Demio Discover

Meet Josh Pigford. Maker. Dabbler. Founder of Baremetrics which provides subscription analytics & insights for an advanced understanding of your business. Purveyor of Cedar & Sail. Bearded. On this episode, David Abrams and Josh Pigford walk through the initial steps that Josh went through as he scratched his own itch to create the all in one SaaS analytic Dashboard. From the ups and downs, learn the major lessons (like financials and burn rates) that Josh sayus were crucial in their growth from 0 to almost 100k/ MRR in just a few short years. 01:10 - Josh's Story: Scratching Your Own Itch 04:20 - Validating With A Small Twitter Audience 06:30 - Getting The First Customers: Word Of Mouth 09:10 - Getting Offered Funds 13:00 - Hiring People And Founder Overoptimism 15:40 - Burning Rate And More Funding 16:25 - The Accounting Side of The Numbers 19:10 - Nasty Churn Rate, Burn Rate and Expense Metrics 21:10 - How Early In A StartUp Should You Really Focus On Expenses 23:00 - Getting Profitable: Payroll C

Mike Hardenbrook is the Co-founder of Growth Geeks (a marketplace of vetted freelance-marketers or geeks) and Growth Hacker TV which is an educational resource for startups, to acquire, monetize, and grow a user base. Mike is also the Chief Strategist at Workify and a Mentor at Techstars with select founders and companies. His latest project is The Cold Email Academy. 00:30 - Mike's Journey 05:55 - Timing and Validation 06:40 - Building MVP and Audience 10:00 - Bootstrapping vs Funding 14:30 - Getting Chosen by Techstars 15:30 - The Marketing Plan: Outbound Marketing 17:30 - A Proven Process for B2B Cold Email 23:45 - The Next Steps After You Get Their Email Address 25:50 - How To Find Anyone's Email Address 28:00 - Recap Of Critical Concepts and Systems 29:10 - Just Get Started With The First Email! 29:30 - The 3 Components You Need to Nail 31:40 - Failures That Were Big Learning Moments 36:15 - The Lesson Learned With Freelancers 39:40 - Lightning Questions

In this episode, David from Demio will jump forward in the journey to current day Demio. We'll start talking about the current problems we're facing and what we are doing to really fine tune and understand who are perfect target customer is for Demio. In a conversation on churn, we recognized that we have to truly define the "perfect" avatar and why getting a better product-market fit is the fastest way to cut down churn and improve your product. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

Sid Bharath is a marketer and previously the VP of Growth at Thinkific, an online course platform that he’s helped grow to the leader in the industry. He’s also a marketing consultant and has worked with other software companies to help them grow. In this episode, David and Sid discover his 5 step framework that Sid uses to start the growth marketing process for any Early-Stage startup and how they use an ROI calculator to determine their first marketing steps 00:10 - Sid's Journey into Growth Hacking 04:40 - The Thinkific Fast Growth Experience 07:55 - Best Channel, Swap Partnerships and Influencers 09:20 - The System to Identify The Best Channel To Invest 12:30 - Listening to Customer Support for Customer Feedback 14:20 - Collecting Data to Choose Best Customer to Focus On 18:00 - 5 Step Framework for Growth Hacking: Customer Persona, Customer Journey (Problem Unaware > Problem Aware > Solution Aware > Product Aware > Decision > Retention), Trigger Points Prioritization, Testing, Scaling The

Brennan Dunn started as a freelance developer, then after starting, scaling, and exiting an agency, he decided to start a software company, Planscope which he sold in early 2016 and co-founded RightMessage, a software company that helps bring on-site personalization to the masses. He is also founder of Double Your Freelancing. 00:20 - Brennan's Journey 03:20 - Validation of Software With Feedback 04:20 - Finding His Co-Founder 05:40 - MVP: Building A Course Before The Software 07:15 - Learning What People REALLY Wanted 08:40 - The #1 Thing People Say: "What do I do with this?" 10:05 - Building A Direct Competitor To Something vs When There Isn't Much Out There 11:35 - Software: Start With Education and Let Outcomes of Education Dictate Product Strategy 13:05 - Marketing Strategy: Content (Free and Premium) and Educational Webinars To Strategic Partners' Audiences 17:50 - How to Approach Potential Strategic Partners: Detailed Plan of Value + Proof of Results 23:35 - Failures Turned Into Lessons: Tri

