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Adam Robinson
These are the best posts from Adam Robinson.
18 viral posts with 36,260 likes, 4,328 comments, and 2,011 shares.
11 image posts, 0 carousel posts, 4 video posts, 3 text posts.
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Best Posts by Adam Robinson on LinkedIn
I've bootstrapped $0-1M 3x times. Last year I spent 30 days reverse-engineering my entire startup playbook for founders and put it all into a FREE course. Here's how to get access: š
UPDATED: Get it here: https://lnkd.in/ghS8gJKC
***Everyone who requested we will send you***
Only 4% of startups make it to $1m ARR.
Why is that?
Because traditional startup thinking is backwards.
Founders come up with an idea, develop a product, then try to find buyers.
That makes logical sense, but the most successful Founders do the opposite.
They sell BEFORE they build!
This course will teach you how to generate revenue before you start building, how to create the perfect Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and how to stay lean and get to $1m ARR WITHOUT investor capital.
Then you control your own destiny.
WHO'S IT FOR:
1. Early-stage startup founders who are struggling to get off the ground
2. Aspiring founders who have an idea but donāt know what to do next
3. Second-time founders who are interested in bootstrapping
3. Investors who want to learn about going $0-$1m the right way
If you want access to my ā$0-$1M ARR SaaS Secretsā course:
- Like this post
- Comment COURSE below
- Send me a connection request
I'll DM it to you.
Keep building!
UPDATED: Get it here: https://lnkd.in/ghS8gJKC
***Everyone who requested we will send you***
Only 4% of startups make it to $1m ARR.
Why is that?
Because traditional startup thinking is backwards.
Founders come up with an idea, develop a product, then try to find buyers.
That makes logical sense, but the most successful Founders do the opposite.
They sell BEFORE they build!
This course will teach you how to generate revenue before you start building, how to create the perfect Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and how to stay lean and get to $1m ARR WITHOUT investor capital.
Then you control your own destiny.
WHO'S IT FOR:
1. Early-stage startup founders who are struggling to get off the ground
2. Aspiring founders who have an idea but donāt know what to do next
3. Second-time founders who are interested in bootstrapping
3. Investors who want to learn about going $0-$1m the right way
If you want access to my ā$0-$1M ARR SaaS Secretsā course:
- Like this post
- Comment COURSE below
- Send me a connection request
I'll DM it to you.
Keep building!
What does the CEO of a $25m+ ARR business (RB2B + Retention.com) ACTUALLY do all week?
Iām not sure what most other CEOās do, because this is my first at batā¦
But hereās what I do.
I drop my daughter off at preschool on an ebike at 8:15. Get to the office at 8:30, and leave every day around 5:30.
I donāt work outside of those hours, or on weekends, but during those hours, there is not a wasted SECOND.
MONDAY: INTERNAL MEETING DAY
- 1 on 1s with Robb, Tate, Keleigh, Diana
- 90min L10* (exec team), 60min L10 (RB2B)
- 1h LinkedIn idea meeting with Alec
- 15-30min with Taylor (email) and Ali (ads)
TUESDAY: CONTENT DAY
- 1h UnF*ck My Startup LIVE
- Write 3 LinkedIn posts (ideally)
- Record 1 YouTube video (Samu writes script)
WEDNESDAY: CUSTOMER CALL DAY
- 1-4pm CDT: 15min customer calls
- Morning - other zoom calls/other work
THURSDAY/FRIDAY: WHATEVER DAYS
- Zoom calls/other work
- Write posts (I usually donāt get my 3 LI posts Tues)
- I go to 1 YPO forum meeting/mo (all day thursday)
- I do a 1-on-1 with jonathan (exec coach) biweekly
- We do quarterly exec offsites that require travel
What are zoom calls/other work?
- Writing posts I didnāt get done on Tuesday
- Working on product, or marketing copy for the site
- Calls w/ Robb and Tate about reinventing RB2B
- Calls w/ Phil about Retention 2.0
- Calls w/ super-smart people about content/virality
- Calls w/ industry people trying to figure it out
- Calls w/ whatever crazy experiment Iām doing that Q (most fail)
- I also love meeting people in the mornings for sauna/cold plunge
*we run EOS at our company, an L10 is a meeting format.
