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Adam Robinson Profile
Adam Robinson

@RetentionAdam

5,080
Followers
144
Following
160
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2,013
Statuses

CEO @Retentiondotcom (bootstrap 0 → $20M ARR in 2.5 years) | Helping DTC brands increase abandonment revenue & make more money from email & SMS

5-10x Klaviyo Flow Revenue 👉
Joined February 2012
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
6 months
Yesterday Laura Balik posted a hit piece on Klaviyo and Retention dot com that was both factually untrue and lacked any evidence supporting the claims. She then blocked me from responding to the post on Twitter. I would not typically dignify something like this with a response,
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Every serious entrepreneur needs to study this person. I’ve recently become a fan of MrBeast And I’ve got 4 lessons for you that I’ve learned from him that you should take with you and implement in everything you do, starting right now:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I was talking to the CEO of a $150,000,000 a year Shopify business and he told me something about pricing Shopify apps that blew my mind. There is something magic about $59/mo. Not $9 or $99. $59 is the magic number. Triple Whale, Klaviyo, and Gorgias all crushed it ay $59/mo
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I spent $800,000 to acquire the domain for my startup Ask me anything
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
Here's what buying a $800,000 domain for my startup taught me:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
GetEmails was stuck at $8M ARR, I was burnt out. But after a couple of conversations with really smart people, I realized I had a money-printing machine that was sitting dormant Now, we’re at $20M, on a path to $50M Here's how I got out of my slump:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I'm the Founder & CEO of a $20 million/year company This is what my living room looks like most days While you're doing a 25 step morning routine and organizing your stuff for hours each day, I am closing deals
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
My goal is to be the most transparent CEO of a $1 billion software company We're at $20 million now and growing I share my financials, strategies, and all the wins & losses There's no secret formula to what we're doing, so I'm happy to share anything and everything
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
7 months
I bootstrapped 2 startups over the last 10 years. Here's the 5 non-secret secrets to scaling revenue when you don't have big VC money:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
2 years
So, @ecomchasedimond convinced me to give Twitter a try... I'll be tweeting about: → How to make more $$$ from email marketing → My quest to bootstrap a SaaS company from $0-100M ARR (currently at $14M ARR with no VC funding) Follow along if that sounds interesting.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Recently spoke with the CEO of a $150 million apparel brand. His CAC is up by 32% since iOS14, and it’s up another 15% since mid-April. He’s spending $1 million a month on ads and wants to 5x his adspend, but he can’t do it at these CPA’s. What would you tell him?
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Making 100 cold calls will teach you more about running a business than 4 years at business school will
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
I've built a SaaS to $14M ARR with 6 employees and no VC funding Here are 10 lessons I wish I'd known before starting:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
2 things I’ve learned on DTC Twitter so far: 1. Everyone is starting a hard seltzer company 2. There is a DTC Dinner happening in every city, every single night with “just 1 seat left”
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
20 years ago, I watched my roommates build Vimeo from our apartment 2 years ago, I watched @DaveRogenmoser build Jasper into a $1.5 billion company from the office I rented from him It's hard to not be massively inspired while watching greatness up close
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
"I'm going to start a $29/month SaaS and get 1,000 customers"
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Against the advice of counsel, I'm posting 's Q2 P&L. Here's my analysis on the current state of our business: Q1 was peak euphoria, mid-Q2 was peak disillusionment. It seems like most (or all) of the vendors selling into our ecosystem had a hard time
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
We've bootstrapped from 0 to $20 million ARR. Now I'm documenting the journey to $1 billion unicorn status with a cameraman who follows me around. Check out the latest episode here:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
2 years
I've grown a SaaS to $14M ARR with 6 employees and no VC funding Here are 10 lessons I wish I'd known before starting:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Every major Shopify app — Gorgias, Attentive, Klaviyo, you name it — runs the same playbook to grow like crazy The playbook only has 3 components: 1) Outbound sales 2) Partnerships 3) Events
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
