What's New: Don't nurture badly behaved clients

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

These lessons can be a great reminder for any founder, regardless of stage:

• Don't accept absolutely anyone as a customer. Make sure you're targeting folks who are a good fit, especially if you have an agency.
• The owner of this famous ramen restaurant is able to step away when he wants to. How? By hiring a high-quality team to take care of things.
• Christina Nicholson had a six figure exit after creating and growing a podcast directory, sparked by identifying a huge gap in the market.

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Don't Nurture Badly Behaved Clients 🤬

by Tom Hunt

In 49 months, I grew my business from zero to $3M ARR. Here are the biggest mistakes I made along the way.

I accepted absolutely anyone as a customer

I was cash hungry from day one. I just wanted new sales, regardless of whether we could help them achieve their goals.

It took over a year to start saying no to prospects that we weren’t a good fit for.

I didn’t go all-in until $1M ARR

I love starting things. In Fame's first year, I had:

• Coaching clients.
• A SaaS.
• A daily email newsletter.

To make something great, it needs to be a full-time focus. This took me nearly 18 months to learn.

I used to sell myself

I told clients that I would personally work with them to get them over the line.

This was fine for one or two clients. But when it led to four or five, and I had a whole business to run, I had to step back. That led to churn.

I nurtured badly behaved clients

If firing a bad client meant that we wouldn’t beat the previous month's revenue, we would keep them. This caused pain for the team, and didn’t ultimately help revenue anyway, since the client would eventually leave.

Zoom out past this month’s revenue.

I made every big decision myself

My ego wanted me to be the boss. We would have moved faster if I had worked with a coach sooner, and had the expertise of someone who has done this before.

Shout out to Gellan Watt and Alan Pentz.

I took too long to produce clear role outcomes

As we scaled, team members joined, and we would have no idea if they were performing or not. We did not have clear expectations for performance.

This hurt us, as we kept the wrong people on longer. It also hurt our team members, as they didn’t have a clear roadmap.

It took me four years to become a CEO

I didn’t trust others to do everything we needed to do to run and grow the business. Now, there is a leadership team, and I’m finally actually CEO.

Growing anything is hard, but here's the trick: Try to do eight things right for every seven you do wrong!

Discuss this story.

In the News 📰

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🛠 Google significantly reduces the recaptcha free tier, and introduces new pricing models.

🤣 Here's how to incorporate humor into your marketing materials.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

🌟 Six ways to increase lead quality.

💻 The fastest growing software sectors in 2024.

🍔 What you can learn from how restaurants do marketing.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

Why You Should Hire a Team 🍜

by Ilias Ism

I was enjoying sushi at my favorite local joint the other day, when the conversation turned to the owner of a famous ramen shop across the street. The ramen shop owner had recently opened a second location, and the sushi restaurant owners were wondering how he managed to do it. After all, they were so busy that they couldn't even take a day off.

How could the ramen shop owner manage to open a second location?

The contrasts

Despite all the fame, the chef is almost never there. This is because he's focused on scaling up and hiring a team to run things, without him needing to be present.

As a result, even on a busy Friday night, he feels comfortable being away from the restaurant, trusting his team to handle things. This contrasted with the sushi restaurant, as the owners are still doing everything themselves. Holidays are rare, and they are always there, even on weekends.

When they're sick, the restaurant is closed, because they are the business!

The lesson

As the owner of my own SEO agency in Switzerland, I saw parallels between these two restaurant stories, and my plans for scaling MagicSpace SEO in 2024.

Currently, it's just me and my cofounder. Both of us work on client projects, and we do everything ourselves. We are the SEO agency!

I realize that we can't do everything ourselves forever. We will eventually need to scale our operations to continue providing quality SEO services.

As our business grows, we will need to grow with it. We will need to hire more people to help with the work of providing for our clients, or we'll risk losing them.

Scaling up

The key to scaling without losing quality is developing standardized systems and procedures that can be replicated by future team members.

By documenting my own SEO processes and ways of doing things into standard operating procedures (SOPs), I can create a blueprint for my SEO agency's unique approaches to business activities. Consider activities like:

• Using tools correctly.
• Onboarding clients and handling requests or complaints.
• Writing.
• Coding.

Creating these SOPs will have multiple benefits:

• Allows smooth onboarding of new team members.
• Ensures consistency, even as you scale.
• Leaves flexibility for you to step away sometimes.
• Increases business valuation if you ever want to sell.

Discuss this story.

Harry's Growth Tip 🧠

from the Marketing Examples newsletter

The power of contrast.

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

Christina Nicholson's Six Figure Exit 🎙

by Marc Andre

Christina Nicholson started Podcast Clout to solve a very specific challenge that she faced as a PR professional. Here's how she navigated her way to a six figure exit!

Identifying a need

Christina’s journey began in the world of public relations, where she noticed a gap in the tools available. In PR, there is software that helps publicists find contact information. Just one problem: None of the software included podcasts. While there were some podcast databases, they were listing millions, overwhelming PR professionals in their search for quality connections.

Although podcasts provide excellent opportunities for PR, identifying the right opportunities for clients was cumbersome and time-consuming. Over a period of a few years, Christina reached out to several companies that produced PR software and asked them to include podcasts, but it never happened.

Driven by her industry experience, Christina envisioned a solution focused solely on top ranked podcasts: A database prioritizing quality over quantity. So, she created it. She paid $2.5K to have the site built.

Growing the business

Because Christina started Podcast Clout primarily for her own needs, growth wasn't a top priority. She never aggressively marketed or promoted the business.

Podcast Clout is monetized through user subscriptions. PR professionals or agencies pay a subscription fee to access the database of podcasts.

Christina harnessed the power of social engagement in niche communities, especially Facebook Groups. In these forums, she engaged with PR professionals, and answered their questions about finding podcasts to pitch. Whenever someone would ask how others found podcasts or contact information, she'd mention Podcast Clout.

Eventually, Christina decided to sell, because her heart wasn't truly in the business. She sold for six figures, but kept 10% ownership in the company, serving as a valuable advisor for the new owners!

Get free access to the Flip My Site Vault, including a website sale checklist, transition checklist, due diligence checklists, and legal document templates.

Discuss this story.

The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Tom Hunt, Darko, Ilias Ism, Harry Dry, and Marc Andre for contributing posts. —Channing