Storemapper: Bootstrapped to $50k/year in 2 years

This is a good story. I'm facing the same experiences with a small web app I did (tool for travel agents). I currently have just Google ads but now it's at least paying the servers.

The interesting is that every business is different to growth. I really tried a lot of strategies and the only one that have really worked well was the cold email I sent for potential customers. This to me seems really annoying to do because it's almost like spam I think, but when you really knows your "personas" and you have a good product to them, they answer you with a big Thanks and you feels good, like doing a favor.

There is a very thin line that separates the spam and the mail marketing.

Another thing I learn is that users don't help you, very difficult to someone answer you when you ask feedbacks. They only answer you when they think they will gain something valuable in change. Same behavior in all countries I tested.

My biggest dream is my App give me enough profit to I get out of my regular job and work on this full time. Storemapper is really a inspirational and motivational case to me. Thanks for sharing.

Salute to another solo dev boostrapper from Brooklyn!

Do you have any stats on how effective the "Powered By" link was in getting new conversions?

The oDesk lead generators plan is something I am trying now with finding leads for press for a Kickstarter campaign. It works well when you can very clearly define the steps for what you'd like (in my case supplying the list of Kickstarter pages to research). It has to be repeatable and less up for interpretation. I'm using eLance and have had luck with some admins.

I also had a side project that turned into a full time project. Clearing away distractions and focusing on one product made a world of difference for me (still learning to do this). When I kept things as side projects, I wasnt fully able to test if what I was working on had real potential and I wish I would have focused earlier.

Great post Tyler!

"Lesson learned: always test higher prices. I didn’t bother with the setup required to run simultaneous A/B tests. I just raised prices and watched what happened."

Not enough startups do this on a regular basis. They're too worried about losing clients. If you don't reinforce your value proposition on a regular basis by adding features, you will lose customer regardless.

With several of my side projects, I would add a new feature, then raise prices for new customers. At the same time, clients who renewed (I used a subscription based model) would get a discount. It was like magic. More people wanted in earlier, instead of waiting for a more mature, more expensive product. They gladly paid a lower monthly fee up front, in order to avoid the increase in price later on.

This story has another lesson buried inside it, and it is one that I first learned not long ago in a video (unfortunately I can't find a link to it).

The lesson was: "The best way to get into business is to be in business". In other words, the best way to build a successful business is to get started. Do something, anything to get started. You have to do that to get into contact with people and start getting feedback to see what other problems they have.

I noticed the same lesson in this post. Initially, the author was making money from freelancing. But as clients began asking questions and providing feedback, a more profitable idea came to the surface.

Do something. Just get started.

Great post.