Leveraging no code and influencers to hit $3k MRR in 2 months — David Bressler of Excelformulabot

David Bressler (@Excelformulabot) built excelformulabot.com in 2 months, launched, and made $20K within another 2 months. He's currently at $3K MRR. The craziest part? He's also got a full-time job and a family.

I caught up with him to see how he did it. His take on growth was particularly interesting. 👇

Why you don't need to quit your job (you have time)

First off, David is completely comfortable with small, incremental changes.

David: A lot of people on social media talk about how they risked everything to go all-in on their startup. That's easier to do when you're 20 with no kids or a full-time job. Think about your situation.

There are 24 hours in the day. You sleep 1/3 of them and work for another 1/3. There's still 1/3 of the day remaining. You can make it work with a side-project. Small incremental changes every day can lead to a big impact. Because you're limited to a reduced amount of hours in the day, it forces you to focus only on what's important. I'm not in a position to make any drastic changes in my life at the moment. If I didn't enjoy my job and my everyday life, it would be a different story. A lot of things would need to happen for drastic changes to happen.

Going viral (and following the momentum)

He was lucky enough to go viral, but a lot of things go viral. The key is moving with momentum and using it to your advantage.

David: I built an MVP in July just to see if people would use it. I posted the site on Reddit to get a few testers and it eventually turned into several hundred thousand after going viral. Over the course of the next couple of months, I made an actual site with a paywall, subscription, etc., and I officially launched in September.

David: There were different phases of it going viral. The day I made the MVP, I shared it in the /excel subreddit looking for a few testers. That post blew up, followed by it being shared on the subreddit /InternetIsBeautiful, where it garnered 10K upvotes.

The day after, I got a message from a colleague that said they saw my website on TikTok. This was the viral post that broke the camel's back. It was a post by a guy that goes by the name of Matty McTech, who shares videos on cool websites that people don't know about. He has 4.5M followers and as of today, the video has generated 285K likes. My API costs skyrocketed for a couple of weeks, but it was worth it.

As far as going viral, the only tip I have is to offer a good product that people are willing to share. And offer a free version.

More on influencers later. From there, he took that momentum and started building something that could be monetized.

Making the most of your time (don't cut out exercise)

When you've got a lot on your plate, you need to cut back on something, but you've gotta be super conscious about what that is.

David: I'm in a much different situation than other indie hackers — I'm married with two kids with a full-time job in a senior-level role. I genuinely enjoy what I do and who I do it with, but when I'm working, it's time away from building.

I was really struggling the first month. Competitors were quick to see the success of my MVP and I knew I had to move quickly. I knew I would have to make some time sacrifices, so the first thing I cut was working out… Which I later realized was a big mistake, since so much of how I feel mentally is based on how I feel physically. Not working out resulted in me having less energy, making it harder to stay up late to work on the site.

Feeling energized from working out and mid-day coffee has helped push through to give me the energy to "work" from 7AM to 11PM daily.

• 7-8am: Workout
• 9am-6pm: FT job
• 6:30-8:30pm: Family time/dinner
• 8:30-11pm: Work on the site

This gives me 2.5 hours to work on the site and I still have enough time to get a good night's rest. That said, two hours/day for family time is not enough, so we take full advantage of the weekends and don't waste any time (ie: playing on our phones or watching TV).

It isn't sustainable at all, to be honest. I'm actively exploring some options, but I have recently hired a couple of developers to help me while I'm working my FT job. Every morning before I head to work, I message them the deliverables for the day to ensure we're all on the same page.

Loved that. I've burned the candle at both ends before. It's really important to find some balance, and outsourcing can be a good way to do that.

No code (and outsourcing)

David: I have experience building websites in Webflow and Wordpress, but even with those, coding isn't required. I do not know how to code a website, but learning how to build a web app via tools like Bubble.io is much easier today than it was years ago. Times have changed, as have the way people learn.

There's so much written documentation out there, but I resorted to learning Bubble by watching YouTube videos. There are so many talented no-code builders out there that show you how to build. And there are videos for nearly every obstacle you'll face - setting up an API, creating a login workflow, storing user data, etc.

I recommend people reach out to fellow builders on the forums, Twitter, etc. to help if you are stuck. So many people are willing to help for free. And if you can't get anyone to help, resort to finding a contractor on Upwork. Don't let one roadblock get in your way of building what's in your head, because truly - anything is possible to build these days.

Even non-technical founders can build these days. And if you've got a full-time job, then you can reinvest your product's revenue into getting a little help.

David: Every dollar I've generated, I've put back into the product. I've spent 1/4 of the revenue on development work in Bubble and to build add-ons for Google Sheets and Excel. I recommend not cutting corners — I've learned the hard way that you get what you pay for. Check the contractor's portfolio and testimonials. Start with a small project where you'd understand how to grade the output.

I have a great relationship with my developers and reward them with bonuses when they go above and beyond and find efficiencies or just simply work efficiently. It helps to know the tool that your website is built in, because you'll learn how long it takes to do certain things, meaning you'll know how valuable your developers are.

Free influencer endorsements (and his monetization flow)

David managed to get a huge amount of influencer endorsements without spending a penny on it. He chose a good space, offered something for (mostly) free, and they came running.

David: I spent 99% of my time building, 1% marketing. This wouldn't be the case had I not had the help of other people promoting it on social channels or sharing it with their colleagues. 99% of the traffic is direct or organic search, meaning it's all brand awareness.

I was very fortunate to gain a tremendous amount of awareness through "productivity hacker" social influencers who were just looking for good content to share. My website has been shared by several hundred of them because influencers LOVE promoting free tools to their audiences. TikTok and Twitter are full of "productivity hackers" that freely promote websites that can help people be more productive.

I didn't do any cold outreach. In fact, it was the opposite — I had influencers reach out to me asking for an affiliate partnership as they'd seen other influencers promoting it, so they thought I was paying them. But I was not. I've found that social influencing is a lot of "monkey see, monkey do." They see one post go viral with a "cool website that feels illegal to know" and they think that they'll get that kind of traction by reposting it with their own video.

So a big part of this is being a "free" tool. And here's the conversion flow: Every user receives 5 free formula requests per month. They get an email on the 1st of the month reminding them that their requests have been reset. Two days after they reach their 5th request, they receive a triggered email where they receive a free trial of unlimited formula requests. A credit card is required to receive the unlimited formula requests. Once they go unlimited, they understand the value of the product and I've found that the types of formulas being asked become easier, meaning it's becoming a part of their typical workflow. Free users tend to use the site only for very complicated formulas.

Social listening works

And he capitalized on the influencer shoutouts even further by doing a whole lot of social listening.

David: Social listening for both my brand and my category has been instrumental to the site's success. If someone tweets about Excel formulas, I'm there — whether it's sending a funny gif or even going as far as solving a problem for them with a screenshot of the dashboard that shows the formula. Same goes for if people are talking about the site. Leaving a comment only increases engagement and reach of a post, resulting in more eyeballs seeing the post!

I don't use a specific tool for social listening, although there are some good ones out there. It's not worth it right now, as I still work a full-time job and I cannot respond to everything immediately anyway, so I just do searches on social channels for "excel formula bot" or "excel formulas" and respond where applicable.

It's also helpful to be the first to comment on big accounts that reach your target audience. I set up tweet notifications, so when popular accounts that reach my audience post, I'm notified. When I'm notified, I quickly comment to be the first commenter and hopefully my response is witty enough to land as a top comment. I have some comments that have garnered several hundred profile clicks and clicks to the website.

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