbe26)

------
cyberferret
Congrats - I've been following Nathan's journey for a few years now. I am not
a customer of his web app, as his product was not built for what I do, but
nevertheless I have been reading his annual 'report cards' and have bought a
couple of his e-books.

Just curious for those that are lambasting his methods of marketing - how do
you sell or market your products or services? Are you even involved in the
marketing & sales aspect of a business, or is your role just coding, devops,
finance or other?

~~~
shahzeb
Where are his e-books? Would love to check out what he's written about.

Edit: Here:
[http://nathanbarry.com/authority/](http://nathanbarry.com/authority/)

~~~
cyberferret
That is one of them! :) To be honest, I bought "Authority" but never got
around to reading it - I am not an ebook author myself so just put it aside
until one day I decide to write a book.

The other books of his that I found very useful (and inspirational) are "The
App Design Handbook" and "Designing Web Applications". They are here:
[http://nathanbarry.com/books/](http://nathanbarry.com/books/)

------
scardine
I love his book "Authority" (not affiliated with the author, just got a lot of
value from it). It states that one of the best moves to make a claim of
expertise is writing a book, and contains a framework to write a book about
something you know in ~3 months.

[http://nathanbarry.com/authority/](http://nathanbarry.com/authority/)

~~~
GuiA
The fact that you can't buy the book alone for $20 or so - but instead have to
buy some sort of premium package that starts at $179 - is a definite put off
for me, and also makes me wonder whether the content of the book is that
deep/interesting, or if it's a trick to get the buyer so involved emotionally
with the purchase that they'll end up believing it was absolutely worth it.

I get that by selling $300 book bundles, he only needs to sell 1/15th of what
he'd need to sell if the book were $20; and that of the people who would buy
the $20 book, there are probably more than 6% of them who will buy the $300
book; but it's still pretty offputting.

I'm certainly glad that I didn't have to buy K&R's C book as a $200 package
complete with "file templates" and an "audio book" and "an exclusive skype
session with the authors who will give you personal feedback on your C
program"!

~~~
graeme
Here, $29: [https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-
Financial-...](https://www.amazon.com/Authority-Become-Following-Financial-
Independence/dp/1612060919/)

I read it in 2013, and it's probably earned me at least $100,000. That's being
_veeeery_ conservative.

Not everyone will have that experience, of course. I had an existing book
series, and Authority gave me an idea for how to repurpose it into a larger
business.

As for the package on his site: he probably wants to avoid support. You get a
lot of it with a $20 price point, and as he wrote in the article, he's
focussing on converkit. Whereas with the amazon listing, amazon handles all
customer support.

(I learned that lesson with my own books. My amazon royalties are smaller than
my overall business, but I'm still very glad to get them, because there's
basically _zero_ admin work required.)

~~~
enraged_camel
Heh, I found your comment from 2013:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5746020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5746020)

~~~
graeme
Wow, thank you! Literally a life changing comment/purchase.

~~~
enraged_camel
I ordered the book on Amazon after reading your and a few others' comments.

I'm also interested in the 90 day plan. Unfortunately, it is only available
through the $299 package, which I don't feel comfortable paying for.

~~~
graeme
In your position, I'd get the book, read it, evaluate, and then consider
whether to get the larger package.

Basically, if it seems likely to lead to a profitable idea, then $299 is
trivial. If it doesn't, then just the book will be fine.

For me, it was clear from reading the book that I had an idea I should pursue.
You'll probably either get that from the book, or not. If you _do_ have
something to launch, then you'll have a better idea if the rest of the package
is worth it.

------
thebiglebrewski
Wow, this is pretty astounding. Congrats Nathan.

