Happy Holidays, bootstrappers!

Here’s a tasty tidbit from Drayton Bird, a renowned copywriter who David Ogilvy once said knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world. 

If you want to make money while your competitors slack off, email people between Christmas and New Year. 

Most will be sat at home, sluggish with food and drink, and seeking distraction from family squabbling and festive TV. 

I imagine few of your competitors will do the same (many will be on vacation), so you’re almost guaranteed your customers’ undivided attention.

If your business offers a product or service to help people reinvent themselves this New Year, tell them now when they're ready to listen – and even buy. 

All the best for 2023 and beyond. 

– Chris Roper, Kimberly de Silva, Peter Upton, and Leanne Stahulak

Are Amazon and eBay Too Impersonal? These Ozzies Want to Make Australian Ecommerce Friendlier

Andrew Hanna and Mal Badawi began as ecommerce resellers but found multimillion-dollar success when they leaned into their Australian heritage, helping local brands sell online.

Andrew and Mal met through friends and started a falafel stand together. In parallel, they ran an eBay store selling kitchenware, and when it took off, they wound down the falafel stand and switched to ecommerce. Soon, they were hawking stock from a shed in Andrew’s backyard.

Over time, the cofounders began stocking more Australian brands. The products were amazing, but the people behind them lacked ecommerce skills, so Andrew and Mal decided it was time to think bigger. Could they create seamless Amazon-like experiences for local brands?

“One lady we met had an ecommerce store for dachshund jackets. She’d created ten beautiful designs and was just sitting there waiting to be discovered. With Ozdingo Connect, we could take her product, put it on our platform, and give it the biggest exposure she’s seen.”

Wins 👍

1. Shifting warehousing to their suppliers. Unable to warehouse enough goods, the cofounders returned logistics to suppliers and focused on the customer experience.

2. Offering flexible hours to attract the best talent. By offering hours that fit working parents, the cofounders could hire the best people and enjoy uncommonly low turnover.

3. Investing in exceptional customer service. The cofounders worked hard to maintain positive reviews at 99.9 percent, attracting many customer referrals with little budget.

Challenges 🤔

1. Staying bootstrapped. It was tough watching VC-backed competition overtake them, but the cofounders are now happy running a sustainable business under their control.

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When Building a Million-Dollar Business, Everything Is an Experiment

Patrick Baynes and Michael Coupe built Nerdwise after a LinkedIn change forced Patrick to sell his previous VC-backed business. Today they bootstrap solutions over products.

Patrick’s first business, PeopleLinx, was destroyed when LinkedIn pulled its API access. Though he managed to sell the business in 2015, the lesson of not relying on an ecosystem stuck as he began formulating the plan for Nerdwise. It would be both independent and bootstrapped.

With Michael aboard, they pitched Nerdwise as a social media automation tool. But when customers began asking Patrick to generate leads for them, he wondered whether that’s where the opportunity lay. Could Nerdwise help businesses generate and convert leads instead?

“I asked myself whether a social marketing automation tool was the best way to help customers grow their businesses. Being honest, I realized our offering was not the best solution to that problem. I knew a better way to do that. So I pivoted Nerdwise to lead generation.”

Wins 👍

1. Applying lead generation lessons to Nerdwise. Having run a high-growth business before, Patrick learned many lead-generation strategies he could apply to Nerdwise.

2. Identifying their ideal customers. By evaluating which customers enjoyed the best success with Nerdwise, the cofounders could focus marketing on their needs alone.

3. Pricing to reflect the value they offer. Nerdwise earns millions from only 500 customers because they focus on delivering the best value to those who need it most.

Challenges 🤔

1. Monetization. While their freemium model helped the cofounders to grow the business quickly, it took a long time before they monetized and could pay themselves a salary.

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How to Compete Against Multimillion-Dollar Competitors? Highlight Your Values

Gavin Hammar did the unthinkable when competitors began gobbling up his market share. Instead of sharpening his ax, he embraced his customers closer than his competition could.

Gavin’s side project, Sendible, began as a request from his dad to send automated birthday messages to employees and has since grown to support virtually any content. While working full-time as a developer, Gavin sweated over poor growth and even asked VCs for funding.

They said no, and to make matters worse, his employer wanted equity in return for letting him work on Sendible in his spare time. While he later whitelabeled the product, bought back his shares, and got acquired, a new foe emerged in the way of copycat competitors.

“Rather than try to be like everyone else, we leaned into being smaller, bootstrapped, and caring about customers. What if we could put a face to the brand? What if we could be the smaller, more customer-centric alternative?”

Wins 👍

1. Being real with customers. Gavin and his team are all over the website, in pictures, and videos, reinforcing the personal touch Sendible takes in every customer interaction.

2. Whitelabeling the product. A streamlined dashboard and the end of the 2008 recession helped Sendible’s product take off so that Gavin could work on it full-time.

3. Selling Sendible. Although he’d never thought of selling, an unexpected offer was good enough for him to pass the reins to another who could scale Sendible better than he.

Challenges 🤔

1. Living on one paycheck. Gavin’s wife convinced him to quit his job and throw his energy into growing Sendible, them surviving on her teacher’s salary until Sendible scaled.

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