TAKEAWAY
I do not know this for a fact ā¦
But my sense is that other $25m ARR CEOs will look at this and say itās a joke.
That Iām not grinding enough.
Iām not hustling enough.
Trying hard enough.
Ambitious enough.Ā
That may be true.
My response is this:
Iāve been at this game in one way or another for 11 yearsā¦
I look at this calendar and I think:
āI could do this for another 30 yearsā.
And guess whatā¦ If I can?
This thing will be a colossal, epic success.
And in the meantime...
Iāll just keep building.
Iām not sure what most other CEOās do, because this is my first at batā¦
But hereās what I do.
I drop my daughter off at preschool on an ebike at 8:15. Get to the office at 8:30, and leave every day around 5:30.
I donāt work outside of those hours, or on weekends, but during those hours, there is not a wasted SECOND.
MONDAY: INTERNAL MEETING DAY
- 1 on 1s with Robb, Tate, Keleigh, Diana
- 90min L10* (exec team), 60min L10 (RB2B)
- 1h LinkedIn idea meeting with Alec
- 15-30min with Taylor (email) and Ali (ads)
TUESDAY: CONTENT DAY
- 1h UnF*ck My Startup LIVE
- Write 3 LinkedIn posts (ideally)
- Record 1 YouTube video (Samu writes script)
WEDNESDAY: CUSTOMER CALL DAY
- 1-4pm CDT: 15min customer calls
- Morning - other zoom calls/other work
THURSDAY/FRIDAY: WHATEVER DAYS
- Zoom calls/other work
- Write posts (I usually donāt get my 3 LI posts Tues)
- I go to 1 YPO forum meeting/mo (all day thursday)
- I do a 1-on-1 with jonathan (exec coach) biweekly
- We do quarterly exec offsites that require travel
What are zoom calls/other work?
- Writing posts I didnāt get done on Tuesday
- Working on product, or marketing copy for the site
- Calls w/ Robb and Tate about reinventing RB2B
- Calls w/ Phil about Retention 2.0
- Calls w/ super-smart people about content/virality
- Calls w/ industry people trying to figure it out
- Calls w/ whatever crazy experiment Iām doing that Q (most fail)
- I also love meeting people in the mornings for sauna/cold plunge
*we run EOS at our company, an L10 is a meeting format.
TAKEAWAY
I do not know this for a fact ā¦
But my sense is that other $25m ARR CEOs will look at this and say itās a joke.
That Iām not grinding enough.
Iām not hustling enough.
Trying hard enough.
Ambitious enough.Ā
That may be true.
My response is this:
Iāve been at this game in one way or another for 11 yearsā¦
I look at this calendar and I think:
āI could do this for another 30 yearsā.
And guess whatā¦ If I can?
This thing will be a colossal, epic success.
And in the meantime...
Iāll just keep building.
Every B2B founder I talk to wants to start posting on Linkedin. But 95% of them have no idea where to start. Here's a list of 9 content ideas that helped me go viral and generate 50M views on Linkedin (any founder can steal these):
1. Origin Story. Write up a post sharing the origin story of your startup. What was your lightbulb moment? Howād you meet your co-founder?
2. Lead magnet. Yes, it's controversial on LinkedIn. Some hate it. But it works for me! Create a valuable lead magnet and give it away via a LinkedIn post where the reader has to comment to get access. Juices the content in the algorithm, and can help you start conversations in the DMs.
3. Building in public. This was key for me. Is isnāt for everyone. But if you're selling into other founders, documenting YOUR journey as a founder is an easy way to create momentum. Share as much as you can. Hard numbers work best.
4. Credibility jacking. Use well-known names & companies in your category in your hook. For example, write a post detailing Kevin "KD" Dorsey cold calling playbook. Sales leaders might not have known me, but they know him. This gets them interested in the content.
5. Dog-fooding. Can you document your use of your own product? This allows you to be your own social proof. Tyler Denk is doing this well with his newsletter, Big Desk Energy. I need to do more of this!
6. Cast of characters. Once you nail founder content, can you layer in more members of your team? The Michel Lieben and the ColdIQ team are running a masterclass in this at the moment. Dave Gerhardt and the Exit Five crew do it too.
7. Fundraising announcement. If you're announcing a new round, you have a massive opportunity. Nail your fundraise post. Get your team posting around it. Have follow up content lined up. Austin Hughes did this and generated 500+ meetings of the back of their raise.
8. Trend-jacking. A cousin of Credibility Jacking, trend-jacking is when you comment on timely news in your category. For example, if you're in the GTM category and Gmail updates their deliverability rules, write a post about this. Trend-jacking is probably the FASTEST way to speedrun audience growth.
9. ICP tech stack post. This is a tried and true winner. Share a list of all the tools your ICP might need to do their job well. Every time I've done this ("Here's every tool RB2B used to grow to $6M ARR") it's gone viral.
I stole these frameworks from my original ghost writer Tommy Clark.
You should steal them too and apply them to your content.
Tommy was instrumental in helping me get my first 20,000 followers on Linkedin. Since then, he's grown a 7-figure agency helping 100s of B2B SaaS founders build their founder-brand strategy.
What does Tommy know that you don't?
A lot!
So, I asked him to join me on Unf*ck My Startup LIVE tomorrow to share the tactics he uses to rapidly build influence and drive revenue for B2B founders with Linkedin content.
Join us here at (3pm ET): https://lnkd.in/gs-Yyc4p
1. Origin Story. Write up a post sharing the origin story of your startup. What was your lightbulb moment? Howād you meet your co-founder?
2. Lead magnet. Yes, it's controversial on LinkedIn. Some hate it. But it works for me! Create a valuable lead magnet and give it away via a LinkedIn post where the reader has to comment to get access. Juices the content in the algorithm, and can help you start conversations in the DMs.
3. Building in public. This was key for me. Is isnāt for everyone. But if you're selling into other founders, documenting YOUR journey as a founder is an easy way to create momentum. Share as much as you can. Hard numbers work best.
4. Credibility jacking. Use well-known names & companies in your category in your hook. For example, write a post detailing Kevin "KD" Dorsey cold calling playbook. Sales leaders might not have known me, but they know him. This gets them interested in the content.
5. Dog-fooding. Can you document your use of your own product? This allows you to be your own social proof. Tyler Denk is doing this well with his newsletter, Big Desk Energy. I need to do more of this!
6. Cast of characters. Once you nail founder content, can you layer in more members of your team? The Michel Lieben and the ColdIQ team are running a masterclass in this at the moment. Dave Gerhardt and the Exit Five crew do it too.
7. Fundraising announcement. If you're announcing a new round, you have a massive opportunity. Nail your fundraise post. Get your team posting around it. Have follow up content lined up. Austin Hughes did this and generated 500+ meetings of the back of their raise.
8. Trend-jacking. A cousin of Credibility Jacking, trend-jacking is when you comment on timely news in your category. For example, if you're in the GTM category and Gmail updates their deliverability rules, write a post about this. Trend-jacking is probably the FASTEST way to speedrun audience growth.
9. ICP tech stack post. This is a tried and true winner. Share a list of all the tools your ICP might need to do their job well. Every time I've done this ("Here's every tool RB2B used to grow to $6M ARR") it's gone viral.
I stole these frameworks from my original ghost writer Tommy Clark.
You should steal them too and apply them to your content.
Tommy was instrumental in helping me get my first 20,000 followers on Linkedin. Since then, he's grown a 7-figure agency helping 100s of B2B SaaS founders build their founder-brand strategy.
What does Tommy know that you don't?
A lot!
So, I asked him to join me on Unf*ck My Startup LIVE tomorrow to share the tactics he uses to rapidly build influence and drive revenue for B2B founders with Linkedin content.