Personally though, I don't get how this kind of marketing strategy works. I
unsubscribe SO FAST from things that seem like mass emails that it just
wouldn't work on me. I suppose I'm a huge exception to the general public? I'm
even surprised when I look over at my girlfriend's gmail how many promotions
she has (not in a separate tab).

~~~
csallen
ConvertKit targets professional bloggers, podcasters, and other content
creators. Generally, people who subscribe to these types of newsletters are
_there_ for the content. Getting it automatically via email is a huge perk
compared to having to remember on your own and then proactively go out and
find it.

For example, Indie Hackers (the site that hosts this interview) has grown to
about 8000 email subscribers in the past 6 months. My newsletter has 52% open
rates and very low unsubscribe rates.

Even more extreme, Ben Thompson at Stratechery has upwards of 2000 people
_paying_ him $10/month to get his private newsletter.

~~~
nathanbarry
Yep, like everyone is saying ConvertKit is about following content creators
you get a lot of value or entertainment from. We tend to get better open rates
and deliverability across the board because we exclude a lot of the
traditional businesses that would use email marketing poorly (purely for
sales).

~~~
thebiglebrewski
That's a killer advantage Nathan! I hope it holds true as the business grows.

------
pdog
Great interview. Most people would have given up after two years of zero
growth and paltry revenue.

~~~
jacquesm
Almost every company ever took two to three years to establish themselves.
It's not all that incredible.

That simply distinguishes every successful business ever (with a few lucky
exceptions) from the ones that failed because their owners gave up too early.

Two years is about a minimum that you should be prepared to dedicate to your
newborn business if you are at all serious about it.

I've written a bit about this here:

[https://jacquesmattheij.com/it-takes-three-years-to-
build-a-...](https://jacquesmattheij.com/it-takes-three-years-to-build-a-
business)

~~~
nathanbarry
Love this. I think early on I had the same idea as the commenter above—that
2-3 years without results is the anomaly and means it's time to move on.

Hopefully we can tell more stories to show that two years really should be
your minimum commitment to just get traction.

~~~
pixelmonkey
Echo'ed. SaaS founder here. We had two years of slow growth before the
product/market fit hit and now, years later, we're generating millions in
revenue. #1 piece of advice I give to SaaS founders is to watch the talk, "The
Long Slow SaaS Ramp of Death" by CEO of Constant Contact. All good cooking
takes time!

~~~
nathanbarry
This talk is so good.

------
GrinningFool

        > Since we haven't raised money and aren't planning on a
        > big exit, I want to continue to pay myself well through
        > distributions so that offers to buy the company continue
        > to be easy to decline.
    

That's my favorite line from the post. People in the middle stages of building
a long-term business have this tendency to think it's somehow wrong to take
some portion of the profit for yourself - most believe it should be reinvested
or redistributed.

This doesn't take into account that claiming a portion as yours _is_ an
investment - it's an investment to secure your own continued long-term
interest in the project.

Clearly you wouldn't do it to the point where the company is suffering - but
to the point where maybe you're just not growing as fast? Or have to do to add
some features? Often a worthwhile tradeoff.

------
jacquesm
Very clever, this is actually a sales pitch for the product more than a 'news
story'. Props for using the success to further drive success.

~~~
wwalser
If you're reading about the founder of a company, chances are you're reading
content marketing for that founder's company.

If you're listening to a podcast with a company founder as a guest — you're
listening to content marketing.

If you're attending a free event, webinar or watching a youtube video where
company founders are talking about stuff — you're watching content marketing.

I'm not saying this is bad. Content marketing basically converts at some rate
relative to the value that consumers get from it so there is some merit to
that. As long as people realize what their consuming, seems fine.

------
dogas
Dir. of Engineering at ConvertKit here. We're hiring![1]

Nathan is super smart, genuine, honest and generous. Our culture is a
reflection of his personality, which makes ConvertKit a fantastic company to
work for.

[1]: [https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/4266-senior-rails-
engineer](https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/4266-senior-rails-engineer)

~~~
cwbrandsma
Former coworker of Nathan here. Will concur that he is smart and fun to work
with.

------
artursapek
I had no idea "professional bloggers" were such a lucrative market.

~~~
GuiA
It is; the trick is to sell expensive shit to the "aspiring professional
bloggers" demographic.

