
Storemapper: Bootstrapped to $50k/year in 2 years - TTringas
http://tylertringas.com/storemapper-store-locator-bootstrapped-to-50k
======
aaron987
This story has another lesson buried inside it, and it is one that I first
learned not long ago in a video (unfortunately I can't find a link to it).

The lesson was: "The best way to get into business is to be in business". In
other words, the best way to build a successful business is to get started. Do
something, anything to get started. You have to do that to get into contact
with people and start getting feedback to see what other problems they have.

I noticed the same lesson in this post. Initially, the author was making money
from freelancing. But as clients began asking questions and providing
feedback, a more profitable idea came to the surface.

Do something. Just get started.

Great post.

~~~
aaron987
Wow. I didn't realize this would get so many upvotes, so I decided to put a
little more effort into finding that video. I finally found it here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2m6JkJvv4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2m6JkJvv4w)

~~~
BorisMelnik
thanks for this, I would normally skip over a video with a title like this on
looks alone but my bad for being so judgmental :)

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edpichler
This is a good story. I'm facing the same experiences with a small web app I
did (tool for travel agents). I currently have just Google ads but now it's at
least paying the servers.

The interesting is that every business is different to growth. I really tried
a lot of strategies and the only one that have really worked well was the cold
email I sent for potential customers. This to me seems really annoying to do
because it's almost like spam I think, but when you really knows your
"personas" and you have a good product to them, they answer you with a big
Thanks and you feels good, like doing a favor.

There is a very thin line that separates the spam and the mail marketing.

Another thing I learn is that users don't help you, very difficult to someone
answer you when you ask feedbacks. They only answer you when they think they
will gain something valuable in change. Same behavior in all countries I
tested.

My biggest dream is my App give me enough profit to I get out of my regular
job and work on this full time. Storemapper is really a inspirational and
motivational case to me. Thanks for sharing.

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lquist
As a fellow bootstrapper, congrats!

A few recommendations:

* I recommend A/B testing a pricing structure 3x what you currently charge. I'm guesstimating this to be the sweet spot, but I think you're underpricing significantly.

* Hire a professional designer to make the site look less amateurish.

* Advertise to web developers/consultancies. Again, I don't know too much about your customers, but I think marketing to web developers/consultancies will have a high ROI

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frankdenbow
Salute to another solo dev boostrapper from Brooklyn!

Do you have any stats on how effective the "Powered By" link was in getting
new conversions?

The oDesk lead generators plan is something I am trying now with finding leads
for press for a Kickstarter campaign. It works well when you can very clearly
define the steps for what you'd like (in my case supplying the list of
Kickstarter pages to research). It has to be repeatable and less up for
interpretation. I'm using eLance and have had luck with some admins.

I also had a side project that turned into a full time project. Clearing away
distractions and focusing on one product made a world of difference for me
(still learning to do this). When I kept things as side projects, I wasnt
fully able to test if what I was working on had real potential and I wish I
would have focused earlier.

Great post Tyler!

~~~
johnny99
Appreciate that you posted without self-promoting, but I'm curious: what's
your bootstrapped project?

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maxbrown
Nice job! Especially love the value you're creating in the analytics back-
end... that a company can gather and analyze their users' location searches
for planning and growth is great. I'm not sure I would have seen the
possibility for that little gem.

One piece of feedback for you, in my opinion the sign-up form could really use
some work. It has this "survey" sort of feel that does not excite me or give
me confidence. I wonder how much this affects conversion - how many people
follow a CTA from the homepage but fall off here. Some design & UX focus here
could go a long way, happy to give more detailed ideas if you'd like.

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jxm262
Thanks for sharing.

For this line - "I know that starting from this position, with certainty that
some customers will pay for the product is a fantastic starting point for a
small business or passive income side project."

As someone who recently graduated college and wants to create some sort of
startup/side-business some day; how does one go about finding what things
someone would be interested in paying for?

Any tips on how to find that initial starting point?

~~~
TTringas
Answers to this could go on forever but...

I think the more important part is to build a subtractive methodology, a way
of editing out and whittling down ideas that won't work.

Use the James Altucher idea machine strategy and go sit in a coffee shop with
a pen and paper and almost anyone entrepreneurial can come up with 50 ideas
for possible businesses.

