10 Lessons From A Bootstrapped SaaS Startups 7-Figure Acquisition

Leave a comment

I just sold my 4th bootstrapped SaaS business for 7 figures as a solopreneur. Obviously I learned a ton (like I always do with each startup).

Here are 10 important lessons I learned the hard way:

(Maybe you already know all of these. The list is far from exhaustive)

Lesson 1

Wearing all the hats is risky business

In the early days of SEOJet, signing up was by invite only. An automated email would get sent out after 20 minutes of a potential customer requesting an invite.

Because I was so busy with all the tasks of running and growing the business I didn’t realize for 6 months that all of the automated emails telling people their invitation had been approved were going straight to spam.

Obviously this meant a huge slow down in sign ups. I just assumed no one liked my software anymore.

During those 6 months 6000 people requested an invite to sign up for SEOJet and none of them ever saw a reply from us.

When I figured this out, first I cried inside, then I was happy to know that the reason the business wasn’t growing was because of a dumb glitch.

But that glitch probably cost me $250k.

Lesson 2

Don’t fall in love with just one customer acquisition channel, no matter how well it is working

I have a long history as an SEO expert. I started back in 2002 and have made a very good living ever since using SEO almost exclusively as the main driver of traffic.

Because SEOJet was a platform built for businesses doing SEO I knew I needed to rank well in the search engines to prove the software was legit.

This strategy worked well for a while but growth became inconsistent.

It wasn’t until I paid a well known SaaS founder to teach me how to crush FB ads that I experienced crazy predictable growth. (Hint: we doubled in size in 6 months)

Lesson 3

Don’t be afraid to raise your prices, even with current customers

This was another lesson I learned from a mentor. I was petrified to raise prices on my customers but he insisted and begged me to do it.

I finally doubled my prices and only lost about 20% of my customers.

It was a huge increase in MRR for me by simply sending an email saying prices were going up.

Lesson 4

You need predictable growth to become more acquirable

I always knew I wanted to sell SEOJet, but I wanted to get at least 1 million for it.

The 17 other small internet businesses I had sold before that all relied on SEO traffic for their revenue I knew that potential acquisition partners would look down on that because of the risk involved.

This was the main reason I turned to the other SaaS founder to mentor me with FB ads. If investors can see a way to put more money in and get even more money out, this really increases the value of the business.

Lesson 5

You don’t need employees to be a successful company

My goal from the beginning with SEOJet was to be a solopreneur and sell the business for a million dollars.

I accomplished that goal and then some.

But I did have a few contract workers that I paid to help me with tasks I didn’t want to or couldn’t do.

Frankly I couldn’t have done it on my own.

Lesson 6

SEO is not free

There is a big fallacy in the SEO world that SEO is free.

This is why almost all bootstrapped founders choose this as their main customer acquisition channel.

Sure, once you’re ranked high you can get free traffic.

But there is no way to rank for any key phrases worth ranking for without having to spend money on amazing content and a lot of backlinks.

During the 4 years that I ran SEOJet I spent at least $50k on backlinks for my own business. I did that because ranking well was critical for my credibility.

The sad truth about SEO that no one is willing to admit is that those companies that can spend the most are going to win.

On my new startup SquidVision (not in the SEO space), most of the marketing budget (at least until we are self sustaining) will go towards FB and Google ads.

Lesson 7

Don’t be afraid to shift your business model

I figured out an awesome way to generate more revenue from my subscribers by offering to sell guest posts on the backend of the software.

It integrated beautifully with the software and was a financial hit right from the beginning. It quickly became a bigger source of revenue than subscriptions.

But again, it was unpredictable how many guest posts my users were going to buy each month.

I knew that for resell value I needed to shift the business model so that the majority of the revenue was on the subscription side.

I did this by changing our plans so that the more money a user paid in their subscription, the bigger discounts they received on guest posts.

This strategy worked like magic and also reduced churn because our users came to depend on those discounts.

Lesson 8

Create an audience before your launch

I realize that this isn’t always possible, but before I launched SEOJet I had built another smaller SaaS product called Guest Post Tracker.

It was a really simple tool that I charged $37 for lifetime access.

