Top 10 Learnings Growing To (Almost) $10 Million ARR

TOP 10 LEARNINGS GROWING 
 TO (ALMOST) $10 MILLION ARR LEO WILDRICH CO-FOUNDER AND COO / BUFFER @leowid @leowid

1. EXPERIMENT WITH A WEEKLY MASTERMIND WITH 
 YOUR CO-FOUNDER IN THIS FORMAT @leowid

HOW MASTERMINDS WORK •We take around 1-2 hours, preferably when it feels a bit less busy. •We talk for 10 minutes each about our achievements; like “I shipped this feature” or “I hit the gym 3 times this week” •Then we spend 40 minutes each on challenges. We try to really dive in here and not stay on the surface. •We then add a section at the end where we share feedback for each other. @leowid

2. AVOID BEING DISTRACTED BY DATA TOO EARLY ON @leowid

“Most Early Stage Startups Won't Have Enough Customers To Rely On Quantitative Data. You Need To Be Acquiring Hundreds Of Customers Every Month (Preferably Thousands) To Have Enough Data To Support A/B Tests, Etc.” HITEN SHAH CO-FOUNDER OF CRAZYEGG, KISSMETRICS AND QUICKSPROUT @leowid

3. TRY ASKING THESE 5 QUESTIONS TO LEARN BETTER FROM CUSTOMERS @leowid

“You Need To Learn About How Customers Behave And What They Need. In Other Words, Focus On Their Problem, Not Their Suggested Solution.” CINDY ALVAREZ @leowid

QUESTIONS TO ASK Tell me about how you do _________ today…. Do you use any [tools/products/apps/tricks] to help you get ________ done? If you could wave a magic wand and be able to do anything that you can’t do today, what would it be? Don’t worry about whether it’s possible, just anything. Last time you did ___________, what were you doing right before 
 you got started? Once you finished, what did you do afterward? Is there anything else about _________ that I should have asked? Link to full template: @leowid bit.ly/buffercustdev

4. KEEP YOUR DATA IN HOUSE TO BE MORE FLEXIBLE @leowid

BUFFER’S JOURNEY WITH DATA 2010-11: In-house data-tools built by Joel 2012: Experimentation with various 3rd party 
 event-tracking tools (KISSmetrics, Mixpanel) 2013-14: Moving back to build all data-tools in-house 2015-2016: Transitioning to using Looker @leowid

5. PICK ONE CHANNEL TO DOUBLE DOWN ON INSTEAD OF MANY (BULLSEYE EXERCISE) @leowid

HOW TO FIND YOUR ONE CHANNEL THAT WORKS Outer ring: What’s possible - brainstorm • all 19 traction channels there are Middle ring: What’s probable - Promote • 3-4 most promising ideas and run tests Inner ring: What’s working - Focus solely • on the 1 channel that’s working —> Marketing flywheel http://tractionbook.com by Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo @leowid

6. SEEK CONFLICTING ADVICE FROM AT LEAST 2 MENTORS ON YOUR BIGGEST DECISIONS @leowid

7. EXPERIMENT WITH CHANGING YOUR PRICES OFTEN AS YOU ADD VALUE @leowid

DOUBLING BUFFER’S PRICING Free Standard Max Awesome Plan Business Enterprise $0/mo $5/mo $20/mo $10/mo $50-250/mo Starts at $300/ mo @leowid

8. USE THE LEAN STARTUP METHODOLOGY FOR EVERY FEATURE YOU BUILD, ESPECIALLY POST LAUNCH @leowid

@leowid

CREATE A PROCESS AROUND IT THAT INCLUDES • Hypothesis for your feature • A customer development phase • An (InVision), clickable prototype to get feedback • A roll-out of a working version that embarrasses you slightly @leowid

9. WHEN YOU GET AN OFFER TO SELL, LIST THE EXPERIENCES OF PERSONAL GROWTH YOU MIGHT MISS @leowid

WHAT WE’D MISS OUT ON LEARNING • How to serve tens of thousands of customers • How to let someone go • How to hire key positions and train leaders • How to acquire another company • How to raise bigger funding rounds • How to recover from a hack @leowid

“STOP THINKING ABOUT MAKING A MILLION DOLLARS AND START THINKING ABOUT SERVING A MILLION PEOPLE” DHARMESH SHAH FOUNDER & CTO AT HUBSPOT @leowid

10. COMING SOON! open.buffer.com @leowid

buffer.com/transparency leo@buffer.com @LeoWid @leowid

THANKS! @leowid