Then you need to go work editing those ideas and brutally crossing them off
the list. And don't get attached to those ideas. Be comfortable having 50
ideas and crossing all 50 off the list. But having the mode, of taking every
idea that comes to you and then really thoroughly scrutinize it, can help you
know when you've hit on something really good.

Odds are, that really good idea originates from some random source, not
necessarily a system for finding a good idea, but because you're already in
the mode of evaluating them properly you'll be ready to pounce on it.

~~~
pan69
I think this approach might work better for something who's been around the
block a few times than for someone who recently graduated college. I mean,
life and business experience is kinda important in this context.

~~~
jxm262
Well, to clarify, I've been working as a programmer for about 2 years now
(which to me is still pretty new). Was hired before I graduated ;)

But yes, in general I do feel like I have _alot_ more professional development
ahead of me.

To me this approach seems like it would work really well. But yes, I
definitely think experience would help in the "editing" part of the list.
Although, I imagine there has to be creative ways to get feedback on what
works or won't work, even if I'm new to an industry.

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johnparkerg
This is the kind of story that motivates me. I like being reminded that the
internet hasn't become the place where initiatives (big or small) either
become billion dollar companies or they fail completely, contrary to the
picture the startup sphere tends to paint.

Truth is that having a backup like Storemapper can empower you to do something
way bigger, in other words it can be the greatest investment you can make.

~~~
yangmeyer
There’s a whole movement around Micropreneurship, which celebrates the fact
that not all product businesses need to become "the next Facebook" to be
successful. It all depends on your definition of success.

[http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/80.03.MicropreneurManif...](http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/80.03.MicropreneurManifesto)
[http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com)
[http://unicornfree.com](http://unicornfree.com)

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at-fates-hands
"Lesson learned: always test higher prices. I didn’t bother with the setup
required to run simultaneous A/B tests. I just raised prices and watched what
happened."

Not enough startups do this on a regular basis. They're too worried about
losing clients. If you don't reinforce your value proposition on a regular
basis by adding features, you will lose customer regardless.

With several of my side projects, I would add a new feature, then raise prices
for new customers. At the same time, clients who renewed (I used a
subscription based model) would get a discount. It was like magic. More people
wanted in earlier, instead of waiting for a more mature, more expensive
product. They gladly paid a lower monthly fee up front, in order to avoid the
increase in price later on.

~~~
TTringas
It's a great point. I struggled with how explicit to be about this. E.g. - do
you email all the early adopters and tell them how lucky they are they are on
a lower plan? Does that comes across as too sleezy? How do you translate this
into NEW users? Do you put above the "sign up" button "Buy now before prices
increase!"?

Maybe it could be added to the monthly receipts, showing the current price for
new users minus their "discount"...

But yea, raise prices.

~~~
kevinconroy
Several easy ways to do this.

First, you could send an email to existing customers telling them that you are
raising prices but that you are grandfathering them in and their rate won't
change. Danger here is that you then go on record and may never want/be able
to raise prices without losing them. YMMV.

Second, change their monthly invoices to show that they WOULD be charged a
higher rate if they weren't grandfathered in. Loyalty discount. If you don't
want to show a discount on the invoice, just rename their pricing tier to
"Loyal Customer - Pro Edition" (or whatever). This lets you do it stealth and
leaves options open for price changes in the future.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>> First, you could send an email to existing customers telling them that you
are raising prices but that you are grandfathering them in and their rate
won't change.

This is the approach I took, but worded similar to how cable companies word
their advertising - that the discount is only valid for x amount of months.
After that period, they could be subject to a "change" in price. The wording
is left vague so you don't say there _will be_ an increase, simply that the
rate could change after their discount expires.

This was usually after a 12-24 month period. After two years of discounts, I
finally increased the monthly fee, but only by about 8% which still left them
paying less than new customers - which is an important point. Yes, they're
paying more than they did, but it's still less than new subscribers, giving
them the _impression_ they're still paying less - when in reality, I'm just
making back the discount I was giving them.

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pmorici
What is the over head of running a service like this is this 50k in profit or
revenue?

~~~
TTringas
Not including my time, a few hundred dollars a month for servers and other
services (like intercom.io). Gross margin is over 90% which is probably
typical for micro-SaaS.

