Just stick with it, don't quit. It's a hard journey - $30k in a single month... finally.

[Ronak]

I joined relevant forums and asked around for suggestions and got on calls with large companies asking what they would need from such a product. We were showing live demos of our pre-alpha to enterprise customers and they were extremely excited even at that stage.

Brilliant!
Too many are afraid to do this work, because of the rejection/intimidation factor. How did you approach the targets to get demos?

Also-- mods: @Vigilante @AllenCrawley -- upgrade to GOLD?

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

Brilliant!
Too many are afraid to do this work, because of the rejection/intimidation factor. How did you approach the targets to get demos?

I'd linkedin message the person that I wanted to talk to at a specific company and ask them if they'd schedule a call with me (after a pleasant conversation of course) or they would have signed up as a lead on our email list. While building the product, we had our email list growing for atleast 6 months or so under the signup reason of "Get your early access alpha invitation when it's ready".

We built up so much hype over the product that we were getting daily emails asking us if we sent out invitations yet and if we did could it have possibly gone to spam?

Here's the general template I sent to large companies via email:
-----------------------
I saw that you signed up for our [PRODUCT] invitation and I’m reaching out to see how we can ensure that your needs for [XYZ] are met. [A few sentences of filler information thats relevant to the company/person i'm reaching out to.]

What do you think your use of [PRODUCT] will be and do you need [X FEATURE] support?

I’d love to hop on a call and demo our software for you, so that you can get a first hand look at what we currently have. You can schedule a demo with me by following this link if you and/or your team have time available: [LINK to schedule a call on calendly]

I look forward to hearing from you!
----------------------

I ended up scheduling a demo with 90% of the people I emailed from our list.

 

[ZCP]

@Ravens_Shadow ... who owes whom a steak? did that ever get resolved?
you are kicking a$$ by the way!! proud of you!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I'd linkedin message the person that I wanted to talk to at a specific company and ask them if they'd schedule a call with me (after a pleasant conversation of course) or they would have signed up as a lead on our email list. While building the product, we had our email list growing for atleast 6 months or so under the signup reason of "Get your early access alpha invitation when it's ready".

We built up so much hype over the product that we were getting daily emails asking us if we sent out invitations yet and if we did could it have possibly gone to spam?

Here's the general template I sent to large companies via email:
-----------------------
I saw that you signed up for our [PRODUCT] invitation and I’m reaching out to see how we can ensure that your needs for [XYZ] are met. [A few sentences of filler information thats relevant to the company/person i'm reaching out to.]

What do you think your use of [PRODUCT] will be and do you need [X FEATURE] support?

I’d love to hop on a call and demo our software for you, so that you can get a first hand look at what we currently have. You can schedule a demo with me by following this link if you and/or your team have time available: [LINK to schedule a call on calendly]

I look forward to hearing from you!
----------------------

I ended up scheduling a demo with 90% of the people I emailed from our list.

Thanks for sharing this tidbit ...

Thread upgraded to Gold.

Please remember the forum when your company is sold for $200 million dollars.

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

Thanks for sharing this tidbit ...

Thread upgraded to Gold.

Please remember the forum when your company is sold for $200 million dollars.

Thanks for the upgrade to gold! I do intend to keep posting on the forum, even if we sell for that much!

@Ravens_Shadow ... who owes whom a steak? did that ever get resolved?
you are kicking a$$ by the way!! proud of you!

You probably owe me a steak for treating me so rough.

 

[Ronak]

@Ravens_Shadow
Thought of you while reading this: Meet Julian Bass, the Social Media VFX Star Who Has Won Over Hollywood: "The World’s Gonna Know Your Name!"

Maybe a similar campaign targeting game production companies?

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

I think by years end we could see a $100k month. Hopefully that trend would stick!

Things are out of control, already blew past $100k in revenue this month. At this point, not gonna go into the nitty gritty numbers anymore.. but we're well on our way to millions now. I've got job postings up now as I need to hire new hands! We're growing and scaling fast.

