Lessons from the field.
On the other side of fear.
What’s poppin’? Mac here.
Here’s what’s in store:
🎬️ Behind the scenes
💡 1 Insight
⛰️ 1 Challenge
🧠 1 piece of inspiration
🙈 In case you missed it
💁 How I can help
🎬️ Behind the scenes
➼ I’ve rebuilt my personal website once again. I had recently built it in Framer, which I love - and that version probably looked fancier - but I discovered Obsidian Publish which better suits my desire for a nice writing environment which I can seamlessly publish from directly. I have a lot of content in the works, so this is already simplifying things greatly. Time to stop screwing around and producing more content! I’ll continue to use Framer for most of my SaaS websites.
➼ We hired a developer for Aware recently, which has been great and is letting me move into marketing mode there as growth has been picking up.
➼ Currently building the SaaS Pulse website, which we will be launching in January.
➼ January, or shortly thereafter will also bring our launch of a new way to create viral launch lists, leaderboards, and rewards. Reply if want early access.
➼ I’ve been revisiting Traction, which I haven’t read since 2017, but is still hyper-relevant (thanks for the reminder, Marcel).
➼ Heading off in a couple of days to London → Paris → Strasbourg → Interlaken (our kids chose Switzerland as where they want to go - this is their main Christman present).
💡 Insight
I remember when I first started reaching out to people to see if they'd let me pick their brains about their business processes and pain points.
I was scared of rejection.
I was scared of bothering people.
And if they did say yes to a meeting or call, I was nervous about how the conversation would go or if they'd view it as a waste of their time.
To try to combat that, I would plan my questions and try to follow a formula.
Over time I realized that:
Most people are cool, and love talking about themselves (let's face it!).
If someone doesn't want to talk to you, they simply won't respond or will say so (usually politely). So by the time you get to the conversation, they're willing, which means there's no need to be nervous or worried.
The most valuable conversations are those where I can stay calm and relaxed and let their responses guide me to the pain I am trying to uncover. Trying to follow a prescribed set of questions is much less productive. If I’m ever not sure what to ask next, I simply say "Tell me more about that". The deeper they go, the more pain and value you will extract.
After just a few times of reaching out to people, and having these conversations, I was super comfortable with it and it became something I didn't have to think much about. Yet, I attribute my success to going through this process, as it has been the big difference in how I approached my apps that have ended up doing well and those that haven’t.
I often forget how hard it was to face those fears at first, but I was reminded of that this week with some people I've been mentoring and advising.
I want to share pieces of some of the message they sent me here:
1) This person is exploring different ideas, and after having built some apps previously that didn't result in much, is taking a different approach this time and leading with conversations instead of building.
This is what they said after their first cold call:
This makes me so happy and proud.
Within the short message, I see someone who faced their fears and came out the other side more confident and excited, and learned some valuable insights from having had the conversation.
And here's what followed:
Calls, even cold calls, aren't as bad as we fear, and the insights we walk away with are invaluable.
2) Here's a message from someone else:
This person is in the process of building while simultaneously doing audience research.
Notice there's no mention of the prospect being anything but helpful. They didn't bite!
And can you sense how many valuable insights were taken from this call?
I love seeing "[they] are worried" - that's pain right there!
There's no better way to get inside the head of your customer than to have conversations like this no matter what stage you're in.
Hopefully these stories inspire you to face any fears you have around starting conversations with prospects or customers and to recognize the value you are bound to walk away with if you do so.
P.S. I recently opened up a new offering of mentorship via 1:1 chat (Discord) as a monthly subscription (this is where one of the conversations originated).
The price increases by $50 each time 5 slots are filled in the given tier, but once locked in your price will never change. The $49 tier has sold out. Grab a spot now at $99 before it jumps again.
⛰️ Challenge of the week
Have you talked to anyone in your target audience lately? Or if you have existing customers, have you talked to any of them lately?
If not, you know what to do.
Then please reply and let me know how it goes.
🧠 Inspiration
I love this pricing strategy - it may even look familiar:
$80k+ in pre-sales
But the best part is how @stephsmithio does it:
The secret sauce is her "Price Hike" strategy.
Here's how it works for her newest product, Internet Pipes:
- Price started at $30,
- Price hike of $20 for every 20 sales
- Price currently at $310For a total… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
🙈 In case you missed it
9 criteria for selecting your best business idea
Create a portfolio of small bets
In other news:
Would you be interested in a SaaS Bootstrapper community?
A place to engage with others, share and get feedback.
Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.
💁 When you’re ready, here’s how I can help
1:1 Coaching via chat: For just $99/mo you can connect with me privately in Discord and get help from me along the way, whether it’s about brainstorming ideas, figuring out if you’re on the right track, determining your next steps, going to market, or scaling.
1:1 Clarity call: Wherever you are on your bootstrapping journey, chances are I've been there. I know the struggles and challenges and am here to help through a 1:1 clarity call.
Aware: If you’re looking to step up your audience-building game on LinkedIn, this is a great time to make this investment in your audience growth.
Tools and resources: A complete list of the tools and resources I use to run my business, and some books that have helped me along the way.
Last but not least, get in front of my audience with a free product promotion: Refer this newsletter to 3 people, and I’ll mention your product in an upcoming newsletter to my thousands of readers.
The easiest way to do that?
Copy and paste your unique ‘share’ URL below, and post a nice tweet about this newsletter with that link. 😀
P.S. How did you like today's newsletter?
Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.
Have a great weekend!
Mac
P.P.S. Hey - what are you working on? What’s your biggest challenge at the moment? Reply and let me know. I reply to every email.