But the audience was exactly the same audience that would want to use SEOJet. So Guest Post Tracker essentially became the tripwire offer for SEOJet.

When I was ready to launch I reached out to GPT users and asked if they wanted to be beta users. Over 100 of them said yes. (There was no free beta)

Lesson 9

Talk to your customers in the beginning

One of the smartest things I did in the beginning was I forced everyone that wanted to sign up for SEOJet to first get on a demo call with me so I could walk them through the software.

This was super valuable for me to hear from my target audience the parts of the software they were really resonating with and were excited to use.

I could then take that info and tweak all of my marketing copy to really focus on the features and benefits I knew my audience would care the most about.

The close rate from these demos was probably about 60% and many of them were still customers when I finally sold the company.

Lesson 10

Always be testing – AB Test everything

I love running AB tests. Increasing conversion rates is super fun for me.

It was critical for the growth of SEOJet when I needed to squeeze more revenue out of the business without increasing traffic.

For bootstrappers, it’s free and frankly there is very little downside to it.

You should absolutely AB test the crap out of your homepage, and paid advertising landing pages and probably your pricing and sign up pages.

If you’re curious about what I’m working on now, I built SquidVision.com to help SaaS business owners grow their revenue by showing them a visual overlay of exactly how much revenue every single button and link generates on each page of their website.

It’s really useful to track how effective your content marketing campaigns are and how well your landing pages are performing.

When you can see exactly how much revenue has been generated by each CTA on every blog post and landing page it becomes really clear which posts to focus on promoting.

It might be the most addictive (non-social media) app out there, IMHO.

We’re going live in just a few weeks. Join the waitlist here: https://squidvision.com/

Thanks for reading!

Obviously there are many more things I could have included. What critical tips did I leave out?

Need some help with your SaaS growth?

I have been building internet businesses for over 20 years and have built and sold 4 SaaS companies.

I take on one or two SaaS clients at a time. Reach out to me. Let’s see if it’s a good fit.

How To Get Ranked On Google In 7 Days With A Brand New Site

Leave a comment

So I have been working on a huge project.

For about the last year I have building out a new tool called SEOJet.

It is the answer to a couple of problems that I kept encountering while doing link building.

First, any time I went out and got a link I was always more or less guessing on what the anchor text should be.

Back in the olden days this was fine because I could be wrong and get away with it.

Nowadays you have to be very careful on what your anchor text is, otherwise you could hurt your rankings.

So I just launched SEOJet and have been giving demos to SEO companies mainly.

But I also wanted to be able to reach the masses so I wrote the backstory of SEOJet and how I ended up creating the software and posted it on this post: How To Build Backlinks – A Link Strategy From 5,734 Anchor Texts.

The post itself is about 5000 words long and is awesome. It goes into the in-depth backlink research I did to come to a conclusion on what a number one backlink profile should look like.

I also include a pretty jaw-dropping case study from Guest Post Tracker where I show the results of using SEOJet’s link maps to do my link building and how I was able to get top 3 rankings with about 8 links.

It’s pretty awesome.

So to promote that blog post I got another blogger to link to that post, and then the only other thing I did was I submitted it to GrowthHackers.com and then submitted it to Inbound.org.

My strategy here was simply to leverage the popularity of those two sites and hopefully get some views and interaction from their readers.

Note: I did promote the post with a Facebook ad to people interested in SEO to get shares.

For me SEO was a long term play and I didn’t expect to start showing in the search engines for at least a month or two.

What I didn’t expect was this:

In just about 7 days I was showing up in the top 30 for one of my main phrases on a brand new site with an even newer blog post.

Just by getting one link and submitting to those two sites? Crazy.

I think the biggest key here is the content.

Content on it’s own is not worth very much in terms of SEO (for the most part).

But amazing, beefy content with some really good (read: high relevance / authority) links pointing to it make all the difference.

Ironically, this is how I built SEOJet to work. You build out awesome content pieces (I call them SEO power pages) and then start building links to those pages based on the link map SEOJet gives you.

The reason you use the link map is because it helps you always make sure you are building a backlink profile that matches what Google typically will rank #1.

That was as you build a lot of links to the power pages, the link profile always looks natural.

As part of the SEO strategy I will also build backlinks to the home page and other smaller pages but the power pages pass a ton of SEO value to the rest of the site so I send a lot of links their way.

Now obviously for this blog post there is still a lot of work to do to get to the top 3 of Google for the key phrases I am targeting on this page, but to see things happen so quickly with a brand new website is extremely encouraging.

Why The TV Show “The Profit” Is The Worst Show On TV

56 Comments

theprofit

If you haven’t heard about the runaway hit show “The Profit” on CNBC then you must have been living off planet for the last 12 months.

The show stars business tycoon Marcus Lemonis who travels around America investing in struggling small businesses and then waving his magic wand and poof! the businesses seem to magically become successful.

It actually is pretty friggin awesome.

But here is why I say that “The Profit” is the worst show on TV.

I’m a busy person, I have a wife and 6 kids, I run my own internet company, I write and direct movies, and to relax I watch a little TV on the weeknights. You know, brainless shows that allow me to unwind and ponder the mysteries of the universe.

That is until I discovered this new little aforementioned show “The Profit”. My life has never been the same since.

And so Marcus Lemonis, I ask you:

How dare you make a television show that makes me tear up like a baby way more often than I am comfortable with? I personally don’t like crying but I admittedly am a sympathetic cryer when people have something amazing happen to them. I can’t stand the raw emotion.

Do you know how hard it is to hide the tears welling up in my eyes from my wife so she doesn’t make fun of me? Is that what you wanted when you made this show? Would you please be a little more sensitive (pun intended) to how that is affecting me?

Secondly, mentally at 9pm or 10pm at night I am not prepared for a television show that will inspire and motivate me to want to get up immediately and figure out how to make my business (and every business) more profitable. At that hour, I’m trying to wind down and your show has the opposite effect. It’s like eating a whole key lime pie after you already had a half dozen cupcakes. Oh and guess what? The teary eyes add to my exhaustion so you tire me and motivate me at the same time. What’s up with that?

But that isn’t the worst part. How dare you create a show that gets my wheels turning so badly that I lie in bed at night and scheme about all of the ways I can fix this struggling diner that I ate at earlier in the day?

I toss and turn. Should I ask them about their Process? Should I tell them where their Product needs to improve? How much could I increase their profits just by making changes X, Y, Z? Should I talk to each employee (their People) and see what they think about the company? Should I approach the owners and make an offer? What would Marcus do? I’m trying to sleep man!

Have you no respect for a person’s physical and mental health? I’ve got enough on my plate with my online business that helps Shopify store owners and SaaS companies track revenue on every button and link on their website and yet after watching your show religiously I find myself thinking about fixing every brick and mortar business I visit.

Why can’t I walk into a business and stop myself from thinking, “I could be like Marcus Lemonis. He’s the most amazing business person I have ever seen. He would want me to invest in this gym that has no customers…”? I hold you responsible.

I don’t know what can be done. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep at night.

Maybe I will just go back to watching “regular” business reality shows that teach me that blowing up beaver dams in the forest and wearing camo to the office is all part of a good day’s work. Now that is night time TV.

Now I know you’re saying, “why don’t you just DVR the show and watch it in the morning?” Oh yeah, that’s a good idea, start off the day getting possessed by the idea of fixing someone else’s business. I think I would be really productive that day.

All I can say to you Mr. Lemonis is, thank goodness for the off season, when I can actually stay focused on my own business and get some work done.

Worst. Show. Ever.

Seriously though, it’s really good.

Now…what time does Outdaughtered come on? (I’m asking for my wife, I swear.)

About The Author

pinterestprof
Adam White is the founder of SquidVision, one of the coolest CRO tools that lets you see how much revenue every single link and button on your website generates. He is an avid fan of “The Profit”, he has worked in the internet marketing world since 2000 and has written and directed two feature films. He lives in Arizona with his wife and 7 children.

