How I Leveraged My Coding Skills And Built A $144K/Year Business
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
I am Usama, the CEO, and co-founder of SocialBu. SocialBu is a social media management platform. We help businesses manage and improve their social media presence.
Our main product is the SocialBu software, which helps our customers manage their social media presence, connect with their fans, analyze their social media performance, and improve it. Our customers include social media managers, marketing agencies, and small businesses.
I started as a student during my university time, and it was really hard to balance my startup and also keep up with my studies at the same time. We are 100% bootstrapped and have made about $300K since our launch.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I have a lot of freelance experience. I initially started as a freelance developer and that is how I learned coding and all. During my early days, I worked as a developer for multiple companies. I found it fascinating to build solutions to problems on my own.
I came across a Facebook scheduling tool at that time and decided to build something better myself just for the sake of being better at coding. That little tool I built worked nicely, and a lot of people used it.
At first, I just shared it in my network, in some communities that I was a part of, and so on. A lot of people were using it every day. I started getting new users without any promotion efforts from my side. It was free initially. After a few months, I put in a $5/mo fee, and just after this change, I started getting paid users. The application was just functionally okay, and from the perspective of UI/UX, it was a mess. I was not serious about it and ran it as a test.
It gave me the confidence to work on building something serious that can help people.
Combining that with the fact that I was also managing some social accounts on my own and had tried many social media tools at the time, I decided to build a complete social media management tool that would be much better and more powerful than the existing solutions.
I knew this was the right idea to work on because it solved a real problem that I had myself. I was working as a part-time social media manager for multiple brands and managing those accounts, I had to use multiple tools. Even then, those tools were too expensive and were also insufficient.
I also talked to a lot of other people who were using different tools at the time, and they all said the same thing - that there was a lot of room for improvement in the existing solutions.
There wasn't an "aha" moment, but more of a gradual realization over time. I kept talking to more people, researching the industry, and learning about the problems that existed. And as I learned more, it became clearer and clearer that this was the right idea to work on.
My freelance and coding experience helped me build SocialBu. I already had experience with almost all the social media APIs and integrations. I was a full-stack developer when I started building SocialBu. At the time, I was already financially satisfied because I was already working remotely and earning enough.
Take us through the process of designing and prototyping your first product.
We designed and built our software in a very iterative way. I started by building a simple prototype and then showed that to some users to get feedback. At that time, I only integrated Facebook and Twitter, and it only had post-scheduling features. It was very simple. Even though it was an MVP, I built the backend/software keeping all future integrations and scope in mind - being a good developer helped.
I tried to get some early users who were helpful in giving feedback and testing the product. To get the early users, I talked about the MVP in multiple Facebook groups, Quora answers, and on some Reddit communities. I talked with them, and that is how I decided to work on upcoming features.
I wanted it to be straightforward to use so that even people who are not very familiar with social media can use it easily. We also made sure that the features we built were really useful and helped our customers improve their social media performance.
I was very clear that I wanted to bootstrap, so I kept the costs minimal. The legal costs, including the company formation, were the major costs. Adding all the server/infrastructure costs, I think it totaled about $2000 to start.
Describe the process of launching the business.
We soft-launched the product in February 2019 and did some outreach to get our first users. Initially, we participated in online communities on social media sites like Reddit, Quora, Facebook groups, and so on to find the first users. Overall, it took us about 6 months to see some customers.
Don't wait for the perfect product. Launch early, launch often, and repeat.
We created a simple website with quick information about our product and a simple user registration flow. We also included some screenshots of the product to give people an idea of what we built.
This is how the initial website looked:
Financing the business was a little challenging in the beginning since we were a bootstrapped startup. I had some money saved and was also doing a part-time job, so it was managed.
The biggest lesson I learned from launching SocialBu is that we should always prepare well before launching. I should have already built an email list and had the plan to execute the launch in a way that would bring enough traffic and sign-ups. I launched, and then I was like, "Now what?"
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
There are a few things that we did that helped us attract early customers.
1) We participated in online communities and forums where our target users were active. This helped us get in touch with our target users and get feedback about our product.
2) We created a simple website with quick information about our product and a simple user registration flow. We also included some screenshots of the product to give people an idea of what we built.
3) We continuously refined our product based on feedback from users to make sure that it met their needs.
4) We offered free trials to our users so that they could try out the product before committing to using it.
