Founder at @byPaperbell, Exited MeetEdgar Anti-hustle poster child I blog at ed.gr/laurablog 🇬🇧
Brighton, England
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- Following 520
- Followers 31,352
- Likes 4,534
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A Week in The Life of a Claudepilled Marketing Founder medium.com/p/a-week-in-the-l…
(list of everything claude did for me in the past week)
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wait his critique is that @dhh hasn't made enough billions from his open source code???
now I actually literally think Matt doesn't know what open source is
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Some big news to share this fine Tuesday: I've sold my company @MeetEdgar
And of course I blogged about exactly how I did it: lkr.medium.com/exactly-how-i…
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I actually found it MUCH HARDER to sell a SaaS than a course!
I could not understand this at all — why would you want to pay hundreds of dollars for a course that does nothing on it’s own when you could pay $50 a month for that work to just be done?
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My absolute favourite journaling technique is to list all the reasons you think something CAN'T happen, then go back and answer your own objections
It's incredible what huge mindset shifts I get from this
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Bravo for Brown (if they actually come through with the scholarships) - all of these institutions have way too much money to be in the loan shark biz.
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Not enough people are talking about this!
Twitter has made some BIG changes to their rules and your account could get banned for what used to be standard social media marketing. Read on for the three big changes . . .
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Hot tip: don't take success tips from yahoo #JustSaying read.bi/2knVVJb
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A few years ago I was chatting with a founder of a rapidly growing company that had raised a shit-ton of VC. I asked him what the pressure was like and he said
"Every single week has to be the best week that we've ever had."
I think about that ALL THE TIME. Not the path for me.
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Just eliminated an agency from my consideration list because they're all wearing ties in their profile pictures
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I know these ai copy apps make a ton of money so clearly someone is using them - who here actually uses one regularly? What do you do with it?
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"Flintstoning is when your app, product, or business itself lacks a feature… but, you can make up for it manually." bit.ly/2hD912W
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Dream SaaS:
- self serve
- no/little customer support required
- going monthly rate is $100+
- something actively searched for
- product is essential for customer
- no absolute third-party dependencies
- clear usage tied to expansion revenue
What did I miss?
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Y'all, you do not have to have a deeper why. I don't. I just enjoy building businesses 🤷♀️
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To get a single additional user on a @zapier account you have to jump from a $20/mo plan to a $300/mo plan!
Will just stick w sharing the same login, thx
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To the airbnb haters out there, you do not get traveling with kids.
You'd have to be an absolute psychopath to choose sitting in the dark in one room together versus a WHOLE HOUSE WITH A KITCHEN, BEDROOMS, BATHROOMS AND YARD. What is wrong with you.
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A query for #marketingtwitter . . . we're always told that customers care about OUTCOMES/BENEFITS not features.
DON'T TALK ABOUT THE FEATURES!
Yet when I look in my inbox, prospect Qs are almost 100% about features, not benefits. (I'm in SaaS.)
What do you make of this?
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My SaaS runs on email marketing.
Here's what I do to get 40% open rates to a list of 28k that has never been cleaned (not a big believer in list cleaning, but that's a topic for another day!)
>>
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I waste a huge amount of brainpower constructing answers to emails in my head for hours instead of just answering as soon as I read them.
Anyone else guilty?
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This message is for people who do not have children.
If you have children, for 10+ years you can never leave the house with your partner in the evening unplanned. NOT ONCE. NOT EVEN ONE TIME.
Just wanted to make sure you knew.
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Y'all, I have been around the block and a LOT of public people are lying about their numbers.
A lot of them are pitching expensive business advice when their own businesses are failing dumpster fires.
A lot of them have shady or absent ethics. This is, unfortunately, normal.
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sounds like he was trying to flirt and it went terribly wrong. and yeah agreed obnoxious behavior
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If you haven't watched @ramit's new show on Netflix do it now!
In my early 20s when I was making 30k/yr I got really into personal finance and loved Ramit's blog. Well lemme tell you that interest PAID OFF. 15 years later ....
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If you're going to work with someone via email, interview them via email.
I'm currently doing this with accountants - most of them just completely ignore a basic question I've asked in the email. Very clear indicator of how the future work will go.
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One of the biggest SaaS flexes that needs to die is "we don't spend any money on advertising"
Spending money to tell targeted prospects you exist is SUPER SMART and done reasonably will absolutely accelerate profitable growth
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He promoted a conference and tried to sell tickets. Had a nice looking website the date, names/photos of the speakers, etc.
Problem was the speakers (I was one of them) never agreed to appear. If I remember correctly @soniasimone and @brianclark were some of the other names
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Was just asked a great question after ecomm checkout - "If there was one thing today which nearly stopped you from purchasing, what was it?"
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Yup, I have not worked full-time since 2014
Finally writing an article w my full system on how I do it - what would you want to know?