This is why I spent $800k to acquire our domain
@sweatystartup
Nick Huber
9 months
If you’re looking for an available domain to start a business, you’re doing it wrong. You need to buy a premium domain and drop a little coin. People build big companies behind pretty crappy web domains and it holds them back in a major way. If you’re confident go buy a $2-10k
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Last month I was talking to the President of a $2 Billion tech unicorn. He told me about their biggest growth challenge, and it's not what you'd expect. He said that on their way from $6M to $100M+ ARR what slowed them down wasn't lead flow, marketing, product or churn but
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Every marketer needs to study how 3 friends turned wiping their asses into a $90 million/year brand
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
2016 Facebook Ads vs 2023 Meta Ads: 2016 Facebook Ads: - Upload a static creative - Run it for 2, 3, even 4 weeks - High quality event data from the Facebook pixel - Super low CPMs - 40X ROAS, money rolling in, you feel like a genius 2023 Meta Ads: - Creative has to be
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
The Billion Dollar Challenge is LIVE! EPISODE 1. CEO OVERWHELM - PART 1 This is the story of how chance meeting lit the fire under me to transform my bootstrapped, low stakes ‘lifestyle business’ into a category-defining rocketship. Mine and the teams' limits are put to the
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I've talked to 47 Founders and CEOc of DTC brands in the last 6 weeks. Here are the 12 most controversial and surprising things I learned:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
My SaaS company closed $7,738,080 in new ARR during Q1 of this year, bringing us to just north of $20M ARR. And I believe we have 3 opportunities in Q2 to get us closer to our $50M ARR goal for 2023: ✅ Lead generation - improving and scaling out BDR, Agency Partnerships,
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
I’m revealing it all. Maybe I shouldn’t do this — but who cares. I meant it when I said we are building Retention in public. So I decided to post our full Q1 financials here on Twitter for you to dive into:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Over the next 12 months my SaaS is pushing to hit a $1B valuation And we haven’t taken a dime of VC money. Wondering why? Here are the 6 major reasons we decided to bootstrap from 0 → $15M ARR and beyond:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
Reminder: The ecom world is going to get be flipped upside down next year
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Tech CEOs need to stop complaining about remote work My first company sold for 8 figures and was fully remote I’ve built a company that does $20 million a year remotely Forcing employees into the office is just a crutch for bad management
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
7 months
My bootstrapped $20M ARR SaaS shrunk our sales team from 15 to 4 reps and growth SPED UP (!). The days of MASSIVE sales teams for startups are over. The next crop of tech unicorns will have BDR orgs that look very different than Salesforce. Here's the breakdown: 👇 The Old
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
2022 was a monster year for my SaaS startup — we bootstrapped to $14M ARR and are on our way to $100M But it wasn’t all pretty Today I want to confess 5 of the biggest mistakes we made in the last year (so you can learn from them):
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I've sold a company for more than $10 million and built my new company to $1.6 million in monthly revenue Here are the 7 biggest lessons I've learned about business building:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
This guy is going to do $160,000,000 this year and at the beginning of COVID his business was just 3 sewing machines and an Etsy store. Meet @CurtisMatsko , CEO of @PRTLNDLTHR . How was he able to pull off such insane growth (so quickly)? If you have to ask, clearly you've never
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Last week a PISSED OFF customer about to churn sent me a Loom video that completely changed our business. Here’s what happened (and why it’s going to help us add $300K MRR in the next 3 months): On Tuesday, I had just come off yet another go-to-market meeting of teams saying
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I asked the President of the fastest-growing Shopify store on the planet (with a $150M run-rate) what the biggest problem with DTC email marketing was. His answer is packed with insane insight. I spoke with @BYahalom , the President of @trueclassictees last week. Here's what he
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
What does it take to build a $1B dollar business in a year? Well, we’re about to find out… My new docuseries, Billion Dollar Challenge, is the ultimate peek behind the curtain. Watch as we transform from a bootstrapped, low-stakes ‘lifestyle business’
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Rookie CEO: “What if we get sued? Let’s not do this.” Veteran CEO: “Let’s do it. If we get sued, we can use a tiny bit of the money we make to defend lawsuits.”
