• Dylan Jacob, founder of BruMate, came up with the idea for his unique insulated drinkware brand after a frustrating search for a koozie that worked with his can of choice.
• He launched his first product line in November 2016 and has since experienced impressive growth (with over $1.1 million in monthly sales)
• Jacob's ability to pivot and adapt his business strategy has been key to his success.

Dylan identified a gap in the market and created an innovative insulated drinkware products:

• He started by designing rough prototypes and gathering customer feedback through targeted ads and partnerships with local breweries.
• Jacob used his knowledge of sourcing and manufacturing to find reliable partners and ensure product quality.
• He also emphasized the importance of being adaptable and willing to pivot based on customer needs and market feedback.

BruMate's most successful growth channels include:

1. Targeted Facebook ads: By running targeted ads for pre-orders and email capture, they were able to gather sales leads and create a list of around 7,000 people to launch their products to.
2. Email marketing: They also utilized email marketing to bring existing customers back and increase sales.
3. Partnerships with retailers: partnerships with over 1,000 retailers nationwide helped increase their reach and sales.

"Focus on creating a product people actually want, be willing to pivot and make changes based on feedback, and invest time in finding good manufacturers to ensure quality and scalability."

In 2017, Kristin stumbled upon an article about Michelle Schroeder-Gardner's blog, Making Sense of Cents. In it, she learned that Michelle was making $100,000 per month through blogging.

This got her interested in the idea and she started researching more about it. As a former journalist, Kristin has always enjoyed writing and interviewing people.

Being in the media, she was aware that stories about alternative living were gaining a lot of traction and hence, she decided to start a website where she could interview nomads and publish articles about their lives, living in vans, buses, and boats.

Thats how she embarked on the journey of creating her own blog.

Kristin purchased hosting from Bluehost and followed the steps to install WordPress. Then, she got to work designing with Divi and created the best website she could.

The entire expense of launching her business was probably around $50.

An email list was her primary customer acquisition channel. She used Convertbox to create a variety of opt-ins for my website and build her emailing list.

She also invested time learning SEO and focused on creating articles that rank on Google. Her top keywords include:

• Turning a school bus into a camper
  
• Shipping container homes for sale
• Tiny house 10000 euro

Robert Brandl, the founder of Tooltester.com, came up with the idea after struggling to find information about website builders online while starting his own travel blog.

He quickly recognized the demand for reviews and tutorials of web tools and launched Tooltester.com to fill that gap.

The business has since grown to generate around $120k per month in revenue and has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing European companies.

Robert created a small review website using Webnode, which is a free website builder. He only had to pay for the domain name and a few stock photos for the website.

Five weeks after launching the website, he made his first sale, earning $30 in commission. One year later, the New York Times featured his website, which gave him an opportunity to get a backlink.

After seeing this success, he hired an intern, relaunched the website on WordPress, and added translations for Spanish and French speakers.

The number one strategy for increasing traffic to the sites has been to target highly searched keywords that are relevant to our industry. Some keywords they rank for include:

• Planes Wix
  
• Cheapest website builder 2023
• AI website builder

Organic search counts for between 80-90% of our traffic

Other main channels include YouTube (where they have almost 30K Subscribers) and email (where we have approximately 87K subscribers). You can also find Tooltester on Facebook and Twitter.

David Bressler, the founder of Excelformulabot.com, came up with the idea while on paternity leave. After discovering the power of AI and its potential in Excel formulas, he realized there was a need for an AI-based Excel formula generator. With 1 billion Excel users worldwide, Bressler saw a big enough market and quickly built a barebone application that went viral and gained traction through Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Since the launch in September 2022, the website has generated over $14K in monthly recurring revenue.

Excelformulabot was developed quickly to capitalize on the growing AI industry, with a minimalistic MVP built using the no-code platform Bubble.io. The initial version had basic functionality: an input field for user instructions, a button for generating formulas, an output field displaying the results, and a copy button. This barebone MVP took just a few weeks to build, reflecting David's urgency to harness the first mover's advantage in the AI space. He faced challenges related to unexpected high API costs due to viral exposure and immediately had to create a business model to manage costs efficiently. Feedback from the Excel subreddit was crucial for iterating on the initial version, which transitioned into a subscription-based platform with paywalls and logins over several months, demonstrating the effectiveness of user feedback in refining product offerings.