In this episode, David from Demio will explain how on our journey, we entered free beta and recognized we had a big problem with our SaaS - customer usage. We realized that without usage we would get no feedback and no real understanding of our MVP hypothesis. We quickly understpood that we needed to create Activation Points for our users to get in, running a webinar, and getting feedback to us. This caused a spike in customer usage and reduced churn along the way. We opened valuable feedback loops with our users which also enabled us to create a better application. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

Chris Brisson is CEO of Call Loop, the goto voice and text messaging software that over 45,000 business owners use to grow their business with mobile messaging and his latest venture Salesmsg turns texts into sales. 01:00 - The Story Behind Call Loop 04:45 - Building a Software Company Is Hard 06:20 - Validating The Idea 07:45 - The Next Step After The Initial Customers 09:45 - Breaking "The Magical Number" 10:50 - Churn Rate and Pay As You Go Model 14:30 - Big Lesson Learned: Sell Early and Often 16:20 - Getting Customers: SEO, Pay Per Click, JVs and Partners 18:20 - Packaging to Approach JVs 20:50 - The Fastest Way To Get Momentum: JV's Webinars 21:05 - Figuring Out The Audience 23:20 - Chris' Why 25:25 - "Is The Purpose Big Enough to Continue Doing What I'm Doing?" 26:50 - Lightning Questions

In this episode, David from Demio will explain how on our journey we learned the importance of doing things that don't scale early on. From a marketing perspective, we have heard from nearly every single one of our guest interviews the power of feedback from customers when doing manual process or talking to customers one on one. Although running things that scale can sound like a time-saving, energy efficient part of your business in the early days, you must do things that don't scale to get you educated on what will actually work. And of course, to make sales. You'll also learn our top method to getting our first 50 customers early on! Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

Serial entrepreneur, speaker, investor, former founder of Clarity.fm. Dan is a perfect example of someone who has overcome all odds to achieve massive success. Having built and sold 3 technology companies (first becoming a millionaire at 27), Dan now dedicates his time to coaching high performing SaaS entrepreneur to scale their businesses in a predictable way. 01:40 - Dan's Journey to Clarity.fm 04:30 - The Project Phase and the Business Phase 08:35 - Micro Version of Reality Distortion and Charities 16:00 - The Phases of Fundraising no matter how many times you've had it before 19:15 - How Dan got his First 1000 Experts on Clarity.fm 20:15 - Dan's Superpower 22:35 - Content Marketing should be Strategic in Nature 24:05 - The Relation between Hustle and Progress 24:35 - Product Hacks 26:20 - The Phases of Product Ideation 29:20 - A Big Learning Opportunity for Dan 33:05 - Marketplaces and Pricing 37:20 - Growth Hack: Always Go Manually First 41:00 - Positioning is Everything 41:30 - The Core Customer Framew

In this episode, David from Demio will explain how on our journey we learned the importance of Hiring Slow and Firing Fast to get the right people in your business. From an early stage hire, to filling an immediate role in your company you need to always be aware to make sure you are hiring for a cultural fit and someone who is willing to go on the journey with you. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

00:35- Brian's Journey to SamCart 03:50- The Unique Angle They Chose and Avatars 09:35 - Getting the First Customers with MVP 14:10 - Favorite Marketing Strategies: Paid Traffic and Affiliates 17:40 - The One Thing Every Listener Should Be Doing for Marketing 18:30 - Budgeting for Advertising and Testing 24:40 - Failures turned into Lessons: Pricing and Customer Support 30:20 - CEO Type Mistakes 32:30 - Brian's Why 36:45 - The New Version of SamCart and The Vision for It 41:07 - Lightning Questions 45:15 - Q&A

In this episode, David from Demio will walk you through how lack of patience itself can be a killer to a founder or co-founder. Walking you through the Demio journey, David helps you learn how a long term vision and understanding of how micro hustle can save any business from burnout and self-sabotage. Here's the lessons learned and the wins we've found along the way.