Guest Posting Site – From Conception To Paying Members In Just 10 Days

12 Comments

As many of you know I always like to have a handful of SEO clients to work on. I do this for 2 reasons. Firstly, they pay me (I’m not an idiot). Secondly, it helps me stay on top of what is working now in the SEO world.

Over the years I have found myself developing new tools that make my life easier when I do SEO for these clients.

Guest Post Tracker falls under this category.

One of the main branding and link building strategies I like to use is submitting guest posts.

Guest posts are awesome for 2 reasons.

First, if you choose the right blog who has the same audience as yours, it can drive awesome converting traffic instantly (more on that in a bit).

Second, the power you get from an SEO standpoint from links in those guest posts (or author bio) really do make a difference in your rankings.

So what is Guest Post Tracker?

As I was doing the SEO for both my websites and my clients one thing I noticed was that it was extremely time consuming to try and find blogs that would actually allow a guest post.

So then I went to some of the “ultimate” list of blogs that a few bloggers had already put together and probably half of the blogs in those lists didn’t accept guest posts anymore.

So I started putting together my own list. As my list got bigger and bigger it became very easy to find a related blog and submit a guest post.

I shared the list with some SEO friends and they loved it!

I knew I was on to something.

I was working with the list so much that I wanted more features added to it.

For example, I wanted an easy way to track which blogs I had submitted to for each SEO client. I also wanted to easily sort blogs by category.

But the list kept growing. When I got to over 500 websites I realized my Google spreadsheet wasn’t working anymore.

So I set out to build GuestPostTracker.com.

The funny thing was, I had the idea to build it, I got on the phone with my programmer and in less than 10 days it was finished.

It was easily the fastest project I had ever embarked upon.

The website turned out amazing, better than I expected.

gptforp

The site has 3 huge advantages over any other list of blogs that accept guest posts out there.

1. The site is always updated. I add (and sometimes remove) new blogs almost every single day. You don’t have to waste time looking for blogs.

2. The list is searchable by category. This makes your life really easy when you only want blogs in a certain category.

3. Submission tracking. The software allows you to mark any blog that you have submitted a guest post to. So when you look down the list you see which blogs you’ve submitted to, that date you submitted and what anchor text you were targeting.

These three features made this list of blogs extremely useful to me as an SEO guy and anyone else that wanted to promote their website through guest posting.

It was ready for the masses.

I decided to charge just $5/mo for people to use the software. This would help cover my programming costs plus the cost to keep the list updated.

How I Started Getting Sign Ups Without Spending A Dime

Like I mentioned earlier, guest posting can be an amazing advertising tool if you do it right.

I found a blog (business2community.com) that I knew was a good match with my new business. I didn’t know how much traffic a guest post there would bring me but I did want a strong link to get my new site indexed.

So I asked one of my SEO friends who is a contributor (he was using the software) to post an article about the new software. He posted the guest post entitled, “3 Must Have SEO Tools For 2016 You’ve Never Heard Of Before“.

2 days after he posted the article it was live on the site.

Now keep in mind the site was brand new and I was just trying to get it indexed from a good authority site.

But once the article went live, people started signing up.

To my surprise not only was the guest post driving traffic, people were signing up.

The conversion rate on the site was close to 3% which is phenomenal.

I knew the guest posting site was useful but I was thrilled to see people agreed with me and were signing up.

This whole process I had just gone through proved how valuable having a good updated list of blogs that accept guest posts really is.

I picked a blog from my list, submitted a guest post and saw a boost in traffic and sales instantly. Awesome.

So as I saw the amazing response to the site with such small amount of traffic I am really excited about the future of this site.

3000 Users By The End Of The Year

I’m setting some ambitious goals for this site. I want to be at 3000 users by the end of the year.

This means that I need to get about 150,000 unique visitors over the rest of the year which averages out to be almost 14,000 visitors per month. From those 14k visitors I need to average about 273 sign ups a month.

The first part of my traffic strategy is to continue to get engaging guest posts on high value blogs that match my audience.

The second part of the strategy is to approach the bloggers who already own the search rankings for all of the “list of guest posting blogs” and pay to advertise on those lists. I’ve already approached 2 of the highest ranking blogs and they have agreed to allow me to do that.

