7 learnings from $200k MRR (100% bootstrapped & remote)

Fame hit $200k MRR in March.

(100% bootstrapped and remote)

Here are 7 things we learnt 👇

1. Neurotic operations

How do we have excess margin whilst still charging less than all major competitors?

Operational excellence.

Ruthlessly stripping out anything that doesn’t directly add value to the customer:

👉 Free Slack: $0
👉 Free Trello: $0
👉 Free HelloSign: $0

Do our customers want to pay more because we are too lazy to make free tools work for us?

I think not…

2. Mastering HR for the key role

In the service business, your product is people.

There’s no production line of physical products, only a production line of people. Therefore, your success as a business will hinge on your ability to find high-quality raw materials at the best price, and then efficiently add value.

Our key role is the Account Manager, the person responsible for the happiness of each client and the success of their podcast.

Key activities:

👉 Finding the best account managers (at the best price)
👉 Training and educating the best account managers to enable them to deliver client happiness

So what does this mean?

👉 Sending a welcome book (Delivering Happiness by Tony Shea) as soon as contracts are signed
👉 Tweaking and improving the onboarding process with each new account manager
👉 Combination of on-the-job and theory training

3. Tracking and testing growth programs

Anything action we take within the Growth Team is attached to a “Growth Program”.

The people assigned are then tasked with moving their Growth Program through Phase 0 (an idea) to Phase 5 (fully integrated).

No longer do we invest in channels or campaigns that have not, or likely will not work.

4. Getting better (not worse) with scale

As most service businesses scale, they get worse.

E.g. with each new customer, the value of the service either stays the same or get’s worse. This typically limits growth.

But what if your service was actually to increase in value with scale?

We’ve now reached a point where we are running more B2B podcasts than any other business in the world, therefore any testing on promotion strategies can be done on more shows faster than anyone else… this is how we do it.

5. Managing managers

Most people are promoted to a level of incompetence.

Management is the silent killer of service businesses.

Teaching the team the difference between the following management activities (and when best to use them) has been crucial:

👉 Information gathering
👉 Information conveying
👉 Nudging
👉 Meddling
👉 Monitoring
👉 Decision-making

High Output Management by Andy S. Grove is the bible for this.

6. Reducing CAC with more customers

You could boil your business down to two numbers: CAC and LTV.
Everything you do as a founder/CEO impacts one of these.

Now what if, just by creating a new customer, your CAC could decrease? How much easier would growth become?

👉 Can you add their logo to your site for social proof
👉 Can you write a case study about your work?
👉 Can you somehow expose your brand on the deliverables you create for them?
👉 Can you somehow get to link back to your site?

7. The “ 1 crazy rule”

As per Ben Horowitz’s book about culture, an awesome way to reinforce how your business thinks and acts is to make crazy rules.

Our primary value as a business is “Client Client Client”.

To continually remind everyone in the business… each account manager scores their client on a happiness scale of 0 (they hate us) to 4 (they want to marry us) after each meeting.

We also give each account manager $50 per month per client that they can spend on anything to make the client happy, even if it doesn’t relate to our service.

These exercises are useful themselves, but the fact that they are remarkable (e.g. people remark about them) means the team are constantly reminded of the #1 value: Client Client Client.

Hope that helps 🤓