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
I learned that building a $20 million company takes basically the same effort and focus as building a $2 million company. Now I'm trying to find out if building a $1 billion company takes the same effort as building a $20m one. I'll report back.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
Many founders underestimate how much they need to spend on marketing & sales My business got to ~$3 million by spending $30k a month on sales & marketing When we ratcheted that up to $80k, we hit $20 million shortly after But many can't stomach spending that much in a month
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Why you shouldn't raise VC money: VCs would never have let me spend $800,000 of their money on a domain But the investment has been more than worth it
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
4) There is great joy in the pursuit of excellence I listened to him on Joe Rogan, and he goes on for hours about how much he loves the idea of being the best. He commits every hour he has to make better and better videos for his audience. It’s all he cares about.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
The playbook for launching a SaaS has completely changed The Lean Startup and Predictable Revenue models worked great 10 years ago But now you need to think differently Here are my thoughts after building a SaaS to $20 million in annual revenue:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Every major Shopify app — Gorgias, Attentive, Klaviyo, you name it — runs the same playbook to grow like crazy There’s 3 parts to it: 1) Outbound sales 2) Partnerships 3) Events
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I REALLY thought we were going to cross $20 million ARR in July But we fell a bit short But now I REALLY REALLY think we'll hit $20m ARR in August
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
My company has gone from 0 → $20M ARR in ~2.5 years, profitably. Here are 3 simple lessons I wish I knew before we started: 1) Velocity is king in startups. Whatever you’re doing, push to move faster. 2) The effort it takes to build something massive is pretty similar to the
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
My company ended 2022 at just shy of $15M ARR. And in Q4, we hired 30 key employees for all revenue-generating roles (all of them will be onboarded by Feb 1). My prediction for 2023? Might be bold — but I believe we will hit $50M ARR by December 31, 2023.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
My hiring philosophy: We’re pretty much only looking to hire people that would be great founders, but are too risk-averse to start their own thing But the key is giving these types of employees free reign to own their area of the business Try to control them, and they leave
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
More founders should have a bootstrapper mentality. I just finished going through a rapid hiring period. It cost us $1.54M to get that done. I didn’t hire another person until we added $1.57M to our ARR so we could pay for that last expense. That’s just how I am.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
2 years
The BEST eCommerce brands have their Welcome Flow dialed in But too many brands get this flow wrong (And miss out on sales) So I figured I’d just give you an easy, high-converting 4-email flow for you to steal:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Building an ultra-premium ecom SaaS is way harder than people think There are only around 6,000 ecom businesses who can buy 4-digit monthly SaaS.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
One of my most ambitious goals for 2023: 10x the trust and credibility of the Retention brand as we scale to $50M ARR Here are 15 strategies I'm putting in motion over the next 9 months to make it happen (feel free to steal them):
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
1) Success is not random or accidental When talking about virality, everyone always puts the blame on the algorithm. “The algorithm made you famous”, etc. Virality is not an accident. Success is not an accident.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
You bang your head against the wall for 10 years And then you achieve as much success in one month as you had in the previous 10 years combined This is what entrepreneurship is all about
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
5 months
99% of salespeople think the next generation of $1M/year earning AE's are current entry-level sellers at top-tier startups learning the ropes as BDRs. They’re wrong. The next generation of 7-figure sellers are aspiring YouTubers: Here's the breakdown: 1) We’re moving into a
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
Ecom founder after getting their first $29 sale after blowing $30,000 on Facebook ads
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
There are 4.12 million active Shopify stores Just 32,990 of those are Shopify Plus stores, according to DemandSage That's just 0.8% of all Shopify stores Those 32k Plus stores are the ones you really need to work with if you want to make serious money in ecom SaaS
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
It took us 3 years 9 months to get to $20 million ARR A lot can happen in a few years Keep going
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
There are over 4 million Shopify stores. Less than 1% will ever make it past 7 figures in revenue. The ones that do, use these 5 fundamental Klayvio flows:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
2) Choose your friends wisely If you’re playing a big game and you don’t have friends that don’t point out your weaknesses, you’re never going to be as big as you’d like.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
Underrated startup strategy: Walking right up to the line of legality and operating where others are afraid to. Uber and Airbnb wouldn’t exist without this strategy.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
The one word domain gives us instant credibility This can't be quantified But people trust us wayyy more than some company with a dash in their domain name or a .co domain
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Every Twitter guru’s solution to every problem is raising prices. But my business actually took off when I lowered my prices. Our prices were just too high for our target market. By slashing the price from $7,500/mo to $2,500, we went from $1m ARR to $20 million
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
8 months
In 27 months, I grew my SaaS startup from $1M-$10M ARR. We did this with only one salesperson. Doing 100% outbound sales. Here’s my 7-step playbook for building a lean, high-velocity cold email machine: 👇 Step 1) Make sure you have product-market fit - My thesis for 2023
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
I *really* thought we were going to turn the corner in July, but it was another hard month at . Here are the dirty details: 👇 The Highlights: - Client revenue was up 15% and email sends down 50% system-wide - Our flagship product is now 100% Klaviyo
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
I used to want a ‘lifestyle business’ See, I had worked at Lehman Brothers in Manhattan for 10 years… Putting on a tie every day and taking the subway to work every day at 6:00 in the morning. The idea of a small, simple software business that supported my lifestyle with a
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
Having a one word domain is incredibly valuable People here and instantly want to know what we do
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
2 years
Ryan Pamplin bootstrapped his brand BlendJet to 9-figures in just 4 years And I got to sit down and pick his brain for 1 hour Here are the top 3 pieces of business advice he gave me:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
My SaaS has gone from 0 → $20M ARR in ~2.5 years, profitably. Here are 3 simple lessons I wish I knew before we started:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
When I first started building SaaS businesses, I tried competing on price. I'd find a $50/mo SaaS and try to build a knock-off version and charge $25 a month This was a race to the bottom Now, I try to figure out which problems companies would pay $3,000 a month to solve
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
Aspiring founders are some of the best employees you can have They won't be at your company forever, but they'll give you 2 or 3 years of superhuman productivity
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
You NEED to surround yourself with the right people as a startup founder. It’s not an option. It’s not a cliche. It’s a requirement. I share an office with the Jasper AI guys for a reason. We all give each other needed feedback and help each other grow. You need to have
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Affiliates have absolutely crushed for us in the last few months as we’ve scaled to $20M in ARR. It’s a great way to complement your other sales and marketing tactics — and I wanted to give you an inside look at how we run our program (steal it): I will mention that this can
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
There are basically 2 things you need to build a $10 million a year business: 1) Product/market fit 2) Repeatable sales process
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Earlier this year, I was in Aspen with a friend who had been building a fintech startup for 7 years as the COO/CFO. They sold for $275M 🤯 And she now has a cushy job where her salary is 3x what it was before…
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Two weeks ago I walked into the woods of Colorado with just a backpack. No cellphone. No GPS. No plan except to avoid seeing another human being for 7 days. It was incredibly therapeutic. Here’s 4 reasons why I think every founder needs to try “social starvation”: 1. It
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
This is what July looked like at @Retentiondotcom A steady 2% uptick in MRR We're planning to hit $2 million MRR by early next year
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
What's ONE book every startup founder should read?
