How Viral Loops Drives $40K MRR and 1,500 Organic Leads per Month without Paid Ads
How Viral Loops Drives $40K MRR and 1,500 Organic Leads per Month without Paid AdsHow Viral Loops Drives $40K MRR and 1,500 Organic Leads per Month without Paid Ads
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Hey, everyone! In today’s episode, I share the mic with Savvas Zortikis, the CEO and Co-Founder of Viral Loops, which is a venture-wrapped viral and referral marketing platform.
Tune in to hear how they turned word-of-mouth into a business model, how they drive 1,500 organic leads per month, and why Savvas thinks you should focus in on a couple of business elements instead of a whole bunch of different ones.
Show notes:
[00:46] Before we jump into today’s interview, please leave a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast!
[01:08] Savvas Zortikis, who is the CEO and Co-Founder of Viral Loops, which is a venture-wrapped viral and referral marketing platform.
[01:41] He’s been in the marketing industry for 3 years.
[01:52] He has worked internationally for major companies (BMW, Mercedes, etc.)
[02:22] He started the agency as an in-house project.
[03:05] They are a referral marketing platform.
[03:14] They want to make word-of-mouth work for small and medium businesses.
[03:36] An ecommerce store that is just starting out doesn’t have the word-of-mouth it needs to succeed.
[03:57] Savvas wanted to make a flexible and personalized approach that would work for different businesses in different industries.
[04:30] They were inspired by other brands like Dropbox.
[05:00] One of Savvas’ favorite stories is about a growth marketing academy. They organized one of the biggest growth marketing conferences.
[05:18] They decided to run a registration campaign using the Milestone campaign through Viral Loops.
[06:04] The more friends you invite, the more you get out of it.
[07:02] Viral Loops drove 30-40% of the traffic through the campaign.
[07:38] Viral Loops is a SAAS business, so they have a 40 day trial and then they charge you based on the number of people that join your campaign starting at $49/month.
[07:57] Currently, they are really close to 40,000 MRR.
[08:11] Currently, their growth rate is at 25% month over month.
[08:30] In terms of leads, they get around 1500 leads per month.
[08:50] Most of these are organic leads from blog posts. No paid ads.
[09:10] Viral Loops customers are paying an average of $100/month, but they currently have fewer than 800 customers.
[09:45] They launched in February 2016, but they didn’t do any marketing; they were just building the product and wanted to get people to test it out.
[10:21] They tried many marketing tactics, but this was probably a mistake because it spread them too thin.
[10:50] So, they decided to only do outbound marketing for two months. It was a disaster.
[11:08] Then, they started posting a lot of content and launching products.
[11:30] They got a lot of customers through Product Hunt, then that company became their customers.
[11:55] A tactic that has worked well for them is that they give their product away to marketers for free.
[12:02] When they get value from Viral Loops, they then spread the word.
[13:25] There is no silver bullet when it comes to marketing and growth.
[13:55] They started focusing aggressively on acquisitions and then activation.
[14:28] Savvas thinks you should focus in on a couple of things instead of many different ones.
[14:50] It doesn’t’ pay to divide your focus into too many parts.
[16:18] Another mistake they made was that they didn’t take customer success too seriously.
[17:30] Customer satisfaction is a main driver for word-of-mouth referrals.
[17:55] They need to train their customer success employees to become growth marketers in a sense.
[18:40] Viral Loops is testing a lot of tools, but twp that have added value is Segment and Intercom.
[19:28] One book that Savvas recommends is The Hard Thing About Hard Things. He thinks it will prove helpful to those starting a business from scratch.
[20:20] Savvas really likes Rich Ross’ podcast, which isn’t about marketing directly, but he talks to a lot of successful people.
CEO Amanda Bradford Shares How They Raised $2.8M in Funding for Exclusive Dating App The League
CEO Amanda Bradford Shares How They Raised $2.8M in Funding for Exclusive Dating App The LeagueCEO Amanda Bradford Shares How They Raised $2.8M in Funding for Exclusive Dating App The League
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Hey everyone! Today I share the mic with Amanda Bradford, CEO of The League, a dating app for aspiring power couples.
Tune in to hear Amanda share why her dating app for intellectuals has a 500K wait list and how it’s converting in high volumes, the effects of monetizing the app for both men and women (especially in regards to user habits), and the value of finding the right people to ramp up your company’s growth.
01:34 – Based in Austin, they are opening offices in Dallas and Houston; The League was recently launched in Miami, Atlanta and Philly
01:48 – Looking to expand their dating app to LA, San Francisco and New York
02:25 – Finding your perfect match
02:25 – Users are required to put in their Facebook accounts as well as their LinkedIn which results in a more curated environment
03:00 – Users are matched by considering a variety of factors such as earnings, educational institutions, fields and social graphs
03:31 – It aims to curate users that are ambitious, intellectual and looking for a relationship
03:40 – Just started generating revenue by offering paid memberships
04:04 – The waitlist for The League has ballooned to over 500,000
04:56 – Does not compete with Raya, a dating app targeting wannabe celebrities; at The League, they are targeting more professionally oriented people
05:23 – Appeals to intellectuals such as writers, bankers and journalists
05:54 – Matchmaking: an outdated concept
05:54 – Not uncommon for matchmakers to charge as much as $60,000
06:18 – Matchmaking is an ancient concept and dating apps will replace them over time
07:58 – With the emergence of smartphones and improving technology, people can select their date from a wider pool; chances of finding a good match increases
09:10 – The League wants to be known as a dating app and not as a marriage platform
09:29 – Sends congratulatory gifts on the birthday of league babies
09:44 – Folks in their early 20’s are just looking to date and figure out what they want
10:02 – In spite of giving only 3 to 5 matches, conversion rate is really high
11:10 – Analyzing membership structure and revenues at The League
11:10 – It monetizes impatient people who value their time and are actively looking for a perfect match
12:02 – Annual membership is $180 which works out to be $15 per month
12:47 – Unlike other dating websites which try to monetize the men, revenues at “The League” are split equally between men and women
13:02 – User behaviors have improved after switching to a paid model
14:00 – Marketing strategy
14:00 – Relies on referrals for marketing
14:16 – Uses Hustle Con as a platform to meet potential users and spread the word before launching the app
15:12 – Raised $2.8 million so far
15:18 – A successful match leads to two people leaving and many more joining the app
16:18 – In spite of Tinder being one of the top four Apps used by millennials, fundraising is not easy
17:18 – It’s a lean organization with every person wearing multiple hats
17:31 – They want to use the latest, cutting edge technology to solve people’s problems
19:00 – Aiming to retain non-singles even after they’ve found a match
19:51 – What is the one big struggle you faced while growing “The League”? – Getting the right people on board
21:17 – Entrepreneurs’ Organization managed to increase their revenues from $3 million a year to $22 million a year in a space of just 2 years by hiring great people
21:45 – Monetization has enabled Amanda to hire some great people which has placed The League on the path for fast growth
22:33 – What is one big thing, positive or negative that has impacted your business in a big way in the past one year? – Amanda moved her office to a live/work house and now lives in a studio on the top of her office
25:24 – What’s one new tool that you’ve added in the last year that’s added a lot of value, like Evernote? – Mode Analytics – It is super easy. You can hook it onto any database and put SQL in it
26:39 – What’s one must-read book do you recommend? –Shoe Dog – The story of Phil Knight starting Nike right out of business school
28:20 – Connect with Amanda on her website or Facebook
