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Typebot is a simple chatbot builder doing $34K MRR.
They say that the chatbot and form builder market is so crowded. Yet, great products are built in this space all the time.
Typebot went from $2700 MRR in December 2022 to $31K MRR in October 2023.
This is it’s latest revenue chart -
2 Main reasons for it’s growth, 2 years apart -
- Lifetime deals in the early days, back in 2021.
- Getting mentioned by a marketing influencer in Brazil, earlier this year
But it all started when Baptiste Arnaud decided to scratch his own itch.
Scratching his own itch
Baptiste loved the conversational forms experience that Typeform had created for forms.
But the process of actually creating those forms wasn’t great. There was an opportunity to improve UX of the form creation process.
That’s where the idea of a WYSIWYG NoCode conversational form builder was born.
And he officially launched Typebot next month - in June 2020.
Lifetime Deals
Over the next 8 months Baptiste could only reach $100 MRR with Typebot.
Even launching on Product Hunt didn’t get any great results.
That’s when in April 2021, almost a year after the initial idea, Baptiste decided to launch a lifetime deal on SaaSMantra.
Within 3 weeks he hit $23K in revenue and 900+ new users.
(source)
From here on, Baptiste created a facebook group for his users and even a public roadmap.
He knew who he was building for, and what they wanted.
Building a community for your early users to hangout in is a great strategy, it helps manage your customer service requests, but more importantly, you get to engage everyday with your customers.
And not free users, customers who have paid money to use your tool.
Insights from them are priceless.
After this, it’s a long 2 year slog to reach $3k MRR.
(source)
Getting Attention
Then in June 2023, Baptiste saw 88% growth in Typebot’s revenue.
All because a marketing influencer in the Brazilian market shared the product with their audience.
All successful businesses are a result of multiple such “lucky” events.
They have been at the right place at the right time to benefit from the general randomness of the world.
But you first have to exist to be at the right place at the right time.
- Baptiste didn’t give up when things were hard in the initial days.
- He didn’t shy away from offering a lifetime deal.
- And he kept working on the business for over 2 years with slow and steady growth. Without thinking of an exit or quitting.
He was there, all prepared to benefit from a “lucky” event when it came.
Good things come to those who wait!
Top Lessons
Top Lessons from Typebot’s success -
- It’s okay to scratch your own itch
- Lifetime deals can work - especially if your server costs aren’t too high.
- There’s no substitute to insights from paying customers.
- Don’t expect viral growth at the start, most businesses take a couple of years to reach profitability.
- The world is random, you will get lucky, but only if you’re in the game, ready to benefit from the randomness. Not if you’re sitting on the sidelines watching others play.
- Get in the game!
Do follow Baptiste on Twitter to read his wholesome monthly revenue updates like this one.
Cheers 🙌
Bootstrapper Superpowers
We’re reading Rob Walling’s book - The SaaS Playbook in the indie masterminds community book club.
This is deep - "Bootstrappers don't run out of money; they run out of motivation"
So so so true 🔥
Optimizing for Productivity AND Joy
The Eisenhower Matrix wasn't working for me.
Categorizing tasks based on importance and urgency doesn't feel right. I want ALL my tasks to be important and not urgent.
Trying something new -
Categorizing tasks based on impact and creativity. Start the day with high-impact + creative tasks.
And gradually move towards low-impact + non-creative tasks.
Been doing this for a week, feels more fun and productive so far.
Let's see how it goes.
This is how I make my todo list now -
More in this tweet
🔗 Super Links
Useful links you don't want to miss -
- How to value a private company - Sahil Lavingia
- How to improve your SaaS free to paid conversion rate - Olly Meakings
- 4 Step framework to get started with Programmatic SEO - The Boring Marketer
- The Final Chapter of my Startup - Rand Fishkin
Last week’s top link -
🤗 How can I help?
Whenever you’re ready, consider joining the Indie Masterminds community. The goal of this newsletter is to inspire and motivate you, but the goal of the community is to help you take action and go to the next level in your journey.
So if you’re at that stage where you don’t need more inspiration, but you do need to take the right action, then come join us!
We’re here to help 🫂
