Apr 6, 2021
Alex Zerbach, co-founder of carrot.com, tells Geordie about founding the platform's idea, building the MVP, and growing from 0-800,000 MRR. Listen for more details.
Carrot is a SaaS platform that streamlines property websites' development to help clients manage investor's assets. While Alex and his team deal with larger enterprises, he mentions that they mainly deal with single clients. Listen to Alex as he shares his story with Geordie.
What You'll Learn
- The story behind the carrot.com domain
- How Alex and Trevor converted the agency into a SaaS platform
- com pricing plans
- What was the MVP, and how much did it cost?
- How did Alex go about the SaaS marketing process?
- When did Alex and his team get their big break?
- The latest carrot.com development and the story behind it
- How Alex and his team executed their content marketing strategy
- SEO strategies that Alex and his team were using
- Importance of content as a marketing strategy
- Importance of case studies
- Strategies Alex and his team used to achieve success from their cold traffic.
- What strategy did the team use when raising prices?
- How did Alex and his team manage their finances?
In this Episode:
When Alex was schooling, a mutual friend introduced him to Trevor, who later became his co-founder, who was launching a SaaS business. According to the mutual friend, Alex needed to contact Trevor for a chance to work together. However, when Alex called, Trevor claimed the project was still in its inaugural stages, but they could still collaborate when everything was ready.
Trevor loved Alex's ambition and was sure that something good would come out of his expertise. Alex maintained contact with Trevor until one day; he proposed collaboration between them. They would later launch Carrot. Alex tells Geordie the story behind acquiring the carrot.com domain. Listen to the podcast to find out.
While in college, Trevor had purchased his inaugural rental property in partnership with a family member. This step marked his entrance into the real estate investing world. Trevor had developed a website through which he could generate leads for tenants. He also used the platform to search for discounted properties.
At some point, he became a consultant. Out of sharing about his experience and work on social media platforms, many people became curious, and they started approaching him in search of solutions for their websites. It is from these inquiries that the Rei conversion theme was born. Please find out how Trevor implemented the Rei theme on his customer's websites before Alex joined him.
When Alex later joined Trevor, the business was still an agency seeing that he (Trevor) was running his operations manually. Alex left at some point and rejoined the team later on. During his (Alex's) absence, Trevor was struggling to upload themes and contracted out Chris (the other co-founder) to help him out.
Surprisingly, Chris completed the massive work in less than half an hour. Impressed, Trevor invited Chris to help him automate the agency into a SaaS platform. Find out how the team executed the process from the podcast. Alex would later rejoin the team as a marketing expert, which he has outgrown to become the director of operations.
Alex talks about the platform's pricing plans and the services clients received on placing an order. He gives a detailed explanation about the platform and what set them apart from their competitors then. Listen to the podcast for this informative section. He also talks about the transition period from an agency to a SaaS platform you cannot afford to miss.
After converting the agency to SaaS, Alex and his team needed to market it to reach a wider audience. He mentions that they did not have a hard time achieving that, seeing that Trevor was already famous on social media platforms.
According to Alex, Trevor played a massive role in marketing the platform to multiple industry partners. He talks about other strategies they used to promote the platform that you can learn about from the podcast. Alex tells Geordie about their big break moment, which you should hear to grab the details.
Alex talks about navigating their content marketing and the effort they invested in getting things right. Why did the team spend a lot of time on content generation? Did they achieve growth from content marketing? Listen to the podcast to find out.
Alex says they experienced growth from investing in paid ads, affiliates, and adding members to the team. He mentions that a significant percentage of their growth came from organic traffic.
What impact did COVID have on the company? Alex says they were not adversely affected. Listen to the podcast to figure out how they survived the period. Alex finalizes the podcast with some tips for aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs. Listen to the podcast to figure these out.