Beginning my firm, I felt assured about two issues. The primary was that I had a successful thought: An Uber for garden care. I had spent the earlier 15 years operating my very own native garden care firm, and I knew from expertise each how troublesome it was for a home-owner to get a dependable garden mowing service and the way difficult it was to make a residing mowing yards. I felt a know-how platform may resolve this drawback for each side of {the marketplace}.
I additionally knew I didn’t need to increase cash. Despite the fact that, throughout me, I used to be watching corporations touting themselves as “the Uber for [insert service here]” increase thousands and thousands of {dollars}, I used to be additionally seeing so a lot of them crash and burn a couple of years later. I used to be okay rising a bit of extra slowly if it meant we have been constructing one thing that will final.
Thus started a decade of slowly and steadily rising GreenPal, culminating in us hitting $30 million in income final yr. Whereas it’s onerous to sum up ten years of progress in a single article, listed here are a few of the main steps alongside the best way that helped us attain this milestone.
Yr 1: Discovering our first prospects
$20,000 in income
The primary yr in enterprise, we didn’t have any form of person acquisition technique. My co-founders and I had spent almost a yr constructing the primary model of the app, and after we completed, we thought, “Man, that was actually onerous, glad that’s carried out.”
We didn’t understand the onerous work had solely simply begun. We rapidly realized that in the event you construct it, they are going to not come. Our customers weren’t simply going to point out up—we needed to go discover them.
So, we set a purpose of getting our first 100 prospects so we may get suggestions (and a few preliminary income), and set to work pounding the pavement, passing out door hangers and flyers throughout Nashville. We had no thought what we have been doing and possibly handed out 300,000 to 400,000 flyers to land these first prospects and get the ball rolling.
Yr 2: Understanding our prospects
$40,000 in income
With some prospects underneath our belt, we used their suggestions to refine our product, however we additionally obtained their enter to assist inform our advertising and marketing technique. We requested each single buyer in these early days: How do you usually rent a garden care service?
Time and again, we heard the identical solutions: They might ask household and associates for suggestions first but when that didn’t flip something up, they’d Google “garden care service close by” out of desperation.
We knew successful on word-of-mouth would take time. We wanted to maintain engaged on perfecting our product and repair supply earlier than individuals would begin speaking about us. However determining the best way to get prospects from Google appeared like one thing we may deal with within the meantime.
We determined to optimize our web site and create content material to attempt to compete for “garden care service Nashville,”—which we rapidly realized was going to be extremely onerous with how little area authority we had. So, we pivoted to concentrate on decrease competitors key phrases in cities close by: Smyrna garden grass-cutting service, Brentwood yard upkeep firm, and many others. By writing content material for these smaller bed room communities, we started to rank humbly on web page one for these key phrases and slowly began constructing traction. Furthermore, we have been studying the website positioning sport and constructing a repeatable course of for creating content material to rank for our goal key phrases on a town-by-town foundation.
As you in all probability know, website positioning is an extended play, and it was undoubtedly a gradual burn to start with. However I’m glad we obtained the momentum going early and constructed a playbook that we’d return to repeatedly sooner or later.
Yr 3: Letting the momentum construct
$120,000 in income
Many small corporations put money into progress on the expense of the shoppers they have already got, nevertheless it at all times appeared crystal clear to me that it was going to be simpler to maintain prospects than discover new ones. In some ways, not elevating cash was a aggressive benefit as a result of it pressured us to concentrate on the one factor that mattered (the client) and gave us the time to ensure we have been serving them to the very best of our talents.
So, whereas we waited for our website positioning investments to repay, we additionally have been at all times centered on holding our current prospects glad. There are 1,000,000 issues that may go unsuitable with a garden care service, and we skilled each one on our path of product growth: Our service professionals did not present up on time, they solely mowed the entrance yard, they left a gate open and left the canine out, you title it. Not solely did we now have to construct the tech to ship a constant service, we had to determine the best way to incentivize and train our distributors to do an excellent job and maintain them accountable in the event that they didn’t.
