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- 🏰 #22 Do things that don't scale + [Content Strategy Framework]
🏰 #22 Do things that don't scale + [Content Strategy Framework]
This issue it's special. It contains "non-scalable-growth tactic". Last time when...
mariano martene🧉
December 23, 2023
Hey — It's Mariano.
Wishing you a lovely Saturday from 🏰 SaaS-HQ.com
Welcome to our newsletter. Every week, we send:
✅ 1 to 3 bite-sized case studies to grow your SaaS
✅ 1 to 3 curated resources from top-notch experts
Last week's newsletter got me surprised 😮
The most clicked link was the article ‘Do Things That Don’t Scale’ by Paul Graham (which was only a reference).
Helpful for early-stage and growth processes, it becomes obvious that this edition should be all about "non-scalable-growth tactics”.
Let’s dive in!
Do things that don’t scale
🏘 Airbnb wrote a script to automatically post each new listing to Craigslist bringing them loads of free qualified renters.
💸 PayPal wrote a script to message eBay sellers, pretending to be buyers, to ask if they would accept payments via PayPal. Sellers thought their buyers wanted PayPal, so they quickly added the payment option.
👩🎨 Canva created thousands of SEO-optimized pages with design templates and tutorials because they realized many basic design tasks start with a Google search like “award certificate template.”
💬 Reddit's growth strategy involved creating fake user profiles and posting content to give the appearance of an active community, which attracted real users and helped establish the platform as a popular online forum.
❤️🔥 Tinder organized parties for students. To get in, you had to download the app. It was the entrance ticket. This got the first 100s users.
🖼 Pinterest founder went to every apple store in the neighborhood and changed their safari home page to Pinterest.
😺 ProductHunt started as a newsletter, with the founders hunting and curating products.
What about B2B SaaS?
“Reid [Hoffman] and the founding team sent invites and asked their friends to try the v1 product and invite their professional contacts. In total that was maybe a couple thousand individuals”
This founder answered 99 StackOverflow questions, and now 2 million developers know about their product.
The founders of Uncover manually fulfilled more than 1,000 orders over close to six months
Alex Turnbull shares how he got 2000 customers along with six non-scale growth tactics he used along the way.
a feedback loop
Another tactic was scrapping online mentions to ensure no customer is ever lost due to a bad experience.
The founder of Oneup tried something different, he personally recorded and sent welcome videos to every new signup.
[RESOURCE OF THE WEEK]
The GaryVee Content Strategy: How to Grow and Distribute Your Brand’s Social Media Content
I remember reading this resource a few years ago. It’s still valid.
Once you see the presentation you will realize that it’s closely related to the topic of this newsletter.
Take the key concepts and apply them to your 2024 content plan.
That’s all for this year!
This team gotta rest to start 2024 energized.
I wish you all a happy holiday. Thanks for reading.
Best,
Mariano Martene
PS: I still have some slots for 2024. Work with me!
Content