Bloomy Lab Update: How We Doubled Our Revenue In Real Estate
This is a follow up story for Bloomy Lab. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Bloomy Lab is a company built by 2 startupers - Alex Lanin and Maria Batryn, and our amazing team! So we continue to develop mental health, productivity, and real estate tech products.
We have dropped support for most of our apps, focusing only on the ones that both our users and team love, analyzing them a lot, and preparing to scale advertising campaigns.
Ripple, Life tracker and Tantify are the most promising of them. We also tried working with publishers, launched Google advertising, went through several startup programs, and are now considering options for accelerators or attracting investments for scaling.
We are also thinking about switching from purely online to a combination of online and offline as we believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I bet on women most of the team members are women. And I'm also a fan of diversity, we come from different countries, and many of us are Ukrainians. That's why, like many other Ukrainians nowadays, we had to leave our homes because of the war. Now we gather our strength to continue putting our hearts and souls into our products.
We make about $500,000 a year, and our strategy is to reinvest all the proceeds in product-led growth and research as we aim to make a difference in the world with our products.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
We've doubled our revenue in real estate, but we're still struggling with mobile app marketing despite a lot of experimentation, partnership with publishers, and ad tests. Still, now we have a much better understanding of what products we want to build and why.
As for Tantify: Google Ads, brand awareness; Instagram, email marketing, etc. But the best things in real estate are still referrals from satisfied customers and partnerships. We hired a brand strategist and a business strategist to focus on these spheres more.
As for mobile apps: We changed almost the entire team and hired more qualified developers and designers. Since our last interview, we pivoted the Joi app (now Ripple) and launched Sleep Formula, Life Tracker, and Affirmations.
Not all decisions that end up in failure are wrong, you may have done everything right, but the situation in the market or world may not be in your favor.
Product Huntused to work better before. Although we still rank in the top-5 products, now it’s pretty hard to get useful feedback on the launch. But their community is still a great source of inspiration.
To increase retention, you need to build a great product. You'll also need to be flexible, customer-oriented, and know how to follow up (newsletters, calls, other presence, etc.). If earlier we mainly focused on work processes and building a great team, recently we paid more attention to social networks.
We significantly increased web visits with Google Ads, but the number of orders stayed the same, so the marketing experiment failed. Even the experts themselves did not know what the reason was - we assumed that this could be seasonality that affected competitors as well. For example, with an active Google Ads campaign, only 4% of newly created accounts verified emails, while the normal conversion rate is 100% - our customers usually create their accounts and place orders right away. Only 2 of 3,500 new paid visitors placed their orders. Oddly enough, we found out that those were our regular customers who clicked that ad, ha-ha! Still, many competitors have been giving Google Ads for ages, and it works well for them. In our case, we are leaning toward improving the product itself and optimizing the ordering process.
The good old email marketing is still working for us, with an average open rate of 30%, which isn't bad. However, our newsletters might lack content and news sections - we’re working on it just now. Segmentation is really important for us because our audience is wide: designers, realtors, marketing managers, architects, and developers. Blasts for potential clients will look more general, whereas our active customers often receive questionnaires focused on improvements in our service and other experiments we do. Maybe it's kind of obvious, but giving email marketing a human touch will increase the open rate - try to provide real value to your subscribers and be clear about who the email is from and why you are sending it. For example, our customers are usually interested in design topics, trends, and marketing tips, so knowing this also increases our open rate. Oh, and we are also thinking about attending conferences and events to enhance brand awareness.
For apps, however, this area is on hold until the product is ready for advertising.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
We made some hiring mistakes: hired a junior designer, hired a junior developer, and then also a very experienced senior; we spent too much time training employees and waited too long to fire them, although it was pretty clear that we didn't meet the deadlines and the growth was too slow. The main problem stays the same - finding responsible employees who will be able to think big.
We haven't missed any opportunities because we are always open and take advantage of any chance. The war has affected our lives dramatically - we had to learn to make decisions and act very quickly, trying to support our employees in every possible way. Unlike large enterprises that faced tough choices: to lay off employees or freeze all payments, we continued to pay salaries and even raised them as our team members went through terrible trials and had to move to other countries just to save their lives.
