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Nathan Barry, CEO of ConvertKit \u2013 an email marketing company for professional bloggers. Listen as Nathan shares how he manages to stay self-funded while, at the same time, increasing the growth and bloggers\u2019 interest in using ConvertKit.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Predictable Success
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 N/A

• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Workable
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\u2014 No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 Pick just one thing you love to do and do it really well

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:50 \u2013 Nathan introduces Barry to the show
• 02:15 \u2013 ConvertKit is a SaaS company and has around 10,000 bloggers
• 02:47 \u2013 ConvertKit\u2019s pricing depends on the blogger\u2019s subscribers count
• 03:04 \u2013 Average revenue per user per month
• • 03:24 \u2013 65% of the users are on $48/month plan
• 03:48 \u2013 ConvertKit\u2019s cash flow is doing well
• 04:15 \u2013 Annual plan has a big impact on churn
• 04:50 \u2013 Barry pushes the annual plan on Cyber Monday
• • 05:00 \u2013 Average annual plan total
• 05:30 \u2013 ConvertKit had a free 1 month promotion for new users
• 05:56 \u2013 ConvertKit has a 40K email list \u2013 half of it is from content marketing, the other half is from webinars
• • 06:30 \u2013 ConvertKit has added 25K new people in their list this year from joint webinars alone
  • 06:55 \u2013 Barry is using Google Hangout and Chatroll for the webinars
  • 07:20 \u2013 ConvertKit is doing 10-20 webinars a month
• 07:53 \u2013 There are 2 people in Barry\u2019s team who are involved in the webinar process
• • 08:28 \u2013 The team is trying to get people who use MailChimp or Aweber to switch to ConvertKit
  • 08:38 \u2013 It is a 2-step direct sales process
• 09:54 \u2013 Barry shares how he mitigates the show up rate in their webinars
• 10:54 \u2013 Some of the bloggers reach out to ConvertKit and some find them through other bloggers
• 11:16 \u2013 Average expenses a month in affiliate payouts
• • 11:33 \u2013 A quarter of ConvertKit\u2019s revenue comes from affiliate programs
• 12:10 \u2013 2015 total revenue is around $300K
• 12:20 \u2013 2016 average revenue
• 12:34 \u2013 ConvertKit is self-funded
• • 12:44 \u2013 It was an intentional choice
  • 13:03 \u2013 Barry shares what he did when they were almost running out of funds
• 14:15 \u2013 ConvertKit\u2019s gross profit and total money in the bank
• 14:38 \u2013 ConvertKit just had a big expense from the annual plan switch
• 15:15 \u2013 Gross monthly customer churn
• 16:15 \u2013 Expansion is ConvertKit\u2019s next focus
• 17:08 \u2013 Current CAC
• 18:28 \u2013 Team size and location
• 18:50 \u2013 Average headcount expenses
• 19:14 \u2013 ConvertKit was launched in 2013
• 20:18 \u2013 There are two advisers who have a share in the company
• 20:45 \u2013 Connect with Nathan through ConvertKit and his website
• 23:20 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• You can stay self-funded with a fast growing business and by managing your funds properly.
• Joint webinars and 2-point direct sales are excellent options to increase mailing list.
• Pick one thing you love to do, focus in, and do it really well.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling \u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip \u2013 Nathan uses Drip\u2019s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• Toptal\xa0\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn\u2019t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox\xa0 \u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens and follow-up with email sequences
• ConvertKit.com \u2013 Barry\u2019s business website
• NathanBarry.com \u2013 Barry\u2019s personal website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives