ProfitLed Podcast

Melissa Kwan
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ProfitLed Podcast

On Season 2, Melissa Kwan (Cofounder of eWebinar) and Todd Parmley (COO) relive their "Journey to $1M" ARR, bootstrapping eWebinar from day one. Each episode goes in depth into one major aspect of the journey, as Melissa and Todd share war stories, mistakes, and lessons learned as they grew the company to a million in annual recurring revenue, over a period of 36 months from product launch.If you’re a bootstrapper who wants a window into the day-to-day lives of other scrappy bootstrappers navigating the realities of building a successful company – the good, the bad, and the ugly! – this podcast is for you.__ProfitLed is a podcast by and for bootstrapped founders brave (or crazy) enough to grow their businesses to profitability without venture capital.There’s so much content out there featuring VC-backed founders and the unicorns they ride. But everyone else? Not so much. ProfitLed is dedicated to sharing the hard-won experience of bootstrappers in order to inspire fellow bootstrapped entrepreneurs to grow their own businesses and propel themselves closer to the freedom they’re working so hard to achieve. Presented by: eWebinar - https://ewebinar.com

  1. DEC 10

    S2E21 When Our Startup Became a Real Business

    eWebinar was built in a silo for 18 months before the first person signed up for a trial. Melissa and her team had no idea if this business would become “real”, and if people were going to pay for the service.On this episode, Melissa and Todd recount stories of when they knew they were onto something, through customer interactions and feedback, outgrowing their marketing website, and hitting scaling issues from increased usage.Takeaways:• Signs of our business business becoming “real” post la...

    43 min

  2. NOV 26

    S2E20 Social Selling and Personal Branding

    If you’ve been following Melissa on LinkedIn, you’ll know that she’s a frequent contributor on the platform, sharing lessons and stories from her journey bootstrapping three startups. What you might not know is the backstory of WHY she turned to social selling after running out of leads to sell to.On this episode, Melissa shares her “hacks” of building a content machine starting with taking Justin Welsh’s “LinkedIn OS” course, how she experimented with different content styles, and event...

    45 min

  3. NOV 12

    S2E19 12 $0 Marketing Strategies

    Spending money on marketing is often not an option for bootstrapped startups, at least not enough to make a meaningful impact.Without an abundance of resources, there’s no choice but to get creative.While found-led sales can get you off the ground, your network can exhaust pretty quickly, leaving you with the challenge of figuring out new ways to generate demand.On this episode, Melissa and Todd share the 12 most effective zero-dollar marketing strategies that got eWebinar to $1M ARR.Takeaway...

    1h 9m

  4. OCT 29

    S2E18 The Customer is NOT Always Right

    Companies like Amazon and Costco who pride themselves on customer service conditioned consumers (me and you) to think that customers are always right - but, are they?In the faceless world of software, customer demands can be brutal, leading to soul crushing and demoralizing support. Training your customers to respect your team and product sets the foundation for healthy business relationships that make you feel appreciated.On this episode, Melissa and Todd recount customers from hell, the thi...

    48 min

  5. OCT 15

    S2E17 You Pay Peanuts, You Get Monkeys

    15 years ago, Dropbox spread like wildfire with their freemium product and that gave us the impression that free = more users. It deluded companies to think that giving something away for free is a go-to-market strategy, when it’s far from that.Giving away something for free has many negative implications that aren’t often talked about. The most irritating one being the fact that it attracts the worst customer profiles. The people who are least tech savvy, most time consuming on support, and ...

    36 min

  6. SEPT 24

    S2E16 Our $130k Mistake in Affiliate Marketing

    If you have a great product and offer a commission for people to promote it, they’d happily do it and you’d just make money, right? Not so fast…On this episode, Melissa and Todd recount the painful memories of spending $130k on affiliate marketing over 10 months; an experience Melissa considers the “biggest financial mistake she’s made in her career”.Takeaways:• Why we jumped into this channel too early• Reasons why this strategy was a colossal failure for us• Why you should stay away from af...

    36 min

  7. SEPT 10

    S2E15 How We Decided on Our Roadmap

    Everyone says you need to measure everything so you can make data-driven decisions on your product. That's exactly the strategy eWebinar DID NOT follow, especially when there's not going to be enough data when you don't have enough users.On this episode, Melissa and Todd shares how they decided on priorities even before having a significant customer base, and the lean process their product team goes through to execute on feature development and roll out.Takeaways: • How we came up with a...

    46 min

  8. JUL 30

    S2E14 10 Go-to-Market Strategies that Didn't Work

    Running a startup is a lot of throwing things against the wall to see what sticks (and what doesn't). The hard truth is, majority of things you do won't work...but you need to do them anyway to find the few things that do.On this episode, Melissa and Todd dives into the 10 go-to-marketing strategies that didn't work for them, why, and what they learned from each one.Takeaways: • Think twice before putting effort into Product Hunt.• Things they wasted too much money on too early.• What th...

    34 min
See All (38)

Trailer

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out of 5
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About

On Season 2, Melissa Kwan (Cofounder of eWebinar) and Todd Parmley (COO) relive their "Journey to $1M" ARR, bootstrapping eWebinar from day one. Each episode goes in depth into one major aspect of the journey, as Melissa and Todd share war stories, mistakes, and lessons learned as they grew the company to a million in annual recurring revenue, over a period of 36 months from product launch.If you’re a bootstrapper who wants a window into the day-to-day lives of other scrappy bootstrappers navigating the realities of building a successful company – the good, the bad, and the ugly! – this podcast is for you.__ProfitLed is a podcast by and for bootstrapped founders brave (or crazy) enough to grow their businesses to profitability without venture capital.There’s so much content out there featuring VC-backed founders and the unicorns they ride. But everyone else? Not so much. ProfitLed is dedicated to sharing the hard-won experience of bootstrappers in order to inspire fellow bootstrapped entrepreneurs to grow their own businesses and propel themselves closer to the freedom they’re working so hard to achieve. Presented by: eWebinar - https://ewebinar.com

Information

  • Creator
    Melissa Kwan
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2024
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024 ProfitLed Podcast
  • Show Website
    ProfitLed Podcast

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