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Last year @Retentiondotcom went from $600k-$1.3M per month. Here are the 5 biggest breakthroughs we had scaling a SaaS product for Shopify store owners to near $20M ARR:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
Klaviyo will IPO this week at a valuation of ~$9 billion They did $321m in revenue in the first half of this year, implying a ~14x revenue multiple Seeing how the market receives this IPO will be a huge signal for ecom software I'll be eagerly watching and rooting for them
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
Why is everyone trying to be a "solopreneur"? Having a reliable team is awesome. I've accomplished way more with them than I would have alone. And I can actually take time off and trust my team to handle everything. What am I missing?
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
My company has gone from 0 to $20M ARR in ~2.5 years, completely bootstrapped and profitable. What I did is repeatable Here's how:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
First startup: Tried to disrupt a huge industry Second startup: Picked a niche I could dominate, then expanded Guess which one worked out better
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
It was a HARD April at Retention We basically got stopped dead in our tracks from April 1 - April 14 Here's an inside look at what happened, and how we're moving forward:
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
Everyone brags about their wins, but few publicly share their losses So I'll share a loss Last quarter, an operational issue caused us to miss 274 demos with qualified prospect who filled out our form and were routed incorrectly. A huge hit for revenue and our brand.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
I see a familiar logo in the top left... Honored to be featured alongside other amazing tech startups in Nasdaq Times Square. Very cool moment.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
After 5 months of getting smacked by the slowdown, crushed by churn and devastated by downsizing, I am *finally* confident @Retentiondotcom has turned the corner. Here’s what I’m proud of (and not so proud of) that happened in August: Proud of: - We crossed a major milestone
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
Too many founders let ego get in the way of scaling. Truth is: Stop building the product YOU want Start building the product your audience wants Unfortunately, most founders build for themselves by default
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Retention(.)com wasn’t always what it is today. I was the Founder/CEO of a failing company for years before we were on the road to a billion. I worked on Robly. I was competing with giants. I couldn’t keep up… We were barely profitable, and I was lucky to be able to get rid
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
A year ago, I could not get mid-level partnership people at ecom companies to even reply to my email Now, I have execs at that same companies reaching out to meet me What changed? I started documenting my thoughts online
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Fuck lifestyle businesses. You can build a “lifestyle business” once you’re rich. Build something big or don’t bother.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Underrated startup strategy: Walking right up to the line of legality and operating where others are afraid to. Uber and Airbnb wouldn’t exist without this strategy.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
We generated more than $1 million for a client in a month using a simple 6-part email strategy. And that client, 9-figure brand Dr. Squatch, attributes millions in revenue to us. If you want to see the exact strategy, reply "Retention" and I will DM it to you.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
You don't have to choose work OR a family life I bootstrapped a software business to $20 million a year I'm also taking time for my family and living a balanced life You can do both
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
11 months
Churn is everything. I seriously believe if we put all of our energy on reducing churn a year ago and didn't hire a single salesperson we would be a head of where we are today.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
Complacency kills startups. The BEST founders are always staying up to date with trends, new developments, and strategies in their industry.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
10 months
How I approach marketing: Sharing stories > Promoting your product's features
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
1 year
MrBeast is proof that you can go viral again and again and again — if you have the right formula. He’s spent over a decade developing an SOP for exactly how to get hundreds of millions of views and get the world to talk about you.
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@RetentionAdam
Adam Robinson
9 months
I bootstrapped my startup to $12M ARR with only 6 people. Now I’m launching a brand new product and plan to get it to $10M ARR by the end of 2024 with no more than 5 people. Small teams are the future of SaaS.
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