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chris123
Great post. Would be great, Tyler, if you could also share the terms sheets
and contracts, with whatever details redacted that needed to be redacted
(names, addresses, and other personal information). THAT would be really
helpful. Yes, you said the deals didn't work out, targets were too aggressive,
etc. But studying and learning from failures is really valuable to everyone,
especially learning from *other people's" failures. THAT is of extreme value.
Thank you!

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ohfunkyeah
Great product but even better support. I integrated storemapper in a meteor.js
based website for my brewery
[http://twbrewing.com/where_beers](http://twbrewing.com/where_beers). The
meteor framework gave me some grief as it tends to do with embeddable js
widgets but Tyler got back to me within a day or sooner everytime I had a
question.

~~~
TTringas
Thanks George!

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skeoh
This was a fascinating read. I'm having trouble with the statement "switching
customers to monthly billing is great for your cashflow and sanity", given
that the previous paragraph details switching customers from monthly billing
to annual billing. Am I missing something? Which is preferred in this case?

~~~
TheMakeA
I assume he meant yearly.

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palidanx
For those who subscribed to the $99/year plan, I'm just curious, do you auto
renew them for the second year? My current model is monthly, but I have been
toying around with a yearly model.

And also, for those who subscribed to the $99/year plan, have you had anyone
who wanted refunds?

~~~
TTringas
Yes, it's an annual subscription the renews each year. Most of the time with
SaaS annual billing you are pre-paying for the full year, so if you cancel you
don't get a pro-rated refund. Customers are ok with that as long as you're
clear about it.

~~~
palidanx
Generally speaking have you had many customers asking for refunds (monthly or
annually?). Currently in my product, the monthly charge is about ~200. But I'm
thinking of doing a yearly option of a $1,000/year. Any advice on something
that high of a price point?

~~~
brodney
If I were paying ~2400/yr and was given the option of ~1000/yr, I would think
I've been grossly overpaying for the monthly option. In your shoes I would
offer one month free for 2200/yr rather than 7 months free.

~~~
palidanx
Good points. Might there be sticker shock on the renewal of a $2,200 product?

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theworst
I'm currently in the pre-preparation process for moving to another country,
something you alluded to in your article.

Argentina is one of the places I've been considering. Can you point me to any
resources you used to decide where to live, preparatory work, any gotchas,
etc.?

~~~
umami
I am from Argentina. I'll be happy to help with what I can. You can find me at
hello@umamicollective.com.

~~~
mfalcon
Me too, glad to help. My mail is in the profile.

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reillyse
"With an eight hour layover in the Flagship Lounge I was looking at nearly 36
hours of free wifi, unlimited champagne and coffee and very few distractions."
and you decided to nerd out.... I'd do the same but what does that say about
us :)

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lowellgoss
Great story! Congratulations. I love the time boxed goal of launching when you
landed.

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BorisMelnik
Very well done, its always reassuring seeing smaller companies with so much
success. Your execution and focus was so spot on, so many companies try to
tackle so many different problems.

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minikomi
Hey mate, good article. If you read this - the links to the examples on your
front page are broken (they're missing [http://](http://))

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mkal_tsr
From one solo-bootstrapper to another, great read and well done!

~~~
TTringas
thanks! keep at it.

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reustle
Do you pay for a google maps commercial license of sorts?

~~~
chrisan
Seems like he would create a widget that injects code on to the company's site
making the API limits per client domain and not all coming from storemapper.co

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jacquesm
Super work! Now you need to scale it, if you can't find any good reasons why
you can't do $500K per year then that should be your next target.

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kamilszybalski
Someone once said that a startup becomes a business as soon as it makes its
first dollar.

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ericthegoodking
Thanks for sharing.

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vuzum
Hey Tyler, I hate to do this to you (and to SnapWidget and others), but
there's something cooking.

With the API and feature rich product updates that are coming up, I think
we'll hit a cross road. I don't think I have to go into details, you'll figure
it out with this sample widget + Editor: [http://blogvio.com/widgets/util/map-
with-google-maps/composi...](http://blogvio.com/widgets/util/map-with-google-
maps/composition)

I just want to let you know that we appreciate you opened up and shared your
story. I checked your product and it's cool. Keep up the good work! Don't hate
the messenger. :-)

