From One Night's Idea to $2.5k MRR: The Roastd IO Journey
Long story short I whipped up Roastd.io in a single night.
It started with a text, a roast, and a landing page built on a whim. Fast forward and here we are, a few months down the line and man... it's been a wild ride.
The Wins:
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Financial Milestones: From that first payment receipt to now hitting $2.5k MRR, the growth has been torturing but exhilarating.
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Adoption: At first getting any client was tough but over time as the reputation and credibility grew so did the types of customers. When teambuilding.com purchased their first roast I was super excited personally and professionally and they've since returned for more roasts!
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Roasting YouTubers: Yeah so this one was a little unexpected but I've seen an uptick in the number of YouTubers purchasing a roast for their personal landing pages or businesses. Being a part time YouTuber myself I can understand the funnel going from video to a product or service and how important that connection is and all of the have been so awesome to work with!
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Diverse Customers, One Goal: From startups to established businesses, the variety of customers has been vast. But the goal? Always the same - helping them level up their landing pages and reach their targets of increasing the amount of customers they get.
The Bumps Along the Way:
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Marketing Woes: I've lost count of the hours spent brainstorming marketing strategies. Some worked, some didn't, but each taught me something new.
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Constant Iterations: The Roastd.io landing page? It's seen more versions than I'd like to admit. But hey, practice makes perfect, right? I've been meticulous in tracking number of conversions with each iteration but it can definitely get tedious at times.
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The Low-Profit Months: Not every month had me seeing green. There were times profits dipped and I questioned every decision I made but so far I've just been reinvesting everything I've made back into the service so it's bound to have a few bumps every now and again.
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The Uncertainty: The unpredictability of when the next customer would come knocking? Thats keeping me on my toes because although the thrill of a new sale never gets old, the waiting game most definitely does!
For my fellow indie hackers, here's the raw truth: Building something from scratch is a rollercoaster. I've had my moments of doubt, days where I questioned everything and times when the next step was super foggy and unclear (even to this day). But I've also had those small victories, lessons learned and the joy of seeing Roastd.io make a difference for people. If you ever want an honest take on your landing page, I'm here. And for sticking around and reading my story, use ROASTD10 at checkout for a 10% discount. We all could use a little brutal honesty, right?
This is superb.
Wondering if I can do an interview with you on your business?
I feature indie founders and creators on their hustles and businesses over at Indie Hustle
Will be great if I can feature your story too.
Yeah that sounds like fun, let’s do it 👍
Great !
I've dropped you an email.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers!
Congrats on the journey! Super fun LP and branding haha :) Bookmarked for when I have an LP to test! I'd love your advice on early stage for this segment -- I'm working on an AI tool for ad copy optimization, and struggling to get customer development conversations since I don't have any existing content or reputation in b2b, and don't have a product yet, much less testimonials/case studies. How'd you go about finding initial customers for early validation conversations? Thanks for any pointers!
Don't rely on automated communication or ads. Early stage what worked for me was reaching out to people individually with tailored messaging for their specific needs.
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Also I forgot to say, if you're going to purchase in the next 7 days, here is 20% off. Just use EARLYBIRD20 at checkout.
I LOVE the aggressive way your service is marketed.
How did you come up with a price model for it? I'm not sure i've heard of any other website that does what you do, so I wouldn't even know where to begin with the price.
Would appreciate your insight because I have no idea how to price ideas I am coming up with!
I'd say not to stress too much over it and just think what's the minimum amount you'd be happy with for each purchase, that's what I did and if people start buying then you can think about slowly increasing prices.
One thing that building something or starting a business do is give you a reality check. You start to understand what reality is and how the world work and in return you will be humbled and become better person.
Thats why starting a business is very diffcult full of difficulty. It is not just for the business but will improve you knowldege and you as a person.
Here an article about how business will improve you as a person : Why business will improve your life and become better person
Saw this in the IH newsletter and I LOVE this product. I think everyone in Panera heard me go "WOW THATS INCREDIBLE".
We're in the indie hackers newsletter? I had no idea!
👉 Don't waste your landing page now ! https://roastd.io/?via=medlam
It seems like you have put a lot of thought and effort into your cold email sequence and approach. Here are a few thoughts and suggestions:
Your domain strategy of having multiple domains linked to your gsuite and creating separate users is a smart way to manage warm-up and deliverability.
The use of Snov for warming up your domains and mail-tester for testing deliverability is a good practice to ensure your emails reach the inbox.
Your sequence structure, with different flows based on the response, shows a well-planned approach to engaging with prospects and guiding them towards your website.
Utilizing Snov's database search to find companies involved in advertising and marketing design is a good starting point for targeting your desired audience.
It's important to continue evaluating the quality of leads from different sources and exploring other places to find good agency leads.
Keeping in mind the daily limit for Gsuite, it's wise to stay within the recommended range to maintain a good sending reputation.
Exploring options like sendy for scaling up your campaigns using AWS SES can be a future consideration.
Overall, your sequence looks well-structured and focused on providing value to your prospects. Good luck with your campaign, and I hope you see positive results soon!
Awesome thread! Thanks for sharing your journey.
How do you drive traffic to Roastd.io ?
Thank you, its through a bunch of different channels but mainly Twitter engagement and product hunt at the moment but it changes over time.