Just like the best way to live off a 4 hour work week is to write a book about
how you too can live off a 4 hour work week.

~~~
brilliantcode
Marketing is such a powerful thing.

For instance I pay $60 CAD / month to intercom.io for a website that isn't
even built.

THAT's powerful. Made me pay for shit I don't even use (but going to real
soon....I keep telling myself that)

~~~
wheelerwj
impulse purchase are a real bitch... although I don't think I've ever heard
intercom.io described as an impulse buy before...

Seriously though. If you've ever built a company, there will be times when you
wish you had that extra $60 sitting in your account. Cancel until you are
ready.

~~~
brilliantcode
I feel pretty stupid that my impulse purchases are now SaaS subscriptions.

Intercom's marketing is doing something right clearly.

------
plesiv
I'm aware that market is possibly the best kind of fitness evaluator for what
kind of ideas the world needs - but every time I see smart people getting
excited about making good money by doing what's been done so many times before
makes me sad. These kind of stories should be a hopeful example for people who
are not yet able to make a comfortable living, but as a community we shouldn't
glorify them nearly as much as we do at the moment.

------
graeme
Congrats on the success Nathan! I was at your workshop in Boston back in 2013,
and read Authority in 2013. It inspired me to launch
[https://lsathacks.com](https://lsathacks.com) (I had an existing book
series).

I've now released video courses on the site, things are going very well
revenue wise, and I'm on a steady path of much further growth. I honestly
don't know what would have happened had I not read Authority back when I did.

Very inspiring to see what you've done with Convertkit, and it's making me
consider more direct sales.

p.s. Here's an early writeup you did, in case you don't remember.
[http://nathanbarry.com/authority-case-
studies/](http://nathanbarry.com/authority-case-studies/)

~~~
nathanbarry
Hey Graeme! Good to hear from you. Send me an email. I'd love to hear
specifics on how the book and course sales are doing now!

------
going_to_800
Note to myself: I need to build a tool for bloggers.

------
thekevan
Nathan, thanks for telling your story! I'd like to hear what your take is on
something I thought when reading this article. One factor in ConvertKit's
success is that RSS is still sort of broken.

My thinking is that a big benefit of the service is that I can sign up for my
favorite blogger or YouTuber to email me when they post something new, rather
than checking the page a couple times a week and finding nothing new half the
time. I've never found an effect RSS service for myself and I suspect many,
many others feel the same. If we had, the content providers we love would
reply on that instead of being a potential customer for you.

~~~
nathanbarry
That's true. What's odd to me is that I'm not actually sure why or how RSS is
broken, but bloggers are finding again and again that the engagement happens
on the email list. Even though objectively RSS should be a much better
experience. It just hasn't connected with bloggers and readers in the same way
that email does.

------
dangrossman
I loathe cold sales e-mails/calls myself, but this almost makes me want to
hire sales people for Improvely.

~~~
jacquesm
People don't do it because they don't loath cold callers themselves they do it
because it works.

One example: when I was selling licensed software I don't think I ever managed
more than $100K in annual sales (which to me seemed easy money). Enter Marco,
my first employee.

Before the year was out we had nice sales documentation to go with the
products, the beginnings of a brand and $600K in sales...

~~~
dgudkov
Can you please share a bit more details what exactly Marco did? I'm about to
hire our first sales/marketing person so anything that helps understand what
such people do is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

~~~
jacquesm
He sat me down for three days to interview me what the product(s) did (there
were three of them: webcam, rtslave and webpay), made an A4 sheet with notes
about market, product, USPs and features. Then each of those became a little
brochure and a web-page to go with it.

He then found out where our potential customers hung out and started a
conversation with them, asked if he could mail them an information package and
when given permission did so.

Everything looked pretty spiffy (for the time), website and documentation
linked up in a very recognizable way (a little family of buttons with a common
theme adapted for each product).

before Marco:

[http://web.archive.org/web/19961229205008/http://mattheij.nl...](http://web.archive.org/web/19961229205008/http://mattheij.nl/)

After:

[http://web.archive.org/web/19980507122555/http://mattheij.nl...](http://web.archive.org/web/19980507122555/http://mattheij.nl/)

I don't have any samples of that documentation any more, but it's long ago.

