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I know that one!

Cold emailed CMOs, VPs of Marketing to get their feedback on the idea, see if it would solve a pain point for them. If it did, then ask them to join our beta.

What was it like beta testing?

We beta tested with a select group of customers for two months before having an open launch. But honestly, most companies don’t want to do beta because they don’t want to feel like guinea pigs. We had much more success when we took it out of beta.

How did you get them to pay?

We’ve never offered it for free and we’ve positioned it as such. For us, we removed that as an option and set that as the expectation in the beginning. Sure, less people will say yes, but if you can get a few, you know that there are many more that will pay for it too.

How many customers did you eventually acquire and roughly, how much were you making doing it?

We’re seven months in, ~40 customers in, each paying at least 1k/mo.

What did the startup do? What was it like?

Creative recruitment and management on a cloud platform.

Any tips on becoming profitable?

Solve a problem, be confident in your worth, and just keep plugging at it.

I’ve been in this industry for a long time myself as a director of IT, so it was a matter of making a few calls to other IT professionals and asking if this platform solved a problem for them.

What was it like beta testing?

It wasn’t too bad, I got some really honest feedback from friends and family. They eventually told their friends and took off from there.

How did you get them to pay?

I offered it free to friends and family but started charging the friends of friends.

How many customers did you eventually acquire and roughly, how much were you making doing it?

At one point we were serving 2k startups, 1k small business, and a couple hundred medium/enterprise level accounts. We were doing millions … a month, roughly speaking of course.

What did the startup do?

We created alerting software that made it easier for IT programmers, directors, and management to easily be notified when certain kinds of errors come up. Notification are triggered in the code, go to our api, and we alert the appropriate individual in charge of that chunk of code/system via phone/text/email/their contact information. Many services improved their uptime with our platform significantly and were often able to identify deep rooted issues before they affected their main service.

What was it like?

In one word, it’s an amazing thing. Being able to craft a real product that improves the lives of real customers and their platforms… it’s painful, and ugly yes, but worth it. In another life time, I would do it again, if I could.

Any tips on becoming profitable?

Be aligned with customer needs, keep growth as your true north, and keep on fighting.

I’d love to hear the experience of other profitable CEO’s