Hey - Marc here.

Happy Saturday morning, motivated B2B SaaS Founders!

Here's at least one tip to keep in mind as you grow your B2B SaaS company:

Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read.

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In today's issue, I share some key takeaways from a recent interview between Nathan Latka, the host of Daily Interviews with SaaS Founders, and Naveen S G, the CEO and co-founder of Leadmonk. They discussed how he spent $30k to build a text-based version of Calendly and how they got their first 50 customers.

Naveen S G has 20 years of I.T. industry experience across sales, product development consulting, and entrepreneurship. Now, he is on the journey he wished he had been on all along and looking to grow 10x in the next six months.

About Lead Monk

Leadmonk is an SMS-based appointment scheduling software launched in January this year. This bootstrap company started with $30k from the founders' personal savings. They hired freelancers for the first 3-4 months and now, only he and his co-founder build the advancing features.

The software has gained 500+ free users and 50 paid subscribers in the eight months since its launch. The subscription-based service offers a free trial period, after which users can choose to upgrade to a paid account. Customers pay an introductory price of $6 per month on an annual plan.

Challenges

"You can't invent another appointment scheduling software; Calendly has already won."

And it's true, Calendly has become one of the most popular options for online appointment scheduling. But that doesn't mean there isn't room for other software options. In fact, a new customer identifier is emerging: mobile number – and that's where Leadmonk comes in.

Advice to Other Founders

Be different.

As they play in a highly competitive space, they took advantage of the fact that not everyone is comfortable using their email address, and in some situations in which an email address is not needed, such as when making an appointment with a doctor, dentist, real estate or insurance agent.

Get advantage of free platforms.

They haven't invested a single dollar in digital marketing campaigns. Their only tactic to get their initial users is to list Leadmonk for FREE in listing sites like Product Hunt and Capterra, and reviewing sites like Google Workspace Marketplace and Microsoft Marketplace. Their organic leads conversion rate has improved, and they will soon focus on increasing their reach.

Focus on ranking for long-tail keywords.

These are more specific keywords than most scheduling apps rank for. Because so many businesses compete for the top spot for shorter keywords, it cannot be easy to rank high for them. However, with long-tail keywords, Leadmonk could rank first and get 10-15 website visitors daily.

Just start writing.

Search engines are always looking for fresh content, so the more often you update your blog, the better chance you have of being seen. This was something Naveen learned firsthand when he started writing several blogs. Not only did this give him more traffic, but it also helped them rank higher.

Bonus

Naveen's favorite book is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
He praises Canva and Freshworks for helping them build Leadmonk.
He realized and wished he had started this journey at the age of 20.

TL;DR

Naveen S G is building leadmonk.io to compete with Calendly using long-tail keywords to get their traffic up. Today, they have 50 customers paying $6 a month, culminating in $300 MRR or $3,600 in ARR. They got their first 500 customers on the waitlist by posting on listing and review sites. Naveen spent $30k on the MVP.

P.S. Here is a link to the full interview if you are interested in listening to the full episode: He spent $30k to build a text-based version of Calendly; here's how he got his 50 customers

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See you again next week.

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