02:00 - Todd's Story 09:00 - Not Giving Up 13:00 - It's a Numbers Game 19:00 - The Evolution of E5 CAMP Method 20:15 - Life, Impact and Legacy 25:15 - Big Key Lesson #1: Marketing is Different than Selling 29:20 - Big Key Lesson #2: We are In The Idea Business 32:00 - New Ideas: Seeing Combinations 38:45 - Big Key Lesson #3: The Power of The Unique Mechanism 50:00 - If Going Back, Would Todd Do It All the Same? 53:50 - Levels of Customer Acquisition Aggression and Maximum Allowance Acquisition Cost

Join David Abrams and Wyatt Jozwowski on the Demio Journey as we dive deep on our mistakes, lessons learned, and big wins along the way. Here at Demio we've got a story to tell, as well and our new Demio Discover format will overview just that. In today's episode, David Abrams gives a full overview of what an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) is and how important it is for your business to succeed.

Do you have the full story of the Demio Journey? No problem, here at Demio we've got a story to tell, as well and our new Demio Discover format will overview just that. We'll explore lessons learned, major breakthroughs, amazing wins, huge failures, and the best takeaways you can implement into your business. In today's episode, David Abrams gives a brief recap of the journey thus far and explains what's to come. Start here if you're just tuning in :)

01:25 - Nathan's Journey 05:30 - Finding your Passion 08:30 - The Importance of Design 13:50 - Podcasting, Instagram and Content Quality 21:10 - The Power of a Magazine and Amazing Guests 27:00 - Starting vs Scaling 29:00 - Big Lesson: Learn from smart people who have done it 31:35 - Q&A (SaaS, Memberships, Advertising, Facebook Free Groups...)

01:10 - Eric's Story 06:00 - Giving up, Gut and Unsolicited Feedback 07:30 - Growth Strategies - Consistency Over Time 12:15 - From 3 to 22 Million/Year - Hiring Great People 13:12 - Lessons from Poker: Controling Emotions to let go 15:05 - Content Marketing and Authority 16:50 - Podcasting - Building Relationships 18:45 - Staying on Cut Edge of Marketing 20:25 - A Day in the Life of Eric Sui... 22:00 - Systems and Processes 23:00 - Hindsight and Perseverance 27:10 - Charity of Choice 27:25 - What Eric would tell his Younger Self before starting

02:25 - The Live Chat: Pros and Cons and the Value of Great Customer Support 06:05 - Jack's Story: Coding and Discovering the Power of Deadlines 16:25 - Limiting Beliefs, Small Obstacles and Figuring it Out 20:45 - "Setting the Criteria" in Order to Reach the Conclusion You Want 30:05 - Urgency and Scarcity Principles Applied to Funnels 32:00 - Entrepreneurs: Working for Someone Else vs Working on Your Own Thing 33:30 - The Tactical Triangle Concept and Chapter 37:30 - Applying Past Lessons: Small Improvements on Stick Rate for Revenue Growth 38:55 - Growing Pains and Hiring Skills 40:45 - Management and Leadership through Empowerment 47:30 - What's Next 50:40 - Customer Support Training 52:50 - If Starting Today from Scratch...

01:40 Don’s Story 13:30 Creating a Saas Business 18:00 Getting Funding 20:55 The Pitch – Pop Pop 24:40 Motivation and Burn Out: Why You Do What You Do 29:15 Competition and Leadership in a Market 32:35 The Importance of Having Perspective on Hard Days 33:45 Key Lesson: Keep It Simple 37:35 Q&A

03:25 Joel’s Story – Engineer to Entrepreneur through Sales Presentations 16:05 Taking a Leap of Paith, Failures and Identifying THE big opportunity 23:45 The Missing link and Most Common Mistakes People do with Webinars 26:11 Pain Points and Key Desires 29:27 Metrics and Benchmarks for Webinars 35:24 Audience Targeting and Market Research 40:48 Marketing Awareness Pyramid and Content Marketing 50:40 Q&A