We nonetheless weren’t paying ourselves a wage at this level as a result of each dime went again into hiring builders and designers, hiring website positioning analysts and content material creators, and investing in every little thing we may to develop the enterprise.
Across the finish of yr three, a number of issues clicked directly. For one, we lastly had a product that delighted the overwhelming majority of individuals: After they pushed the button to rent anyone, that individual confirmed up on time and did an excellent job. On prime of that, we began seeing traction from website positioning. I keep in mind sooner or later that 20 prospects signed up, and I didn’t know who any of them have been—I lastly felt like possibly, probably, this might really work.
Yr 4: Encouraging phrase of mouth
$360,000 in income
With extra prospects discovering us by means of search after which having an excellent expertise with the product, we began to see traction from word-of-mouth advertising and marketing. As soon as you’ve got obtained an excellent product that’s delighting extra individuals than not, you get what’s known as “over-the-shoulder virality.” When individuals discover one thing that makes their life a bit of bit simpler, they need to speak about it.
So, whereas we experimented with some referral packages to encourage phrase of mouth, they have been largely a waste of time. The success actually hinged on assembly individuals the place they have been (on-line looking for an answer to their drawback of discovering good garden care), after which delivering on that promise in order that they wished to inform everybody they knew about this nice hack they found.
Yr 5 – 8: Maintain following our playbook as we scale
$1,080,000 to $9,720,000 in income
With a strong service mannequin in place, the following few years have been about growth. In yr 5, we launched in Atlanta, Tampa, and St. Louis. In yr six, we launched Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In yr seven, we launched in about 20 extra cities, and from that time ahead simply saved rising. (We’re presently in over 300 cities across the U.S.)
In every new metropolis we added, we centered on doing extra of what was already working as an alternative of making an attempt to be the very best at a number of issues. Loads of startups take a look at these large corporations which are in every single place—crushing website positioning, paid advertising and marketing, a referral program, social media—and suppose that’s what they should do to succeed. However most small companies don’t have their budgets, and a lot of our success got here from honing in on one channel, as an alternative of spreading ourselves too skinny.
We had a small presence on social media. We did some paid advertising and marketing in new cities simply to juice the natural piece. However, largely, we centered on carpeting the web with our content material and getting that content material to rank and convert properly.
Yr 9: Experimenting to search out our subsequent channel
$17,496,000 in income
We’ve solely not too long ago reached the purpose the place we had sufficient income that I felt we may put money into experimenting to search out our subsequent large advertising and marketing channel. Despite the fact that we’ve achieved big progress strides, garden care is a $99 billion greenback trade, so we’re nonetheless only a drop within the bucket.
Up to now few years, we’ve been doing lots of analysis and growth round our advertising and marketing, however there’s at all times a tradeoff between making an attempt to bust open a brand new channel versus doubling down on what we’re already good at.
As an example, we’ve examined some influencer campaigns (sure, consider it or not, garden care TikTok is a factor). Whereas this noticed some traction—inside a yr, we have been capable of develop the income we attracted from influencer advertising and marketing by 500 p.c—that’s nonetheless such a small quantity of income in comparison with natural search, which nonetheless drives half of our customers in the present day. It begs the query: Ought to we attempt to put extra gasoline on these new methods? Or would we be higher off investing that cash into hiring one other content material author or hiring a technical website positioning specialist?
In our early years, we have been proper to place extra sources into what we have been already good at. However now, we will need to develop into unlocking one other channel. And since we don’t but know what that’s actually going to be, we’re going to simply hold experimenting.
Yr 10: Celebrating each win
$30 million in income
Clearly, we’ve had some fairly large milestones to have fun alongside the best way. However a lot of our success has been about taking our progress step-by-step. It took us perpetually to get our first 100 prospects, however I knew if we may get to 100, we may get to 1,000, and if we may get to 1,000, we may get to 10,000, and so forth. Recognizing and celebrating these small wins actually saved us motivated.
My recommendation to different small enterprise homeowners: Don’t get bent out of form if your organization isn’t big but. Know that the efforts you’re placing in don’t add up, they compound over time. That’s how we obtained to the place we’re in the present day, and I can’t wait to see the place it carries us over the following ten years.