Another thing we did to increase our traffic and users was launching an LTD (lifetime deal) on a small website. LTD sites usually have a community already, so it helps to get your first users while also generating some cash that can help you. It's also very helpful to test your product and generate user feedback.
We also tried a lot of paid channels. We tried Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Reddit ads, Twitter ads, and Google ads. The only channel among these that worked fine for us as Google ads. We got very low conversions from ads on social media sites. Even today, we experiment and run some ads using Google. We ran both search and display campaigns, with search campaigns having better ROI. We had our CAC at about $20 to $30. The ROI with Google Ads is the most predictable for us as compared to other ad networks.
Once a customer joins us, we also keep in touch with them using email and, in some cases, using the phone. We also try to retain the customers who churn by getting in touch with them and doing anything that can help them.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We are still bootstrapped and I think our ship has begun accelerating toward progress. We have multiple team members now, and our operations have recently become a bit smoother.
It takes about $50 to $70 to acquire one new customer for us, and the return is easily 4-5x that. We have a 10% signup-to-trial rate (we also have a free plan). Our total signups are now about 20,000 (the majority of them are also on our email list).
Most of our conversions happen through organic traffic (we have a blog where we publish content). We predominantly write about social media because our platform is directly linked with various social media platforms. This connection allows us to communicate more efficiently with our users. In addition to social media, we cover other digital marketing topics such as SEO, email marketing, and video and paid media marketing.
We have a content calendar for our blog, which is filled with multiple steps, including:
- Market research including competitor's content tracking
- Keyword research and content gap analysis
- Covering the latest Industry news
To make sure everything is going smoothly, we use tools like Ahref, AnswerThePublic, and Google Trends.
After finding the appropriate keywords and content suggestions, we convert them into final topics. After doing everything, we add the content to our content calendar (which then gets published).
Some of our content that ranks are in the screenshot below:
As of now, we are currently working on an improved version of our product, and many new features and improvements are pending to be pushed to our customers.
For now, we are focusing on improving our product experience and increasing our traffic. We have plans to focus on integrating AI throughout our product and increasing our customer base. We will launch other complimentary products in the future.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I made a lot of mistakes when I first started SocialBu. I didn't have a clear plan for how to execute the launch and attract users. I also wasted a lot of money on ads that didn't convert well, and I was very late to focus on SEO/blogging. I also struggled with building an effective sales process and retaining customers. I had to learn how to do both through trial and error. Managing fellow humans is also way harder than I had imagined.
Some of our good decisions include:
a) Reaching out to potential users in online communities to get feedback
b) Running an LTD to generate some traffic and sales
c) Building a solid product backend that scaled very well
d) Focusing on simplicity and just getting the job done
A major challenge for us was when Twitter and Instagram API access was restricted for us - it was very chaotic, and a lot of users left us. Thankfully, we took care of that and made sure it didn't happen again.
I learned a lot of things when I started this business. For example, it's important to have a clear plan for how you're going to launch and attract users. It's also important to focus on simplicity and getting the job done. And, most of all, I should have focused on marketing and branding even before the product was launched.
My technical background and experience were very helpful. I am also very persistent and have a lot of patience, and that helped me a lot. Having a clear vision and focus are also very much needed.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
- SocialBu for managing our social media accounts, of course.
- Stripe for our payment processing.
- MailGun for transactional mail.
- ActiveCampaign for marketing automation and sales.
- Basecamp for team communication and work management.
- HelpScout for customer support and knowledgebase hosting.
- Google Suite email hosting.
- DigitalOcean for servers.
- Upvoty for feedback management and Headway for in-app updates.
We use Google Analytics and Hotjar for analytics.
For our blog, we use WordPress.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Some books that helped me a lot:
- Getting Things Done
- The Great CEO Within
- Disciplined Entrepreneurship
Other than this, these podcasts are also great:
- SaaS Interviews by Nathan Latka
- Growth Stacking Show by Dan Martell
- The SaaS Podcast by Omar Khan
- Indie Hackers
- Indie Bites
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
If you want to get started, my best advice would be to focus on marketing from the very beginning. It's also important to have a clear plan for how you want to build your startup.
Don't compromise the quality of your product or customer service. Keep focusing on three things:
1) Customers
2) Marketing
3) Sales
And, don't wait for the perfect product. Launch early, launch often, and repeat.
Lastly, don't be afraid to make mistakes - everyone does! Just learn from them and keep moving forward.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are not looking for anyone at the moment, but in the future, we will need a talented content marketer who can contribute to our growth.
Where can we go to learn more?
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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.
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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