Every morning I wake up this is me:

Just stick with it! If you build a productocracy you'll be more successful than you ever thought was possible.

Also.. enterprise business for the win?

 

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[AppMan]

I've been on my "fastlane" journey since 2012 and as of the past month I finally hit my goal, which was to make $30k in a single month.. and we actually surpassed this. Our goal now is $60k per month, then $90k, and so on.

Sorry if this look rude, but do you have any evidence that support your claim of having a company that make 30K per month profit ?
such as company website ?

 

[csalvato]

Sorry if this look rude, but do you have any evidence that support your claim of having a company that make 30K per month profit ?
such as company website ?

It’s good to be skeptical.

I can personally vouch for his progress and revenue, if that matters to you.

We have been supporting each other long enough that I know what he had to get through to get to this point.

@Ravens_Shadow has never been shy to share with me or anyone what he does, but having it on the google index on this site probably isn’t in his best interest.

I don’t think @Ravens_Shadow has to worry about copycats, and it’s not my place to share his business.

Its taken him years to get here, this is no overnight success, get-rich-quick, long-con stuff you see all over the internet.

EDIT: Also please see moderator note in the OP

 

[Tzwick]

If this thread stops one person from quitting, then it's done its job.

I've been on my "fastlane" journey since 2012 and as of the past month I finally hit my goal, which was to make $30k in a single month.. and we actually surpassed this. Our goal now is $60k per month, then $90k, and so on.

Just a few months ago, we were weren't making much at all. I started this company in 2016, and fought tooth and nail to build a team so that we could get everything going. It was painful. I cried at times due to how hard it was to make our products and get our business off the ground. Things just weren't going my way for the majority of my journey. When you come across these barriers of entry, don't let them stop you. Just keep going. It's at points like these when everyone else quits, and it's why you have to keep going.

If I had quit during my hardest times, I wouldn't be here talking about our successes now. Since I'm working on an enterprise instead of a lifestyle business, its taken me years to get to this stage. Now we're ready to scale this thing and become the next leader in our industry. I had to work day jobs during the majority of my journey, and you have to do what you have to do. Don't be ashamed of that.

Any way, I don't really have any other lessons here except to keep going. If you keep inserting quarters into the gumball machine, eventually a gold one will come out.


MODERATOR NOTE
For those wondering how Nick got to this point, his progress thread is on the INSIDE. He's provided pages and pages of material about his struggle, YEARS long, and quite detailed. So if Nick isn't being very forthcoming in this particular thread, it's not that he isn't willing. He's done so on his progress thread which is on the Inside and not indexable by Google.

New guy here -

Thanks for this! I'm about 9 months into a new business and I have definitely cried, glad i'm not the only one. We stick at it, although it does sometimes feel as though we take more losses than wins. It's funny, already on the micro scale, to see what people say - "Oh wow - that's happened fast" and yet they don't see the three failures, thousands of dollars spent and losses before that small tiny win.

 

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[rocket99]

Way to persevere. Your story resonates with me and I'm sure many others on here, especially about the crying part. Been there and there is nothing that tests your will and desire more than moments like that.

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

Sorry if this look rude, but do you have any evidence that support your claim of having a company that make 30K per month profit ?
such as company website ?

To clarify, it was 30k in revenue (which did have a fair amount of profit at the time).
Not going to link my company website on this thread. Check out the top link in my signature to see the business on the INSIDERS part of the forum, its some 500 posts of gritty tough shit and clawing my way up to the top. Even MJ himself can vouch for me here.

I'm about 9 months into a new business and I have definitely cried, glad i'm not the only one.

It's a common occurrence for me

 

[AstonMartinOne77]

Hi @Ravens_Shadow,

First of all, Congratulations on your outsanding success !!

I do have a few questions if you want to answer.

From what I understand you're a software engineer, I'm also an software engineer.

How did you find your idea of your productocracy ?

I'm trying to find an unmet need or to improve an existing product and I haven't been able to for now. I'm still looking ?

