What I am going to share, is something that is insightful and inspiring. Don’t skim through. Absorb every word. It’s worth it.

The wisdom isn’t mine. It’s Nathan’s.

Nathan Barry is the CEO of ConvertKit. Over the last few years, ConvertKit has made a significant dent in the world of Marketing. In 2022, ConvertKit made USD 22 million in ARR.

Recently, through a Twitter thread, Nathan shared his initial struggles and how he overcame them. Here are some of the insights that I gathered from the thread…

Oh, but before that, you may want to read the actual thread that Nathan published.

Back?

Here are a few lessons that stood out for me –

1. Focus on a micro-niche – Nathan was brave enough to go narrow. He went as narrow as – “email marketing for professional paleo recipe bloggers who are women”. The first advantage of going narrow is that finding the people in your niche becomes a lot easier by using tools such as Google, Twitter, and other directories. Secondly, when you go narrow, you are nurturing the magical ingredient of Marketing – word of mouth.  When female paleo recipe bloggers would have talked to each other, ConvertKit would have come up in the conversation.

This level of focus is incredible and inspiring.

 

2. Start with the frustration – 

Instead of starting with a Sales pitch, or a solution, Nathan initiated conversations with his bloggers through a pain point.

When you lead with a pain point, you are giving an impetus to people to interact with you. Talking about Sales closes people off. Talking about their frustrations is what lights them up. 

The other thing that I love about this approach is its simplicity. I was kicking myself for not having thought of this strategy sooner. 

 

3. Scaling the unscalable

In the thread, Nathan talks about connecting with individual bloggers through calls and meet-ups.  Imagine being Nathan Barry, showing up for a 60-minute skype call, only to realize that this dude won’t actually become a ConvertKit customer. 

But Nathan persisted. While scaling the unscalable needs guts, the results are magical. 

What did you learn from this thread?

What I am going to share, is something that is insightful and inspiring. Don’t skim through. Absorb every word. It’s worth it.

The wisdom isn’t mine. It’s Nathan’s.

Nathan Barry is the CEO of ConvertKit. Over the last few years, ConvertKit has made a significant dent in the world of Marketing. In 2022, ConvertKit made USD 22 million in ARR.

Recently, through a Twitter thread, Nathan shared his initial struggles and how he overcame them. Here are some of the insights that I gathered from the thread…

Oh, but before that, you may want to read the actual thread that Nathan published.

Back?

Here are a few lessons that stood out for me –

1. Focus on a micro-niche – Nathan was brave enough to go narrow. He went as narrow as – “email marketing for professional paleo recipe bloggers who are women”. The first advantage of going narrow is that finding the people in your niche becomes a lot easier by using tools such as Google, Twitter, and other directories. Secondly, when you go narrow, you are nurturing the magical ingredient of Marketing – word of mouth.  When female paleo recipe bloggers would have talked to each other, ConvertKit would have come up in the conversation.

This level of focus is incredible and inspiring.

 

2. Start with the frustration – 

Instead of starting with a Sales pitch, or a solution, Nathan initiated conversations with his bloggers through a pain point.

When you lead with a pain point, you are giving an impetus to people to interact with you. Talking about Sales closes people off. Talking about their frustrations is what lights them up. 

The other thing that I love about this approach is its simplicity. I was kicking myself for not having thought of this strategy sooner. 

 

3. Scaling the unscalable

In the thread, Nathan talks about connecting with individual bloggers through calls and meet-ups.  Imagine being Nathan Barry, showing up for a 60-minute skype call, only to realize that this dude won’t actually become a ConvertKit customer. 

But Nathan persisted. While scaling the unscalable needs guts, the results are magical. 

What did you learn from this thread?