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Just thinking about how many people idolise Gary Vee and how for me personally running a ginormous agency is just about the most nightmare business I can think of
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Should you build an audience before you launch your #SaaS?
Absolutely freakin not.
Here's why:
lauraroeder.com/dont-build-t…
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You can hear me on @noahkagan's new pod talking about:
- Do you actually need to sell if running the business is so damn easy.
- The differences between selling SaaS products and courses
- How to manage company updates and maintain alignment with no meetings
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Damn. Just got off a call where someone told me she believed she could do it because she saw me doing it. She said "thank you for sharing your story".
Sharing your *own* story always feels kinda self-congratulatory and weird. Good reminder that it really can matter.
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Your daily PSA that a bunch of SaaS you've heard of are stuck around 20k-30k MRR, and if you've made it to this level you are doing amazing.
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Sooo I haven't yet talked about how I'm building my new startup @bypaperbell with only freelancers.
Recently @robwalling gave his take on Josh Pigford's pivot away from this nitter.app/Shpigford/status/14375… which made me feel like I should share mine . . .
(1/9)
1/ We're no longer pursuing building @maybe around part-time/fractional employment.
Here's the note I sent to the team last week.
While I'm still bullish on the concept, I no longer believe it can work for *new* product/software companies. At least it didn't for us.
🧵👇🏻
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🔥 Excited to announce @meetropig launches today! 🔥
📉 More signal, less noise for SaaS developers 📉
🍾 Half off pricing for early adopters 🍾
🐷 Check it out at producthunt.com/posts/ropig 🐷
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I get what you mean but this tweet reads like you just revealed your secret polygamist life to twitter 🤣
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It is fascinating seeing people internalize straight-up advertising messaging like "an investment in your sleep"
Another belief on show here is that more expensive mattresses will mean better sleep
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My new AV set up: a thread
This is not PRO level, but it's "actually look good on video" level
Including the two free pieces of SOFTWARE you need which are just as important as the hardware!
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Lately I keep coming back to the metaphor of my business as a garden - it grows on it's own, but I'm there to tend to it and give it what it needs.
An unexpected benefit to this idea has been the clarity on what's NOT in my garden. Random DMs, requests, emails - not my garden.
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Staying focused on entrepreneurs has been a HUGE advantage at @MeetEdgar.
Over the past five years I've watched competitor after competitor move "upmarket" while we stay here, serving the small businesses we know and love.
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After all these years, I still love hanging on twitter. It's the one platform left where you still get to actually see updates from the people that you follow (instead of who the algo chose for you).
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It's live!
My opus on launching and running a SaaS business in 10-15 hrs/week - exactly how I do it
lauraroeder.com/my-top-to-bo…
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My new company is LIVE! More signal, less noise for web developers.
Check us out on @ProductHunt producthunt.com/posts/ropig
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Please sttttoppppp this tired webinar format where you make people sit through 20 minutes of boring filler before you get to the content. WE WANT THE CONTENT!
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One of my favorite questions: "Can I pay you to handle this?"
Your bookkeeper, accountant, 3PL, gardener, WHATEVER are often more than happy to make extra money handling some adjacent odd job you don't want to deal with - just ask!
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Highly recommend hitting major revenue milestones while on vacation in Italy.
Thanks, life!
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I regularly think about how hard Skype missed when the world turned to video calls. EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE ALREADY HAD SKYPE ON THEIR COMPUTERS.
That is some next level epic fail right there.
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Super underutilized strategy: hire a handful of subject matter experts to consult for one hour on your problem.
If you hire three people for $500 each (and most are well under that) I promise you will have a very thorough understanding of the problem and what to do about it.
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From my article about the biiiiig differences between a SaaS business and an expert/creator business: lauraroeder.com/dont-build-t…
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If you want to model incredible consistency, model @ramit - here's a newsletter he sent me in 2006 from the same IWT brand he still today.
That means means I have been following his brand, his business, his content for 14 years.
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Invite your friends over for dinner. Even though you have little kids. Even though you don't know how to make anything "guest-worthy". Even though it would be easier not to.
We avoid these experiences that make up an amazing life. Just do it.
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BTW people of twitter, I'm currently traveling the world w my family for 6 months. Posting pics on instagram if you're interested! instagram.com/laurakroeder/
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I just published 5 Years Without Meetings lauraroeder.com/5-years-with…
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My kingdom for an accountant who I don't have to send a "hey, just following up" email to every week
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I've got a post brewing on why building multiple ideas and "seeing what sticks" is killing the indie hacker community
What do you want me to cover?
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I would say it's just about taking on risk. If you already have massive wealth, you just need it not to atrophy. Debt only makes sense to leverage for growth, but if you can get "OK" growth without it, why take any risk at all when you don't have to.
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TIL some people think what we bootstrappers do is an "impossible standard" which is quite the compliment I guess!