Third strategy is to target through SEO the hundreds of phrases that will drive targeted traffic. One of the cool things about this niche is people not only search for broad terms (ie “guest posting site”) but they also search by category (ie “submit health guest post”). So I will spend time targeting all of those niche phrases as well.

As it has been well documented in articles like this one: https://springhillmarketing.co.uk/the-ultimate-guide-to-blogging-for-seo-success/ creating smart blog posts that target specific key phrases and solve the problems of my target audience is the fourth part of my SEO strategy.

14,000 visitors in a month is a lot but with the right traffic strategies I am confident I can make it happen.

Website Flipping Case Study: These 3 Crazy Simple Website Tweaks Led To An 860% Revenue Boost

14 Comments

How I Bought A Website For $3700 And In 4 Months Increased The Revenue By 860% Without Spending A Dime Or Doing Any SEO…And Then Sold The Site For Over $30k.

transaction

So many times website owners have complained to me that they don’t know SEO and they struggle increasing the traffic to their websites so the website flipping methods I teach won’t work for them.

I recognize that SEO can be difficult and take time (but can easily be learned if you want to know how to do it) so I set out to prove that I could buy a website that had traffic, and without doing any SEO or website promotion I could increase the revenue significantly.

Check out this website flipping case study:

Using the prospecting method I invented I went out looking to find a website to buy. I was looking in the healthcare education leads niche.

I found a site that fit several of the important criteria I was looking for.

– It already had good traffic.
– It was making some money but not a lot.
– The site was not converting well.
– It was already set up to get education leads.

I look for websites that match these criteria because I know I can make quick changes that will have a positive impact on the revenue of the website.

So I emailed the owner and negotiated the purchase of the website. It really is amazing how many website owners are ready and willing to sell their websites if someone simply approaches them and asks.

I assume this is because most people that start and run websites are serial entrepreneurs and they get bored quickly and like moving on to other projects.

As soon as I found out the owner of the website was willing to sell I asked the appropriate questions and we got into the numbers of the website.

The 2 big numbers I cared about was unique visitors to the site each month, and total revenue each month.

The site owner gave me access to Google analytics and I was able to verify that the website was getting about 4,000 unique visitors each month.

He also told me that the site was making $208 each month which with that much traffic I had no reason to doubt him. In fact just running some quick numbers I was able to see that each visitor was worth $0.05 per visitor.

visitorvalue

Because I have experience in this industry and had run a website that had a value of over $1.00 per visitor I knew that this website had a ton of potential to make things happen quickly.

Because of this I had no problem offering the website owner an 18 month multiple (monthly revenue x 18 months). I usually don’t go that high unless I see a ton of potential in a website.

Here is the data from the website:

websitedata

So I purchased the website for $3700. Here is what the homepage looked like when I got it. It wasn’t a terrible design but it didn’t drive the visitors to do what I wanted them to do.

oldsite

How This Website Makes Money

The way that this website makes money is it collects leads for schools that offer healthcare education programs. The owner of the website had signed up with a company that has agreements with all of the schools. The website owner put “Request Info” forms on the site and sent leads to this company.

So a visitor to the website would come and see the form on the bottom of the page or over in the left hand navigation as shown in the screenshot above and they could request information from different schools.

Anytime a visitor to the website requested information from a school the owner of the website would get paid a small commission usually between $15-$30.

I had used this same monetization method with other sites in this industry and I knew it was the best way to monetize the site so I had no plans to change it. I did however use a different company that I already had a relationship with that also had agreements with all of the schools, Quinstreet.

As soon as I got control of the site I immediately made 2 very quick tweaks to the website. These changes took me literally 30 minutes to an hour to get set up.

Tweak #1: Moved The Lead Form Above The Fold

tweak1

Only about 1/3 of the homepage is viewable (above the fold) when you first come to the website. This meant that in order for someone to see the lead form and fill it out they had to scroll down to the bottom or look in the left hand navigation which most people wouldn’t do.

I wanted the lead form front and center and right in their faces as soon as they came to the site. So I moved it to the top of the home page.

I also removed the lead form from the left hand navigation. I didn’t test whether having it there increased conversions, I just made a gut decision to take it out and focus on the one form being above the fold.

