Growing to $300k | Jan 2023 in Review

I think one of the hardest parts of being an indie or early stage entrepreneur is setting goals and achieving them.

My 2023 goal for my startup is to reach $300,000 in gross revenue.

Last year, and going into this year I've been studying entrepreneurial frameworks to help accelerate my digital media startup's growth.

Below are frameworks that have been helping me plus KPI recaps for the weeks of Jan 2023.

Startup frameworks/methodologies/ideologies that have helped:

Quant-based marketing (we love this so much we use the core theory for ALL of our major goals):
https://okdork.com/quant-based-marketing-for-pre-launch-start-ups/
https://okdork.com/how-to-create-a-marketing-plan/

If you've used a startup scorecard model before quant-based marketing can be made in a similar manner.

Replacing North Star with Only Metric That Matters
https://mixpanel.com/blog/north-star-metric/
https://news.greylock.com/the-only-metric-that-matters-now-with-fancy-slides-232474cf414c

This allows for rapid correction of KPIs. We also made revenue our north star.

Focusing on only 3 things as an early stage startup
https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/3-things-you-should-focus-on-as-an-early-revenue-entrepreneur/

We focus on conversations, demo calls, and customers going "A-HA".

Unstoppable Go-To-Market Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixLKWJ17mOw

A framework for quickly creating a well rounded go to market strategy (been loving TK's content as a listen while working).

Ash Maurya's Continuous Innovation Framework
https://leanstack.com/pages/the-artist-and-the-innovator/part-1

Covers how to go from idea to validation with demo/sell/build to managing creation of the product. This is my personal favorite on the list as it's the most robust framework plus is easy to implement. The framework is also flexible so you can use it with very short or longer iteration cycles (ie Ash calls for 90 day cycles my team does 30 day cycles).

My Company's KPIs for Weeks of Jan 2023

Week 4 2023
Primary Goals:
DVNC Annual Revenue: $14,000/$300,000 (~4.5%)
Content Made: 4

Supporting Goals:
Revenue: $750/$2,750
New Customers: 0
Lead/Customer Meetings: 10
Leads: 5/10
Outreaches: 515/1,000

Week 3 2023
Primary Goals:
DVNC Annual Revenue: $13,100/$300,000
Content Made: 3

Supporting Goals:
Revenue: $5,000/$2,750 (Current clients)
New Customers: 0/1 (no new clients)
Lead/Customer Meetings: 5/5 (mostly current customer meetings, 1 potential customer meeting)
Leads: 10/6 (Starting to see lead from different outreach channels)
Outreaches: 600-700/960 (Almost there)

Week 2 2023
Primary Goals:
DVNC Annual Revenue: $8,100/$300,000
Content Made: 1

Supporting Goals:
Revenue: $7,750/$2,500
New Customers: 1/1
Lead/Customer Meetings: 2/5
Leads: 2/6
Outreaches: 600-700/930

Week 1 2023
Primary Goals:
DVNC Annual Revenue: $450/$300,000
Content Made: 1

Supporting Goals:
Revenue: $450 (1 current customer and 1 new customer)
New Customers: 1 (co-founders parent referred by co-founder)
Potential Customer Meetings had: 3 (2 potential customers)
Leads Generated: 4 (2 LinkedIn, 1 Email, 1 Referral)
Outreaches Sent: 400-500 (Cold LinkedIn, Cold Email)

For January we were able to surpass our goal of $10,000 due to many of the frameworks linked above plus having a sales focused mindset.

As we go into February our month to month growth rate for goals starts kicking in so February's goal is $11,500.

Looking forward to sharing that recap in a month!