Essentially Marco 'packaged' the product in a way that made sense to potential
users, where I was totally relying on happy customers telling other potential
customers (which worked, but I failed to recognize that many of our customers
saw our product as their competitive edge and they would rather keep that to
themselves).

Interesting turn to the story: we _still_ work together.

~~~
dgudkov
Thank you! PS. The point about keeping to themselves is spot on.

------
grogenaut
his blog has an ssl issue on firefox

~~~
nathanbarry
Someone else mentioned this. Is there a link that is going to https that
should be http?

------
acconrad
I'm an idiot

~~~
nathanbarry
Did you read the article you linked beyond the first paragraph?

~~~
wheelerwj
Haha, the comment has since been edited (I'm guessing) but it must have linked
to your post about how ConvertKit raised $1.8M.

I'm guessing this because I too spent a very confused 30 seconds before
realizing I just got trolled. Well played.

~~~
nathanbarry
Yep, it was a link to this article
([http://nathanbarry.com/investment/](http://nathanbarry.com/investment/))
about "how ConvertKit raised $1.8m from a large group of angel investors".

Just read more than the title before commenting. ;)

------
karambahh
«Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly
boostrapping to me.

This achievement is very impressive nonetheless. Growing a business even in a
known environment is very hard, I know it first hand.

It's especially interesting that he shares numbers, some I'd love to be able
to do but money is particularly taboo in my field. Having your accountant and
banker tell you that your numbers are actually very good compared to others
despite being under the target you set to yourself is especially comforting.

Having your banker call you and congratulate you because you're now largely
cash flow positive is exhilarating.

~~~
sixQuarks
are you kidding me? This guy is the definition of bootstrapped. How do you
think he got that $55K? He was bootstrapping design courses - I've been
following this guy for a few years.

~~~
karambahh
I am absolutely not claiming he didn't work very hard to start his company or
earning his money.

I am neither claiming he's bad or wrong or anything like that. Like jacquesm
said it's probably more of a problem of definition between a dominant one and
mine (in other words, looks like I am _wrong_ ). I have seen people starting
companies with nothing, not even a roof on their heads. I started a company
with the amazing comfort of 50k€. I am working hard to make my company a
success, but I command the efforts of the guys I have seen eating noodles for
years before their company finally took off. We are talking living way below
the poverty line here, which is not what I lived when I started a company with
50k€

~~~
charlesdm
Given how easy it is these days for a developer to make €50k (e.g. by
contracting on a day rate fee for a company), there really is no need to eat
noodles for years. You do work for 6 months, save up €50k, and live frugally
(but not crazy frugal) for a while.

~~~
karambahh
Let's say 500€ daily rate (which is probably average in France with a very
large standard deviation between Paris and deserted zones and factoring
varying daily rates which are domain specific and experience related. No way a
junior RoR freelance would make 500€ in Massif Central for instance. Likewise,
500 is low for an experienced data science freelance working in banking in
Paris). 20 _6_ 500=60k€ gross

After social contributions, 30k€ net revenue in France (actually a little more
but I take the liberty to round that down).

In large cities, 33% of revenue for housing is not uncommon. We're left with
20k€, of which we have to substract revenue taxes (rule of thumb in that
revenue range, about 1 month revenue per year) so here 5k€. 15k€ for 6 months.
living frugally you can probably save 2/3 so you can save 10k€ in 6 months.

Assuming these ratio, it would take 2.5 years of steady, near fulltime
employment as a contractor to save these 50k and go all out on your project.

~~~
charlesdm
1\. Assuming you keep it in a company, and actually are smart about releasing
it when you need it, so you don't have to pay all the tax upfront.

~~~
karambahh
"keep it in a company" at least in France won't really help you, as social
contributions are collected every 3 months.

They are very good at hounding you to pay (and inversely keen on giving you
back any overpaid amount ;-) ) so the incorporation does not really help here.
You still owe them about half the gross revenue.

~~~
charlesdm
Sounds like a good reason not to bootstrap a company in France!