This change took me about 15-30 minutes to do.

Tweak #2: Popup Lead Form

tweak2

I know that many if not every person hates popup windows. Or at least they say they do, and many of you are probably scared to use them because you don’t want to offend your website visitors.

The reality of popup windows is they work. They work because you are forcing your visitors to make a decision. They have to decide either “Yes I am going to fill out this form right now,” or “No I don’t want to fill it out right now.” There is no other option. They can’t do anything else until they make that decision.

Because you are forcing them into a decision many of them will choose Yes. It has been proven time and time again that popup windows increase conversions.

So this is the second tweak I made. I just gave my visitors the chance to decide for themselves Yes or No whether they wanted to fill out a form.

The wordpress plugin I used for the popup window is XYZ Lightbox. I like this because it has flexibility in what you can put in the popup window. I needed to be able to put a picture and a javascript form.

Tweak #3: Add State Pages To Each Category

tweak3

This change took a little more time to implement. I knew that some of the schools I was providing leads for had campus across the country. So I wanted to be able to allow a website visitor to search for programs by State.

So I added state pages to each of the different healthcare programs. When a user would click on their state the page would populate with the schools in that state. They could then choose any or all of the schools and request information from them.

This change took me about a day to get set up.

The purpose of these 3 minor tweaks to the site was to give the visitors more opportunities to do what I wanted them to do, and that was to request information from one or more of these colleges.

I was simply trying to guide them instead of letting them try to figure out the site for themselves. It’s similar to how a retailer will put all of their high margin products right up front and center so you have to see them and pass by them to get to anything else.

860% Increase In Revenue From The 3 Tweaks

The changes took about 2 days to get totally implemented and then I just watched and waited. I didn’t try to promote the site. I didn’t try to do SEO. I just wanted to see what the 4000 visitors per month would do with the changes.

The results were amazing. I was surprised to see how much of a difference these 3 small changes made.

Within 4 months the revenue increased from $208/mo to $1992/mo in month 4. A 860% increase in revenue. It was awesome to see what could be done with just a few changes to the site itself.

It was all about increase revenue per visitor. We didn’t need more traffic we just needed to monetize the traffic better.

So what was the new revenue per visitor after the changes? $0.50 per visitor.

$0.50/visitor was much more like what I would expect in this industry. That is a number an investor will drool at. So what happened? An investor came and offered an 17 month multiple for the site.

The offer was $34,000 for a website I had just purchased 4 months previous for $3,700. A 719% return on my initial investment.

newwebsitedata

All from 3 tiny changes that took less than 2 days. Not a bad 2 days work.

So to recap, the three changes I made had to do with pointing the visitor in the direction of what I wanted them to do. My goal for this website was to get the visitors to the site to request information from healthcare colleges so they could potentially enroll and become students.

I didn’t care if they read any of the copy on the site, I just wanted them to see the form and fill out the form. Now I understand that providing good content that is engaging helps increase customer satisfaction and can increase conversions as well. On this test though I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to see how quickly and dramatically I could increase revenue per visitor.

I accomplished this by moving the form above the fold on each page of the site. Then since that wasn’t in your face enough I added the pop up form to the site. If the visitors somehow ignored those first two changes I also added state pages that listed all of the schools by state for each program. Again, this was to give my visitors as many possible opportunities to request information from schools.

I think the biggest takeaway from this test was that if you want your visitors to do something you have to make it so easy and brainless that they actually have a hard time doing something else.

Do you want to learn how build websites you can sell for big profits?

For the past 6 years I have been finding undervalued websites, buying them for super cheap, fixing them up and then selling them when the time is right. Some people call it website flipping. I started Prosperly to teach others how to do the same thing.

If this is something you would be interested in, click the button below and watch another case study of a site I sold. You won’t be sorry.

150kin9forblogposts
Also, after you sign up I will immediately send you the video case study where I walk you through how I bought a site for $500, fixed it up and sold it 9 months later for $150,000.

 

I have been buying and selling websites successfully for many years and would love to show you the ropes. Just click on the button above and lets get started.