“Default alive” is almost an impossible standard for early-stage startups since it means being cashflow positive.
On the other hand, “default investable” means that your metrics are good enough to raise another round in the current environment.
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So I just returned from a month-long trip in Thailand where I was off work and computerless.
It was fun, it also wasn't a huge deal. Taking time away from tech should be normal, not something we do for a few days once in our lifetime or dream of doing someday.
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I have two young kids, two startups, and I just spent the past few hours balancing the books for my neighbourhood group which I DO FOR FUN BECAUSE I HAVE SO MUCH FREE TIME.
Why did I sign up for this? WHAT WAS I THINKING.
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#freelance opp! We're seeking a #frontend designer/developer to design a new directory site.
You'll be creating a new website design from basic wireframes we have. We need front end assets (design/html/css) ideally using #tailwindcss
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Report from Brighton, UK: drunk people loudly singing the star spangled banner outside my house 🤣🇺🇸🤣🇺🇸
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Don’t forget: It’s OK to ignore well-intentioned advice. In fact, it can be the best thing for you!
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PREACH. Sooo many VCs sitting on boards that have never worked in a startup much less run one.
I've bootstrapped several companies to multi-million revenue and have asked to be on a board ONCE in my life.
so glad more people are talking about this. curiously, some of the pushback i've heard is people can't find diverse board candidates who're qualified. for a startup, though, really?? and the bar is what, vc who doesn't have domain expertise or any operational experience?
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Common SaaS pattern:
1. I'm out of gas, I should just sell this business
2. I don't have amazing growth and the biz is nowhere near worth the 7x ARR I told myself it was
3. I gotta keep working to get that growth
4. Numbers keep getting worse, eventually sell for even less
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I don't wanna be a jerk to the cool indie saas people that make them but as a customer I HAAAAATE hate hate feedback request/voting tools.
I think it puts the onus on the customer to spend their time on something the company should be doing.
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I wrote about how to do it without a huge budget lauraroeder.com/how-i-nabbed…
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“You can get $30 for takeout if you work late (because your wife isn’t…” — Dawn Bovasso medium.com/stop-drop-scroll/…
ALT “…You can get $30 for takeout if you work late (because your wife isn’t there to cook you dinner) or $30 for scotch if you want to drink your face off, but you can’t get $30 for a sitter (because your wife is at home with the kids).” from “Expense Policies Are a Woman’s Problem” by Dawn Bovasso.
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Twitter is a place where I super low key hang out w people I very much enjoy.
As other platforms move towards just consumption (TikTok) maybe Twitter can get a second wind 🤷
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This is completely mind-blowing
Our @bypaperbell customers have made in total over 18 million pounds - that's 23 MILLION dollars
Through our platform
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PSA: if you open your laptop at 9pm "just to look up one thing" the odds of you still being on said laptop at 10pm are 100%.
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I'm 37 years old and I've finally found my first hobby - what tips and tricks do I need to know??
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My husband says I'm incapable of feeling embarrassed.
I'm here to report that he is correct.
And I'm amazing at karaoke because of it.
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In February, @MeetEdgar spent $284.70 paying for our team's coffee shop expenses.
Many people prefer coffee shops over coworking memberships, yet many #remote teams won't cover coffee! It's a nice perk for your team and can be a huge savings over coworking.
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sometimes if it's mega expensive it's because you're running a lot of unnecessary data through it
like I had an automation that sent data whenever any column of a spreadsheet changed, but I realized I only needed it to trigger when one column changed
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@elixirlang We are officially launching next week, wanted to give you guys a heads up on our free plan for elixir projects ropig.com/free-for-elixir/
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Something I take really seriously is documentation. It makes a HUGE difference to making your company run more efficiently.
Here's our marketing docs - these are largely reference, not SOPs. Though SOP style is in there when needed for sure.
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Y'all. Your startup name matters.
Just came across a SaaS w a generic adjective name - lets say it was called Excellent.
Literally impossible to google "excellent reviews", and you have no way of monitoring who is talking about your brand.
STOP THIS MADNESS.
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Brand new on my blog: What Marie Forleo Is REALLY Like (Five Lessons From Her Former Business Partner) bit.ly/1moR44N
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Random pet peeve: when people name their software something impossible to google. Today I looked for both a "periscope" (no not the live video one) and a "navigator" and couldn't find either.
How do people not think about this? Name your tool something google-able!
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I know I've built multi-million dollar businesses and everything, but the thing that I'm truly the most proud of is my minimalist packing.
Look at this photo of EVERY SINGLE THING we brought for a month in Japan. Now that is an accomplishment!
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Something I'm noticing about hiring post covid is that people are available for an interview anytime, including last minute.
Remember when you had to pretend you had a dentist appointment?? 🤣
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THIS is the kind of thing people do not forget about your brand nitter.app/ShaunKing/status/90561…
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