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How to bootstrap to $3m per month without writing a single blog post

Hey team,

Have to share this with you... it's a little known SaaS business that has managed to grow to $3m per month in May 2020, bootstrapped and without writing a single blog post. I spoke with the founder Joey to understand how they have done this and came up with the following nine strategies:

1/ Industry Selection & Skill Stacking

Joey has been fascinated with video since he was a child. He also sold for two years whilst employed before getting fired...

He combined these with the internet and has kept executing at this intersection for eight years ⏰

2/ Going All In (Once Something Hooks)

Joey has an idea for a SaaS product, finds two people to build it... the launch and generate $500k in revenue.

He then moves his whole life to the north of England and they all focus full time on Viddyoze, this is in 2015.

3/ A SaaS Affiliate Program On Steroids

Viddyoze have an army of affiliates that send masses of traffic their way in exchange for 50% commission on the front end offer and 30% on any recurring charge.

JVZoo shows over 31,500 affiliate sales in total 😲

4/ Affiliate Promo’s To Maximise LTV

Viddyoze also promote other people's products "on the back end". One such product is Convertri.

Viddyoze have sent them $500k in revenue and 1,000 customers over three year and will claim 50% of that back in profit 🏋️‍♂️

5/ The Insanely Profitable “Paid Freemium” Model

Instead of the traditional SaaS subscription model, Viddyoze sell a one off license to their tool for $67. The core upsell is then a $37 recurring plan for unlimited video templates 💵

6/ In Product Subscription Upsell

During the first Viddyoze onboarding video, Joey takes us through how to customise a video template and whilst it's rendering... we get the pitch on the $37 per month upsell:

20-25% of customers convert to subscription 🤓

7/ Scaling SaaS PPC

With their LTV sky high through the subscription upsell and affiliate offers, Viddyoze can now scale paid. They reached $80k in ad spend in May alone, netting 30-40% profit on that.

They even show ads to their new customers with free stuff...

8/ Simply Being Cool

Now this is a tricky one for me to articulate. Their ethos, design and brand are incredibly different and congruent. The office gives off a vibe that suggests more “tattoo parlor” than “SaaS business”.

Even the design of cofounder’s skin is brand aligned (they have tattoos 📷;))


9/ An Intense Channel Focus

For the first four years, they executed on one single channel: affiliates 🤝

And it was only recently that they started to scale paid spend 📈

They don't rank, they don't have a blog... but they have nailed those two channels to the tune of $30m 🚀

I hope these points help anyone here growing their SaaS... there is the full case study post covering these here.

Also happy to answer any questions anyone has in the comments below... I have asked Joey to also jump in and answer any!

  1. 3

    Thanks for sharing! The affiliate model is something i often forget about, but its super powerful.

    1. 1

      No worries, thanks!

  2. 2

    Weird how I've never heard of them despite being so huge. They barely exist in the usual creative tech channels, or on social media. They've got the 'affiliate marketer' aesthetic nailed down for sure - long sales pages, crappy grammar, outdated graphic design... but good for them, I guess.

    Sure hope their customers are happy, because that's a lot of money they're taking in.

    1. 1

      For sure, it's definitely a different approach!

  3. 2

    I remember, their youtube ad is the new "Lambo in my garage" video. Every day I see their ads at least 3 times.
    That said, happy for there success.

    1. 1

      hahaha yep, did you buy? :)

      1. 3

        Nope. I thumb down the ads as it was annoying as hell. After reading this post felt bad. Next time only skip no more thumb down

  4. 2

    I am about to launch my SaaS product with AWS like pricing, no tiered pricing.

    Do you have any thoughts about whether a 10% recurring commission exciting for affiliates or not?

    1. 2

      Most SaaS recurring affiliate commissions are 30% minimum :)

      1. 2

        Thanks, that's really helped me in strategizing. Now, I have to pitch these referrals to only customers via in-app credits. :)

  5. 1

    Great success story! Thanks for the write up

  6. 1

    Joey has an idea for a SaaS product, finds two people to build it... the launch and generate $500k in revenue.

    As for me, the most interesting part that worth a separate detailed post.

  7. 2

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 1

      Haha thanks for the feedback Primer!

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