1) How did you find your productocracy opportunity ? (unmet need or product to improve)
Everything goes so fast in the software industry and everything is so bleeding edge, so finding an opportunity of unmet need or improving existing product is especially hard when these big companies (like Microsoft, Google, etc) have a better position of listening market needs)

2) If you are a programmer, why didn't code your software product by yourself ?

If both of these questions have been answered in your Progress Thread on the inside, let me know so I can subscribe and read.

Thanks and congrats again !

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

Hi @Ravens_Shadow,

1) How did you find your productocracy opportunity ?

I just knew the market and saw a big void in how the other tools out there worked. Just because companies are big doesn't mean they are solving the problem correctly, and it's often the case that they aren't solving the problem correctly.

2) If you are a programmer, why didn't code your software product by yourself ?

I'm not really a programmer, I just learned what I needed to know to build our first products prototype from a book I bought at the book store. Our flagship product is far far above my head and programming skills so I needed a team. I gave away plenty of equity to get the company built, and I'm very glad I did that instead of getting investors.

If both of these questions have been answered in your Progress Thread on the inside, let me know so I can subscribe and read.

Subscribing to read my thread is worth it I bet. I outline just about everything in there.

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

We finally passed $1 million ARR this week and I wanted to show that even if you get your a$$ chewed out on this forum, sometimes it's what you need. Back in 2013 I was action faking hard and @Vigilante saw through it. I could've just left the forum and never came back like 99% of the new users on here do. I chose to stay and actually change my life. It took 7 years to reach my goals from this time of vig's post. Don't be the person that goes back to their xbox, because a life where you are actually free and unscripted is so much better than that.

Building a million dollar company is HARD, but it's worth it. This is the result of thousands upon thousands of calculated decisions to change my life. What decision are you going to make today to set yourself free?

 

[ZCP]

love me some @Vigilante . need him in here more so i can show my tender side. lol

@Ravens_Shadow i am really proud of you!

now we need to get your head out of your a$$ and get to $10M. let's go!

 

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[Vasudev Soni]

If this thread stops one person from quitting, then it's done its job.

I've been on my "fastlane" journey since 2012 and as of the past month I finally hit my goal, which was to make $30k in a single month.. and we actually surpassed this. Our goal now is $60k per month, then $90k, and so on.

Just a few months ago, we were weren't making much at all. I started this company in 2016, and fought tooth and nail to build a team so that we could get everything going. It was painful. I cried at times due to how hard it was to make our products and get our business off the ground. Things just weren't going my way for the majority of my journey. When you come across these barriers of entry, don't let them stop you. Just keep going. It's at points like these when everyone else quits, and it's why you have to keep going.

If I had quit during my hardest times, I wouldn't be here talking about our successes now. Since I'm working on an enterprise instead of a lifestyle business, its taken me years to get to this stage. Now we're ready to scale this thing and become the next leader in our industry. I had to work day jobs during the majority of my journey, and you have to do what you have to do. Don't be ashamed of that.

Any way, I don't really have any other lessons here except to keep going. If you keep inserting quarters into the gumball machine, eventually a gold one will come out.


MODERATOR NOTE
For those wondering how Nick got to this point, his progress thread is on the INSIDE. He's provided pages and pages of material about his struggle, YEARS long, and quite detailed. So if Nick isn't being very forthcoming in this particular thread, it's not that he isn't willing. He's done so on his progress thread which is on the Inside and not indexable by Google.

Congrats buddy. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do right now, growing a software company.

Whatever happens, I won’t give up. Thanks for the motivation.

 

[Isaac Odongo]

Definitely a productocracy, and I could see that, which is another reason I kept going forward.

A clear vision there and mission. You knew exactly what problem you were solving. You were sure it existed and needed a solution. You saw yourself as the guy who could bring that solution and you went ahead and made it reality.

A clear vision and mission will save one from nomadic entrepreneurship.

 

[Jon822]

Man you have no idea how inspiring this post is right now. I'm really impatient and constantly questioning whether or not I pull the plug or continue. Appreciate you making this thread.

 

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