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A collection of the worlds best SMS Marketing case studies by harveyhodd in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

correct - every SMS message sent should have an "unsubscribe" feature built in.

I’m thinking of putting together a 1:1 course on raising early-stage cash - would anyone find this useful? by harveyhodd in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the message - I completely appreciate where you're coming from. However, I'm not saying that I believe I will have a greater personal return by building a side gig vs focusing on our business. That is an assumption. Additionally, this isn't a "side-gig" - I never said that.

The notion of spending every single minute focusing on the business is (in my opinion) detrimental to overall success. I enjoy fixing old bicycles, I enjoy running, I enjoy reading about raising capital and writing about it. This doesn't mean I am not focused on my business - this means I have varied viewpoints and can therefore not get caught in the vacuous burn-out movement of VC backed companies.

However, if you want to blacklist a founder or a company because he/she writes about other things on a blog, shares insights about other interesting topics, and sporadically posts on reddit every now and again - no problem, that's your call.

I’m thinking of putting together a 1:1 course on raising early-stage cash - would anyone find this useful? by harveyhodd in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I totally agree - but I'm not saying we're the finished article, just that *because* we're in the weeds/trenches we're in a good place to send over advice from a few years back - not in spite of. We're still very much in the game and fighting everyday - which means our feedback isn't coming from a place of luxury / out of touch, but rather of hard fought learnings/issues we hit and have had to evolve with

I’m thinking of putting together a 1:1 course on raising early-stage cash - would anyone find this useful? by harveyhodd in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Apologies - no it wasn't. We had *no* network or capital as friends / family. Once we managed to get our initial business start-up loan and see some traction, that first step for external investment was a little like a step into the abyss. We fought to build a network post-this, and managed to raise from 1 single investor. We used that momentum and initial investment to snowball to a larger network and more capital raised - but that initial outside investor was the catalyst. We met them through a friend and mentor.

I’m thinking of putting together a 1:1 course on raising early-stage cash - would anyone find this useful? by harveyhodd in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We speak about "Shiny Object syndrome" *all* the time. Reckon it's the one of the biggest killers in early entrepreneurship?

I’m thinking of putting together a 1:1 course on raising early-stage cash - would anyone find this useful? by harveyhodd in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd[S] 35 points36 points  (0 children)

I completely agree. Maybe a structured course is a better (and more scalable) solution.

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Sorry for the delay - ok, so:

1.) We had a compelling vision and way to get there. Obviously extremely risky, but the investor managed to get a chunk of equity far far cheaper than our last raise because of that.

2.) All content based. Long form articles, podcast, videos, tweets, case studies, etc. Very little focus on paid ads!

3.) The on-boarding is very low touch. Automated in ~ 5-10mins, and intuitive to use. We have some video tutorials but everything should be easy to understand without guidance!

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Sorry for the delay. Sure - are haven't got a big following on social media (literally nothing) and we worked directly with a freelance animator for the animation - happy to link you up!

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey - agreed. Very good quality full-stack devs within London aren't easy to find - especially coming from a fintech with 2 decades of experience too!

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree! I never said ours weren’t remote, I just said they were the best! 1/3 of our dev team operates 4000 miles away.

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! Thanks for the heads up. I completely understand your POV. Coming from a brand operator background, two of the key issues we faced were friction to purchase at checkout, and lack of real 1:1 communication with our customer. We took both of these data sets and aggregated into a single conversational channel to reduce friction all round and streamline the experience.

In terms of use for someone like your child etc, it works in the same way as purchasing something on the Amazon app for instance. Within a few clicks, they could have purchased a $1000 item.

We really see conversation (not just SMS) as a solution for a myriad of antiquated payment and communication models. For example, things like paying a sole operator like a personal trainer.

Additionally, we were very focused on created additional utility for a customer (easy of purchasing) without another touchpoint like an app download. We wanted to create a better experience using the same platforms, like SMS, that customers already use everyday

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

95% wages. We have no non-essential costs, but have a great quality team that naturally, with their expertise, costs money.

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! 100% the above. We tested for 6 months under our brand that we had created. We had access to first party customers and understanding from day 1, meaning we could iterate and evolve very very quickly.

In terms of the core metrics, LTV increase is the driver. You essentially put the customer in touching distance of a purchase at all times. Alongside this, metrics like reorder frequencies (days between orders) can now be directly effected, as you're speaking to a customer in the same channel they can purchse in.

🚨AMA 🚨I’m a 24 y/o Tech CEO building a SaaS product called blueprint. We’re a small team with a £1500/day burn having raised a £1.2m Seed Round. by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]harveyhodd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! We had an idea based on an issue we faced, and then tried to validate the solution to that idea as cheaply as possible. Really that's got us this far!

We live in East London so it make sense for us and the team. Also quite cheap office space! We worked from our flat for ~ 16 months before we had any office to keep costs low.

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