Join us here at (3pm ET): https://lnkd.in/gs-Yyc4p
Kyle Poyar just analyzed new data from 6,525 SaaS startups and it's WILD. Only 3.3% reach $1 million ARR in less than a year from first revenue. And just 1-in-1000 reach $10 million in less than a year!!
Thats not what you'd think if you only listen to VCs on Twitter.
You'd think if you're not at $100M ARR in 6 months you might as well give up.
Kyle partnered with ChartMogul and dug into their dataset on subscription metrics going back 10+ years and here's what he found:
For startups that reach $1M ARR, it usually takes 2-5 years from monetization.
1. Only 3.3% of startups reach $1 million in under 1 year
2. 13.4% reach $1 million in under 3 years
3. 25.1% reach that figure within 5 years
You can map yourself onto the curve below (see graphic).
It takes time to find PMF and move from founder-led sales to repeatable growth. And premature scaling can kill a great business.
That's why many of the best companies started slow:
- Lovable spent 18 months building before their breakthrough success
- Clay grinded for 6 years before seeing revenue traction
- Bolt spent 7 years to get to $700k ARR before their new product exploded
Tomorrow Kyle (Founder of Growth Unhinged) is joining me on Unf*ck My Startup LIVE to share the realistic playbook for sustainable startup growth.
If you're a founder feeling discouraged by hyper-growth narratives, this session will provide the data-driven clarity and actionable strategies you need to build a long-term, successful startup.
Join us here (3pm ET): https://lnkd.in/gs-Yyc4p
Thats not what you'd think if you only listen to VCs on Twitter.
You'd think if you're not at $100M ARR in 6 months you might as well give up.
Kyle partnered with ChartMogul and dug into their dataset on subscription metrics going back 10+ years and here's what he found:
For startups that reach $1M ARR, it usually takes 2-5 years from monetization.
1. Only 3.3% of startups reach $1 million in under 1 year
2. 13.4% reach $1 million in under 3 years
3. 25.1% reach that figure within 5 years
You can map yourself onto the curve below (see graphic).
It takes time to find PMF and move from founder-led sales to repeatable growth. And premature scaling can kill a great business.
That's why many of the best companies started slow:
- Lovable spent 18 months building before their breakthrough success
- Clay grinded for 6 years before seeing revenue traction
- Bolt spent 7 years to get to $700k ARR before their new product exploded
Tomorrow Kyle (Founder of Growth Unhinged) is joining me on Unf*ck My Startup LIVE to share the realistic playbook for sustainable startup growth.
If you're a founder feeling discouraged by hyper-growth narratives, this session will provide the data-driven clarity and actionable strategies you need to build a long-term, successful startup.
Join us here (3pm ET): https://lnkd.in/gs-Yyc4p
In 2 years, I went from 0 to 142,000 followers on LinkedIn. And I just recorded a 20-minute video to teach you exactly how I did it š (+ we're going to do some free Linkedin strategy sessions)
There is SO MUCH bad Linkedin advice.
"Use X AI writing tool. It captures your voice!"
"Comment 500 times a day"
"Join engagement pods"
"Never use Links"
"Post every day"
Most if it is nonsense.
I used Linkedin content to drive $6M ARR by ignoring all the best practices.
So I put together a training giving away my entire LinkedIn Growth Strategy
I covered:
- The 3 C's framework that made me stand out
- The exact profile optimization checklist and CTA strategy that drives hundreds of inbound leads monthly
- My idea hunting process (using top creators, AI research, mining Reddit)
- The connections strategy that leads to a 60%+ response rates
- Why you should wait 60 days before pitching (while everyone pitches in 48 hours)
Check out the full video here: https://lnkd.in/g8TNqR7S
This is the Founder Brand framework that helped me build RB2B to $6M+ ARR company with just 3 FTEs.
P.S.
If you want a free 30 minute Linkedin strategy session with my Linkedin coach Alec Paul (he's helped some of the BIGGEST creators on Linkedin), like this post and comment LINKEDIN below. We'll choose a few folks and audit your strategy.
There is SO MUCH bad Linkedin advice.
"Use X AI writing tool. It captures your voice!"
