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Transistor
SaaS B2B & B2C

Transistor is a podcast hosting and analytics platform that also supports video podcast hosting.

transistor.fm · Founded 2018 · 103 public sources · Updated 3 months ago

Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 103 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 →

How Transistor Grew

Podcast hosting and distribution platform with video support

How did Transistor grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Transistor grew through an affiliate program that became their most effective sales and marketing channel, with over 700 active affiliates driving traffic, leads, and conversions every month. They also benefited from strong search engine optimization, including blogs and guides that helped increase growth when their product was positively reviewed. Initial customers were acquired through inbound channels such as an audience built on Twitter, a podcast, and a newsletter. Word of mouth contributed to growth once they had about a hundred customers who recommended the product to their friends.

Channels

15 channels · grouped by how Transistor grows

  • Word of mouth

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “we still have people signing up for Transistor who say, hey, I listened to like this one episode of build your SaaS right when you were starting. And it just had such a profound impact on me. I filed it away. Yesterday, my boss asked if, you know, we should sign up for a podcast hosting platform....”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “helping customers with their podcasts, and spreading the word.These actions compounded, and 12 months after our launch we achieved our goal: $20,000 in monthly revenue.”
    medium
    “Once you have a hundred customers and you’re really taking care of them, they start to tell their friends. And so we were able to get some initial word of mouth that way.”
    high
    “in terms of a customer telling other people about Transistor, the investment and customer success is unmatched. The leverage you get from having just the highest, most professional, capable, friendly people on that team pays dividends forever. And it amplifies itself.”
    medium

  • Affiliate program

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “And then we start using Reward full. And then the next week I’m on, um, another friend’s podcast, Matt Gia Vinci’s podcast over at Money Lab, and he just happens to be in the affiliate space. He’s got an audience full of affiliates. So get on the podcast. He’s like, Hey man, what are you doing? I...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “Justin Jackson, CEO & Co-Founder of Transistor.fm, explains how their affiliate program has become their most effective sales and marketing channel. With over 700 active affiliates driving traffic, leads, and conversions every month, Transistor.fm uses affiliate marketing to grow predictable recu...”
    high
    “You also took over the affiliate program for me. I was managing that as well.”
    high

  • Building in public

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “And we were telling our story right when the build and public movement was just, Uh, that’s another wave that we caught this build in public movement is just cresting. And the idea of transparent revenue numbers was kind of at its peak.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “By "building in public" and sharing their story, many fans started supporting Transistor through advice, connections and becoming customers.”
    high

  • Organic social media

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “I’d been building a audience on Twitter and on a podcast and on a newsletter that. Those became our first a hundred customers came from my audience.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “We were the top-rated product on Product Hunt that day and received tons of support on Twitter, Slack groups, and Reddit.”
    high

  • Online Community

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “all of those years investing in the bootstrap community and the podcasting community, all like, those were not wasted years. It ended up really, uh, helping and just being a contributing member of a community for years and years and years, uh, just had this huge benefit later on.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “We were the top-rated product on Product Hunt that day and received tons of support on Twitter, Slack groups, and Reddit.”
    high

  • Product Hunt

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “After getting home late, I stayed up until 12:01 am and posted it publicly on Product Hunt. Transistor was officially launched to the public! We had an amazing response to our launch. We were the top-rated product on Product Hunt that day”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “yeah, just built up the basic version. Launched it, the official version on product time, on August 1st, 2018.”
    high

  • Events

    · 1 mention
    “it's another advantage to going to events. That was me going to Laracon in Dallas, and then John O'Nolan and I were just eating lunch, going, man, we got a lot of the same customers. We gotta do something here.”
    high

  • Conferences

    · 1 mention
    “We've done things like we tend to attend conferences. So I think it's quite useful sometimes if you know customers by name, people you see in chat and on email. And then you actually meet them in the real world.”
    medium

  • Integrations

    · 1 mention
    “we also just launched an integration with Ghost. So it feels like we're just shipping right now... I'm just curious, how did that perform for you guys, an integration like that? Do you see a spike in users? We'll see. My thought is it'll probably give us an extra, I don't know, even if we got an ...”
    high

  • SEO

    · 1 mention
    “podcasting and podcast hosting is benefits from, uh, search intent, meaning every single day all around the world, people are waking up, opening up their laptop and saying, I’d like to host a podcast like Mixer g. How do I do that? And they’re typing in things like how to start a podcast and then...”
    high

  • Direct sales

    · 1 mention
    “once they arrive on the website, there's a big chat with us link. And you then become the salespeople. Like you're the internal salespeople. And we convert an incredible... Like our conversion rate from trial to paid is way above industry standard.”
    high

  • Group Product Demos

    · 1 mention
    “Helen, you do a lot of the onboarding demos for folks when they request, like big companies might request a demo. You're doing those over Zoom. And Michael, you are doing a Zoom call with anybody who signs up that wants one.”
    high

  • Podcasting

    · 1 mention
    “Jon and Justin started the Build your SaaS podcast right after they agreed to build Transistor together ... podcasting every week had several benefits ... By ... sharing their story, many fans started supporting Transistor through advice, connections and becoming customers.”
    high

  • Influencer partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “You've also helped me with reaching out to we've been we've been partnering with YouTube influencers. And you've been a big part of that.”
    high

  • Content marketing

    · 1 mention
    “These people are so good at search engine optimization. Like they have blogs and guides and you know, like, like how to start a podcast guides. They’re so good at it and they, they actually do a pretty good job of reviewing everything. And so when they reviewed transistor and they’re like, man, t...”
    high

How 3,236 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Transistor’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    64% ◀
  • Social media
    64% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    58% ◀
  • Email
    47%
  • Community
    37% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    35% ◀
  • Partnerships
    32% ◀
  • Events
    24% ◀
  • Paid ads
    23%
  • Outbound/Sales
    19% ◀
  • Press/PR
    17%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    12%
  • Podcasting
    4% ◀
  • Influencer partnerships
    3% ◀
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