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$1k MRR -> $1.5k MRR in six days!

A good sales day has thrown softwareideas.io right past the $1500 MRR milestone! Can't believe it's grown 50% in just six days… Crazy.

I'll be recording with Noah and Ben from the Product Journey podcast today to talk about this project, why it's working, and how I think others can find similar success, so stay tuned for that!

If you missed my last milestone, in there I posted the three things I did right for this project, so check there if you are looking for some advice!

Coming this month is the members-only website, which will contain the newsletter archive, a ton of really exciting bonus content (like a list of 50 B2B app stores to create your next business on), and software discounts on apps that help you launch your next business!

  1. 1

    Well done Kevin!

    This newsletter is of high quality, with very interesting analysis. I am subscribed even though I doubt I will use any of the ideas soon as I am too busy but it is interesting to see how you slice up those big startup ideas and find a space or pivot for the solo hacker to fly under the radar.

    1. 1

      Thanks! A lot of people have told me that reading the newsletter has helped them learn how to do the same level of analysis on their own, so I hope that helps you as well!

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    Hey Kevin, I’m really interested in what you are doing because it’s so different from the typical paid newsletter funnel.

    I have a few questions:

    • Have you A/B tested putting an example issue on your landing page vs forcing visitors to sign up?

    • Once someone signs up and doesn’t convert, what do you send them since you don’t have free content?

    • What’s your free to paid conversion rate?

    1. 1

      Andre,

      Great questions. I won’t pretend like my answers are the best ones (still learning about how to optimize growth!)

      1. No I haven’t AB tested this yet. I like the idea of having the email list, and the email list seems to be popular (1300 subs), so I haven’t had much of an incentive to kill it in exchange for a frictionless experience.

      2. If people sign up but don’t convert, they’ll get a “preview” version of the newsletter every week. It gives all the market research this week, but it won’t show the actual software ideas. I’ve received positive comments from it so far, but I think there’s a lot of room for improvement here to make it convert better.

      3. I haven’t been tracking that directly, I’m still focused on finding the best channels to grow this thing. It’s definitely low, like 1% or lower, but I think that’s a lot about the project still being early (no membership site, no bonus content, no software discounts) and me trying lots of channels and bringing in non-relevant traffic.

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        Got it, so you basically have a free newsletter and a paid version with more content. Makes sense!

        Uhm, maybe I'm missing something but with 1300 people on your list, a $20 monthly price and $1500 MMR shouldn't your conversion rate be around 5%...?

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          That’s the conversion of people who sign up for the email list -> paid, not visitor conversion rate (people who land on website). I think the email list -> paid is the more important metric, and you’re right that it is much higher!

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            Yeah that's what I was referring to and I agree that's the most important metric! 5% is really good considering you're just starting out!

            BTW a 1% visitor to subscriber conversion rate means that you got 130k visitors! Where did you get them?

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              Haha sorry, I keep confusing you.

              Visitor to paid rate: <1%

              Visitor to email subscriber: Unsure (I think in the 30+% range?)

              Email subscriber to paid: ~5%

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