$0 to $20M in 3 years: Lessons learned

Instantly scaled from zero to over $20M ARR in just three years, completely bootstrapped. I ran their paid acquisition programs, scaling ad spend from $0 to over $400K/month profitably, as they grew to more than 20,000 active customers.

Here’s the bottom line of working with Instantly: A clear, simple value proposition makes everything easier. That’s not to say it makes growing or operating a business easy, but if you nail an offer that is irresistible and competitively positioned, everything naturally falls into place. Easier said than done ofc.

Here’s a breakdown of 4 practical lessons I learned from my ~2.5 years of helping Instantly grow.

Lesson 1: Nail the value prop

Instantly launched in a highly competitive product category yet still dominated due to a clear offer: "Unlimited warm-up & sending for $97/month."

While competitors charged per user, email inbox, or didn’t have product features like warmup or inbox rotation, Instantly quickly stole marketshare due to their no-brainer offer.

This clear messaging was rocket fuel for outbound, content and ads. I also developed the idea of Cold Email 3.0 which enabled this offer to be wrapped into a broader narrative that created common enemies and hooked onto a macro-trend which was digital businesses moving away from the outdated predictable revenue model.

Although it might sound simple, I would say almost every SaaS startup i’ve worked with has struggled with this. A great GTM motion is built upon solid product marketing fundamentals, not quick growth hacks or tactics.

Lesson 2: Build in public is a double-edged sword

The Instantly co-founders operated with transparency in the early days - they shared their revenue numbers publicly and built a loyal community in the cold email space. Without a doubt this build in public approach contributed to their early growth by building a hype cycle.

However, it eventually reached the point of diminishing returns and they decided to stop sharing numbers because it attracted copycats and other bad actors.

I believe this build in public approach works because money is a taboo topic so it stands out, with the increased reach resulting in more brand awareness and recall. A net positive and creates somewhat of a flywheel. My position is that building in public can work very well under the right conditions.

Lesson 3: You’re one point of differentiation away from winning

Instantly didn't invent inbox rotation or domain warmup. Their point of innovation was related to pricing: they would charge $97/mo whereas competitors would charge $100s to $1,000s per month. For cost-sensitive SMBs, this is a huge saving. This allows them to quickly capture marketshare and eventually dominate competitors who had been around for several years.

We’ll see more cases of this over the coming years as technology/product becomes less defensible and companies compete on distribution.

Lesson 4: Stop overcomplicating it

I’m embarrassed by some of the ads I created while working with Instantly due to poor design skills but here’s the thing: those ads probably generated more revenue and profit than the average company’s entire paid acquisition program, and the Instantly team trusted me to own this program from end-to-end with no micromanagement because I got results.

In the early days, Instantly co-founders acquired most of their users through two-sentence cold emails and 20-page Google Doc advertorials. These things worked and that’s all that matters. Obviously nowadays they have a large team, management, and internal structure but for a long while Instantly operated with speed and scrappiness. While competitors obsessed over strategy and process, we rapidly tested and validated new angles and offers.

The funny thing is that these guys have been told by so many people, even CEOs of well-known orgs, that they’re doing it the wrong way, growth will eventually stagnate, etc. but none of this is came true. That’s the benefit of creating a no-brainer offer.

Working with Instantly rewired my brain.

It made me realise that so many startups are LARPing. They’re more interested in pretending to be a business than to actually be a business. It proved to me that you don’t need to be an ex-management consultant, an experienced CEO, or to have raised millions in venture funding to build a successful startup.

You just need to do the basics well and be relentless.

Cheers,

Liam

P.S.

If you’re an early-stage B2B SaaS founder, we will guarantee your first 5 customers. Read more about this process here.

$0 to $20m ARR in 3 years
$1m added in 6 months
$3k to (now) $97k per month in 12 months