Bootstrapped Growth: The Best and Worst of 2023

Failed

1. Partners. I've tried everything: incubators, accelerators, other makers, startups, corporates, influencers. Takes forever to set up meetings, negotiate, and execute. Negative ROI.

   
   

2. Newsletter Ads. Despite the promised CTR and traffic, the reality is pretty depressing. Tried many. Won't name them, but enough to make the conclusion. The ROI is negative for a product with an LTV below $300.

   
   

3. Podcasts. I tried both going to podcasts and hosting podcasts. Last year, we ran "Mars talks" and had all the famous makers and founders there. Big names. Marketing effect? Little. The time it takes? A lot. 1 person full-time. I also went on 20 podcasts. Very little effect too. But I enjoyed the chats of course with great people as a human being.

   
   

4. Outreach. This is by far the worst method that was ever invented. It's embarrassing since you send an email nobody asked for which is marked as spam by many. Feels like an illegal activity since the emails are often acquired in a sneaky way, near zero conversion. Most ignore. Very few reply, usually not the people you'd want to get replies from.

   
   

5. Googe/FB/Twitter ads. Low ROI. Shows a high "view" count and likes. But the reality is that some random butcher from Nebraska is on the list. Whatever I try on targetting. I guess the new anti-tracking tech has destroyed targeted ads or idk really. Tried a lot, using pro-people, who know their stuff, but still had a negative ROI.

   
   

6. Hiring a marketing person. I believe there are great marketing people out there. But those cost a lot; more than bootstrappers can afford. Can't really afford this as a bootstrapper, so I go for cheaper options, which obviously fail because almost no marketers can work with near-zero budgets.

   
   

7. Hiring marketing team. I made this mistake. It was very costly and a big step back. Lost at least 6 months. The people were great, but not a fit for bootstrapped startup. Same issue: couldn't work in scrappy env.

   
   

8. Paying influencers. Good influencers are expensive (starting at $2k). Those I could afford were around $100-$800. Unfortunately, the audience was mostly too amateur. Not the one that can pay for a tool. Got a good number of sign-ups, and zero paying users.

Worked

• [a] Social Media. This has been by far the most successful channel. Loads of views, clicks, signups, and paying users. I can't stress this enough. If you're a maker and don't spend at least 10 hours creating content on social media every week, I don't know how you can move on. There are genius exceptions, but you get it. I will make a dedicated post on how to grow on social media as a technically bootstrapped founder next week.

  
  

• [b] SEO. This must become a habit. Write at least one article every day. It takes 10-30 minutes. Just like the Gym. Do it daily; get used to it. SEO traffic is at least 30% of all my traffic on all products, and the best thing about it: keeps growing itself at some point. Even the old articles grow in traffic. So eventually, you can stop blogging and are still going to get traffic growing. An alternative to writing blogs is to generate them using AI tools such as Jasper or Seobotai.

  
  

• [c] Affiliate partners. This is not the same as the #1 from the "failed" list. The affiliate partners don't need to be managed by you at all. I use the first promoter tool for this. On Unicorn Platform, we have doubled the revenue from Affiliate Partners every month since we launched it. The only investment we made was to integrate the code into our code and add a link on the header nav. Do it from day 1.

  
  

• [d] Listing on Directories. This is my favorite way. Takes almost no effort, just time, and you do it just once. I get from 10 to 50% of the traffic from directories for my products. Which is insane.

  
  

• [e] Sponsored Directories This is the only paid marketing method I use. I sponsored a few directories. It's usually around $100 a month. My tool is featured on top of the home page every day for the entire month. Pretty good ROI on this. I had sign-ups and paying customers. Since my LTV is above 100, I think we get at least one paying user a month, so we're positive ROI on this.

  
  

• [f] Side projects. The most entertaining way to market my main products. This year, I made a bet on directories as side projects. Launched many using the unicorn platform, and 3 directories went viral, generating over 1 million views. Which transformed into at least 20,000 visits to my main products. Next year, I plan to launch 80 more directories and a new type of side product: micro tools with one action only.

  
  

• [g] Word of Mouth. I take personal care of every user. You can see my Twitter as a support channel for most of my products. I get over 100 DMs every day and answer each on the same day. When I get a user for Seobot, I ask them to add my email to the admin list of their Google search console stats so that I can see how I can help them.

  
  

  I try to give advice that will help, and sometimes it's helpful. I charge nothing for it. It's a "pay it forward" thing. I expect nothing in return.

  
  

  But good people love doing good stuff to those who done good stuff to them. So, we have an insanely good word-of-mouth growth. It's so good that sometimes I think that we can stop doing all the marketing and we will still grow.

Gonna Try in 2024

• (I) Collabs with Makers. I wanna co-found several products with fellow makers. 50/50. It would be a great marketing effort for both parties. My users get to know his/her products, and vice versa.

• (II) Collabs with Influencers. I wanna run a builder/marketer collab. I'll build it, and the influencer will market it to their own audience. The product will be built specifically for the audience.

• (III) Nano apps. Very small apps on subpages of bigger apps. Good organic potential and lead magnet.

• (IV) Directories within Products I wanna make programmatic SEO directories within each product. 1k-100k pages for a wiki-like high-quality verified content.

• (V) Sell Lifetime Deals I wanna have an option for lifetime deals for all my products. In fact, I even wanna sell LTD for all my products at once too. One fee and your user gets access to all my 20 products and all future products too. Forever.