Viral Marketing on Social Media

Excelformulabot experienced significant growth through viral marketing, particularly on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. The platform gained traction when users began sharing it as a "website that feels illegal to know." The ripple effect from influencers and micro-influencers posting about Excelformulabot amplified the brand's reach substantially. The virality continued across different social platforms, leading to widespread recognition and traffic.

Why it worked: Viral marketing tapped into the power of social proof. When influencers shared their experiences, their followers were intrigued and inclined to check out the service themselves. The portrayal of the site as a secretive hack added a compelling element that spurred curiosity and shareability.

Influencer Collaborations

Direct engagement with influencers has been a crucial part of Excelformulabot’s marketing strategy. David Bressler reached out to influencers whose audiences aligned with the product's use case in areas like finance, data, and accounting. Collaborations were either based on free promotions or paid partnerships, typically ranging from $200 to $3K per engagement.

Why it worked: Engaging influencers allowed Excelformulabot to tap into established communities that trusted their recommendations. This strategy effectively positioned the product in front of targeted users who found immediate value in the tool, especially amidst audiences who frequently use Excel.

Organic SEO and Branding

Excelformulabot benefitted from organic search traffic, largely driven by people searching for terms like "Excel formula bot." The brand's presence as both the category creator and the main solution provider resulted in high exposure on search engines. The site also garnered backlinks from reputable sites, enhancing its organic search appeal.

Why it worked: The brand's dominance in its niche and the creation of targeted content helped capture users actively searching for AI solutions for Excel. Having a name that directly matched user intent searches significantly enhanced discoverability and credibility.

Email Marketing and User Engagement

For customer retention and reengagement, Excelformulabot deployed email marketing strategies. Personalized messaging was developed based on user interactions, such as the type of formulas searched and user engagement levels. These tailored emails helped retain paying customers as well as encourage trial users to convert.

Why it worked: Personalized email campaigns aligned closely with user behavior, increasing the relevance and impact of each communication. This approach fostered a sense of connection and ensured users saw continued value in maintaining their subscriptions.

Stripo's founder, Dmytro Kudrenko, a seasoned programmer-turned-entrepreneur, identified a major gap in the email marketing industry when he realized HTML email design required coding skills that marketers usually lack. Launching in 2017, Stripo rapidly grew to one million users worldwide, generating approximately $400,000 in monthly recurring revenue by offering an intuitive, coding-free email template builder with seamless one-click exports to over 80 platforms.

After discovering his talent for crafting compelling presentations during his time as a software developer at Infosys, Aayush Jain launched INK PPT in 2015. Today, his niche presentation design agency generates $45K/month with a team of over 30 members, having completed 6,000 projects across 12 countries with a 96% customer satisfaction rate.

Anthony Gallo and Paul Xavier launched ContentCreator.com after realizing an untapped market for beginner-friendly, affordable cinematic video production courses. With just $60 in initial Facebook ad spend, they rapidly scaled to $35,000 in weekly sales and now run an 8-figure business aiding thousands of aspiring content creators globally.

In 2010, while in college, Thomas started a blog to share his experiments in getting the most out of college. Since then, he's applied his interests in productivity and self-development to YouTube, several podcasts, a book, and more. He got the idea of this business when he was trying to build a company's wiki and with the difficulties he faced with Google docs, discovering Notion blew his mind.

Thomas has been creating content online for over 10 years (first on a website, then a Youtube channel). He then captures those visitors/watchers to an email list by offering some high quality free products like templates, courses, resources and a newsletter; so they can later get promotions about future content and paid products.

Founder of Paper Raven Books, a publishing company, started out as a freelance editor and writing coach. After working with clients and receiving requests for publishing services, she documented the process of self-publishing her own book and began offering it as a service to clients, eventually growing the company to gross $1.1 million in revenue with over 150 clients and an 18-member remote team.

Robin Waite transitioned from running a small marketing agency to founding Fearless Business, a coaching accelerator, after selling his agency for £90k. He leveraged his experience and extensive networking, conducting 125 consultations in his first year, to build a thriving, six-figure coaching business with over 150 international members.

Mas, founder of Queue, built a ~1.6M ARR platform after solving his own pain point of syncing feedback on Overwatch videos, which quickly gained traction among esports coaches and video editors, evolving into a comprehensive productized service tool.