The Story of a Google-Spurning, Cancer-Beating, Bowtie-Wearing, Bootstrapped Founder [Traction #6]
To our listeners: THANK YOU! We recently learned that Traction was featured on the iTunes New and Noteworthy list, and it’s all thanks to your ratings, listenership, support, and feedback. For those new to the show: Traction shares the incredible stories of the creative and unusual things entrepreneurs do to make initial progress. You can listen on iTunes.
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With this show, we’re working hard to contribute something unique and useful to the world. If you want another me-too “Bob talks to Mary about startups,” this isn’t your show. If you like to navel-gaze about the future of XYZ industry, you may want to look elsewhere.
But if you want to hear some amazing stories as told by entrepreneurs and learn about the non-scalable, clever tactics they used just to survive and advance, then we dedicate this show to you and tip our hats to your incredible drive. And thanks for listening!
I recently sat down with the remarkably thoughtful (and insanely scrappy) Patrick Campbell, co-founder and CEO of Price Intelligently. His company is a bootstrapped startup (for now, he says) that helps other software companies price their products based on what customers will actually pay — and essentially avoid leaving revenue on the table. Think of their solutions as a combo MBA and VP of Product Strategy that scales.
Patrick and I worked at Google together and were both among the first in our particular office to decide that we wanted to leave and stay in the same city (Boston) and sector (tech). More than a few people thought we were nuts. In the episode, you’ll hear about how we got hired in the first place and why we decided to leave.
Inside the Episode
Startup Lessons You’ll Learn:
- What tradeoffs a bootstrapped startup’s CEO makes
- How to price a software product correctly to maximize revenue and avoid leaving money on the table early on
- A definition of content marketing that actually makes sense
- Tactics to build an audience using limited resources and content, which you can then use to validate your product idea, get feedback, and convert
Great Stories You’ll Hear:
- Patrick and team validated the market and built their initial business around one educational ebook written for their customers
- The lunacy of Patrick and me leaving Google and staying in Boston tech (crazy at that time)
- The moving story of Patrick beating cancer and the surprising way that changed him as a founder
Links Mentioned:
- Patrick’s company: Price Intelligently
- Their free product for SaaS companies: ProfitWell
- My blog: Sorry For Marketing
- The content marketing wheel playbook: process overview