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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 33 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
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How Boast Grew

AI-powered platform for maximizing R&D tax credits.

How did Boast grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Boast grew by expanding geographically, holding events in multiple cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, and San Francisco where they had a local presence. The sales team played a key role by engaging directly with the community through in-person interactions and attending community events to build relationships and acquire clients. They also developed an online community by hosting meetups focused on business growth topics, which were not directly about Boast but helped foster connections and learning. Additionally, Boast utilized outbound sales efforts, including the founder acting as the first sales development representative to try new outreach methods.

Channels

16 channels · grouped by how Boast grows

  • Event marketing

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “bringing the partners, bringing some of your ICPs into a meetup and then also like one or two really relevant speakers...do the meetups, we did a lot of that. And in the first conference we did...Traction is a community on its own...the community is growing...we want to do a conference on the tac...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “We did events in Vancouver. We did events in Toronto. We did events in Calgary. We did events in San Francisco. So wherever we had a geo-local presence ... we started doing this activity there.”
    high
    “our community is called traction and we host a big conference in Vancouver, a podcast, et cetera, but a lot of meetups back in the day.”
    medium

  • Online Community

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “I'm a community oriented. I can see that. You're waving your hands even more than me, Lloyd. It's a big part of my growing up and my DNA, because growing up in the Middle East, Middle East is a country that's built, our countries in the Middle East are built on community. And so I only knew what ...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “And so for me, those two experiences were formative. Then when we, I'd only worked at startups through my journey, they all failed. ... And then our values became connection, purpose, recognition, those kinds of things, transparency.”
    medium
    “pivot towards community building. Now this community building strategy proved vital for growing the business, helping him better understand his customers and expand through referrals and partnerships.”
    medium

  • Outbound

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “And now generative AI is so huge. So over time, we made that leap. And once you're at a point where your gross margins are, you know, north of 80%, and technology is driving the business, then you're like, okay, now I can add another product. ... And COVID hit and we got freaking paranoid. ... an...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “So we had to Wizard of Oz this. We called customers, sold them on the vision, and then delivered the service manually.”
    high

  • Webinars

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “Then the pandemic came, and we had to cancel a conference. We moved everything to online, and rather than doing a two-day virtual summit, which everyone was doing, we said, we'll do weekly live AMAs, live webinars. So like this, but we invite the audience to come. So they tune in, they listen, th...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “And I couldn't bring myself to do a two day virtual summit because I'm like, I can't sit through it. So just happenstance reached out to all the speakers. And I said, would you be interested in doing a live AMA twice a week? It started as once a week and then it moved to twice a week. And they sa...”
    high

  • Organic social media

    · 1 mention
    “And in parallel, we were building a community to get customers.”
    high

  • Email List Growth

    · 1 mention
    “But in order to turn that audience into a community, I needed to collect email addresses and that form gave us people's email addresses.”
    high

  • Speaking at conferences

    · 1 mention
    “one of our partners, right, brought them and recommended them as a panelist for a panel we were running and a partner that, you know, helps other startup founders as well. And they literally came as a speaker and they're like, who runs this event? They said, Lloyd manages this. And then they reac...”
    medium

  • Product Page

    · 1 mention
    “I also got a weekly backlink for my website, for the anchor texted keyword that I wanted from the largest domain authority website in the country. It's the newspaper. ... So our SEO started to jump, right? And then we put a form in there that said, if you want to be featured, apply.”
    high

  • Content marketing

    · 1 mention
    “Now you can start creating content, right? To start building an audience. So like one interview, let's say you start a Zoom session, like an interview session, like one interview you do, the long form can go to YouTube, the short form can go to Shorts, the highlights can go to, text highlights ca...”
    medium

  • Events

    · 1 mention
    “So we kept doing the cold call path. And then we realized, you know, let's hone in the ICP some more. We started going to every tech event... We started going to every, every tech event. This was a time where LinkedIn like as a social network wasn't that prominent. Podcasts weren't really a thing...”
    high

  • Conferences

    · 1 mention
    “our community is called traction and we host a big conference in Vancouver, a podcast, et cetera, but a lot of meetups back in the day.”
    high

  • Word of mouth

    · 1 mention
    “this community building strategy proved vital for growing the business, helping him better understand his customers and expand through referrals and partnerships.”
    medium

  • Door to Door Sales

    · 1 mention
    “In six to seven months, I signed the equivalent of one AE just by cold emailing.”
    high

  • Press

    · 1 mention
    “Then we reached out to the local press and we asked them to cover startups... I reached out to a regional blog. I'm like, let me cover startups in this region. ... it got so much traction... I went back to the newspaper... Now, another lesson here is unless you're doing something illegal as a fou...”
    high

  • Partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “this community building strategy proved vital for growing the business, helping him better understand his customers and expand through referrals and partnerships.”
    medium

  • Referral Program

    · 1 mention
    “a lot of like our, our stuff comes from partnerships and referrals.”
    medium

How 3,068 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Boast’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    66% ◀
  • Social media
    64% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    58% ◀
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    38% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    35% ◀
  • Partnerships
    33% ◀
  • Events
    25% ◀
  • Paid ads
    24%
  • Outbound/Sales
    19% ◀
  • Press/PR
    18% ◀
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    12%
  • Podcasting
    4%
  • Building in public
    3%
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