11 Crucial Lessons from Growing My AskAI from $0 in 2023

Created time

Jul 15, 2024 11:44 AM

Author

Mike Heap

I learned a ton of lessons in 2023 growing My AskAI from $0 in Jan

Here are 11 of them:

1. Some marketing methods (growth hacks) come and go

Adding a product to a directory

Replying to big AI influencer accounts with your tool

Newsletters

For us, all of these things had a big impact initially when we launched, but returns diminished as some of the hype died down and they all became super popular. Now we are focusing on more tried and tested forms of marketing that won't be going away any time soon (SEO, content, etc).

2. Everyone has a different path, don't compare, but do learn

Sure, someone may have a very similar tool to you and it may be 10x bigger or smaller than yours, but it won't do you much good comparing yourselves to them. Do see what they're doing, and learn from them, but you won't gain a lot comparing yourself, especially when a lot of things are out of your control.

3. Protect your time at all costs

This is a difficult one. What I am NOT saying is don't take calls or meetings. We have built some of our biggest customers through doing this, but do try to find ways to pattern match who is likely a time waster early on, and don't be scared to say no. Also, find ways you can automate everything you do, especially the small stuff.

4. Building a small team, you don't have to go down the VC route

We have been approached by a few VCs this year, some of whom we took calls with, but at the end of the day, we decided we didn't want to look at funding and so now don't even take the calls. We love that the only people we are accountable to are our customers (and ourselves) and that our incentives can perfectly align with theirs, plus the resource limitation of not having abundant cash forces you to get more creative - "Necessity is the mother of all invention."

5. Markets are bigger than you think, you often aren't competing with who you think

It can be easy, especially on Twitter, to forget the world is way bigger than what you see in front of you. Don't give up on finding customers too easily and don't assume that they are even aware of your competitors. Most customers we speak to haven't even heard of huge tools like Zapier or Intercom!

6. Make the most of your independence

Being self-funded also means you have freedom, but it can be easy to forget that and end up sitting at your desk in a very similar pattern to an employed office worker. Take time out here and there, explore, travel, and remind yourself that nobody is watching over you.

7. Don't underestimate following up with people

It can seem a bit pushy sending emails to people again and again when they haven't replied, but there are also a lot of people who just aren't good at managing an inbox, forget your ask and do appreciate a little nudge. We have "rescued" several bigger subscriptions and closed more just by following up with people from time to time ("Snooze until" is your friend on Gmail so you don't need to keep lists!)

8. Without positioning, everything is harder

If you don't have clear product positioning, saying what you are, but also, what you aren't for, everything gets a lot harder - deciding on copy or language to use, marketing channels and strategies, design, and prioritization of features. Once you have this nailed (ours is getting there slowly) then it becomes way easier to say yes or no to things and to make decisions (Positioning by Al Ries is a great book here).

9. Don't let ego get in the way of decisions - build what they want

We were probably late to deliver a few features (delivering others over them) just because we weren't big fans of them ourselves, despite several people asking. Once we put our own opinions aside we unlocked way more value in our product (and we now prefer our product as a result!)

10. More things are negotiable than you think

You'd be surprised what you can negotiate on. It isn't something I have done before, but almost everyone we work with as agencies, (bigger) SaaS companies, or influencers is open to negotiation - there is no transparent market for these kinds of services so don't be afraid to barter. Every $ counts when it comes out of your pocket!

11. Be open to random opportunities

This is another tricky one, as you will likely get a lot of random offers that are just noise, but occasionally they do pay off. We took a call with someone who contacted us cold through LinkedIn and ended up doing a short project for them that accounted for 1/3 of our total revenue last year, spending probably a week on it in total on it.

Hopefully, some of these are useful for you too in 2024!