The best decision we made so far was to partner with pros who already have industry and market knowledge - we lacked that data due to remote work from different locations.
Take everything as an option and consider different opinions. Investing in your team comes first - invest in its growth and development to take the company to a new level.
Hire slowly, fire quickly. In the future, I would invest more in research and development and predictive analytics, possibly including hiring.
Not all decisions that end up in failure are wrong, you may have done everything right, but the situation in the market or world may not be in your favor.
We believe in luck, but we haven't seen it yet - we set trends ourselves and pave the way with our own experiences.
I do HIIT every day to better control my mind and keep a diary to improve my decision-making skills. I experiment a lot with my nutrition and use the best biohacking practices. I think this is the foundation that affects our overall health.
I regularly conduct thorough financial audits and review unit economics - I think financial literacy should be a must-have habit and a school subject.
Traveling somewhere and staying for a few weeks is great for broadening your horizons and getting to know other cultures - it's impressive how the same products work differently and what unique features other countries have. By the way, I was surprised that so many people travel without maps and at least some plan of action upon arrival, blindly relying on travel agencies. Make a plan and be prepared for things to go wrong!
I also respond to potential partners immediately, assessing the risks right away and understanding whether I am ready to take them for the sake of this offer. Planning, strategy, and exercising in superforecasting are parts of my daily routine.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
If entering the Canadian real estate market and moving to the USA sounds like a plan, then let's say it's a short-term plan.
I'm excited about the future of green technologies, alternative energy sources, improving and extending life, the adoption of predictive analytics in all areas, robotics, and the intersection of these technologies.
In 10 years, I want to focus on investing in startups, so to achieve that, I will need technology and a team of analytics to excel at decision-making at least 5 years from now. And go on IPO, of course.
My short-term goals:
- ARR 10mln
- Hire more talented people
- Tantify to be #1 in New York and San Francisco
- For mobile apps to achieve MRR 100,000 (publishers, fundraising, or on our own)
- Build a SaaS service for accepting orders for photography, and launch it before the end of the year
- Oh, and finally update the Bloomy Lab website!
My long-term goals:
- settle in the United States
- arrange an event to get to know our clients
- employee relocation
- IPO
Have you read any good books in the last year?
In Noise by Daniel Kahneman, you will find out how to improve the quality of decision-making. This book is a great source to spark your interest in decision-making and learn how to use algorithms in business processes and life. Think Again by Adam Grant is also a great one on the topic of forecasting and decision making.
The Narrow Corridor inspired me a lot - it explains how states become prosperous by achieving liberty. I believe that any company is like a small state, and although we cannot build states, we can build successful companies. To get the most out of this book, apply its wisdom to your own company.
Almost all the HBR articles are great, including case studies on strategy, implementation of digital transformation, and future technologies.
The Third Wave by Steve Case will improve your understanding of the evolution cycles for the company and technology in general. You'll understand the speed of changes and that it is better to be at the forefront of them.
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke is a book about poker and games of uncertainty, about how to bet and make investment decisions in life and business.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Do not stop experimenting, but stop if the experiment shows the failure of the hypothesis. Shorten the experiment cycle and process feedback quickly. Chance plays more of a role than it seems.
Serendipity, weak ties, non-obvious contacts - everything can lead to serious changes in life. Take everything as an option and consider different opinions. Investing in your team comes first - invest in its growth and development to take the company to a new level.
Major mistakes I notice every day: indecisiveness, inability to take reasonable risks, inertia, and excessive caution.
Any streaks and negative cycles end, but after them, we'll see who prepared - crises for them are growth opportunities. When the tide is low, you see who's been swimming naked, but during the storm, only the most adaptive companies with the right philosophy will survive, even if they've been losing before. It's easy to grow in calm times, but you must have a plan and a buffer for turbulent times, even if a crisis is not in sight.
Remember that a positive mindset can save lives during difficult times.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Positions open:
- developers
- brand strategist
- cgi artists
- analyst
- iOS and full-stack
- UA manager
- sales manager
- marketing manager
- real estate photographers
Please fill out a short contact form here if you’d like to join our team.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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