Growth Pods

Hey folks. I decided to go all in on Entrepreneurship 5 years ago while running a marketing agency. It started to pick up steam (3-5 clients paying $2K-8K), so I decided to quit my job and focus 100% on the business. Four years in and I had never really broken past that $25K/month barrier that I literally hit in my fist 3 months.

Looking back, I realize that I was way too stubborn in wanting to control everything, build it and run it myself, and not "sacrifice" any profit by hiring full time or bringing on part-time folks to help me out. I was doing it all myself, and it just was not growing. I was stressed, but I felt like I was stuck.

Can any of you relate?

About a year back, I decided to do something differently. I decided to start a new company, but to hire on other people from the start. I started with low-paying interns (Handshake is great), but eventually was able to hire a couple full-time folks. The journey has been so much more fulfilling. Then, I decided I wanted to go a step further. I wanted to build together via a community as well.

Growth Pods started as something to scratch my own itch, but it has blossomed into something that any SaaS founder can use to build in a community environment, whether or not you are a solopreneur. We just finished our 100th community-run pod, and I haven't raised prices once (still $7/month, even though I am not quite breaking even) as a way to give back to the community.

Wishing all solopreneurs a path towards community, whether that's in your own business or alongside others. Cheers.

After some initial validation from speaking to people about how hard it is to capture 5-star reviews and quality feedback, I spent over a year and over $25K building TrustLoop. I launched in a closed Beta and got some more feedback.

After implementing the feedback, we:

• Went live on Product Hunt (actually got #2 product of the day) and several other launch sites.
• Posted here, LinkedIn, groups I joined, etc.
• Messaged all my past clients and connections.
• Wrote some articles and did some back linking for SEO.
  -Continued to speak to everybody I could, write daily, and market the crap out of the product.

And after a 3-month marketing blitz, TrustLoop was still not growing how I expected. We were still spending more on development each month than our revenue. It had stagnated and I felt stuck.

So I decided to build something else to help TrustLoop grow.

I've realized the secret to why Y Combinator startups have such a high success rates compared to other startups is simple. Community. They all support each other, subscribe to each other's products, share tips and tricks on different growth levers, and learn from each other's successes and mistakes.

I built Growth Pods to democratize access to these types of perks without having to be in the .1% of startups to get accepted to YC, and without having to give up any equity.

When I launched, we had a much quicker response. Since the product is VERY underpriced ($49/year) for the first 100 pods, there was a ton of interest immediately. We cannot accept everybody, but feel free to apply if interested.

TrustLoop was part of the first several pods which really helped our growth! But now, both products are starting to gain traction, so I guess my side project is becoming another primary project.

Any others out there who's gone through something similar?