"Comment 500 times a day"
"Join engagement pods"
"Never use Links"
"Post every day"
Most if it is nonsense.
I used Linkedin content to drive $6M ARR by ignoring all the best practices.
So I put together a training giving away my entire LinkedIn Growth Strategy
I covered:
- The 3 C's framework that made me stand out
- The exact profile optimization checklist and CTA strategy that drives hundreds of inbound leads monthly
- My idea hunting process (using top creators, AI research, mining Reddit)
- The connections strategy that leads to a 60%+ response rates
- Why you should wait 60 days before pitching (while everyone pitches in 48 hours)
Check out the full video here: https://lnkd.in/g8TNqR7S
This is the Founder Brand framework that helped me build RB2B to $6M+ ARR company with just 3 FTEs.
P.S.
If you want a free 30 minute Linkedin strategy session with my Linkedin coach Alec Paul (he's helped some of the BIGGEST creators on Linkedin), like this post and comment LINKEDIN below. We'll choose a few folks and audit your strategy.
32% of RB2B's $6.5M ARR comes from one channel.
(And no, it's NOT my Linkedin)
It's COLD EMAIL.
But when I ask most founders about cold email...
They say itās dead.
So I just recorded a video breaking down...
- Why most cold email fails
- The email framework that generated 42% of our revenue in 8 months
- Our "inbound-led outbound" system that converts at 10.4% run by Taylor Haren (26X better than average)
- How we send 300K+ emails/month while maintaining 30% positive reply rates
Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/gGFfC59A
(And no, it's NOT my Linkedin)
It's COLD EMAIL.
But when I ask most founders about cold email...
They say itās dead.
So I just recorded a video breaking down...
- Why most cold email fails
- The email framework that generated 42% of our revenue in 8 months
- Our "inbound-led outbound" system that converts at 10.4% run by Taylor Haren (26X better than average)
- How we send 300K+ emails/month while maintaining 30% positive reply rates
Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/gGFfC59A
I just got off the phone with the CEO of a bootstrapped SaaS ($150k ACV deals) who had a LIFE-CHANGING exit to private equity. Here's the crazy thing: their product was only so/so and their marketing was non-existent. But he knew what most early-stage founders don't:
Your product IS not your offer.
Most founders waste 2-3 years building the "perfect" product with every feature imaginable.
Meanwhile, competitors with simpler products but IRRESISTIBLE offers are stealing their customer
Nick Weldon (Founder, 5X5) realized that even though they had worse data than Zoominfo, and were more expensive than Apollo, there was another way to tweak his offer to get PMF.
The result?
A MASSIVE exit less than 36 months post-launch.
What does Nick know that you don't know?
Tune in tomorrow to Unf*ck My Startup LIVE to find out.
If you're stuck in development hell perfecting features while your competitors are closing dealsā¦
This is for you.
Join Nick and I LIVE at 3pm PT: https://lnkd.in/gs-Yyc4p
Your product IS not your offer.
Most founders waste 2-3 years building the "perfect" product with every feature imaginable.
Meanwhile, competitors with simpler products but IRRESISTIBLE offers are stealing their customer
Nick Weldon (Founder, 5X5) realized that even though they had worse data than Zoominfo, and were more expensive than Apollo, there was another way to tweak his offer to get PMF.
The result?
A MASSIVE exit less than 36 months post-launch.
What does Nick know that you don't know?
Tune in tomorrow to Unf*ck My Startup LIVE to find out.
If you're stuck in development hell perfecting features while your competitors are closing dealsā¦
This is for you.
Join Nick and I LIVE at 3pm PT: https://lnkd.in/gs-Yyc4p
If I were starting an AI company, I would not aim for a $1B exit. VCs will hate this, but I think the new startup model looks like this:
In this 1,000 word post Iām going to cover:
1. Bootstrap vs Venture Capital
2. The 4 skills that matter now
3. Where the biggest opportunities are
4. How you should go to market
5. What success looks like
INTRODUCTION
In 2025, what should be the goal of starting a new venture?
Simple.
Generate +$10m ARR with less employees than fingers on one hand.
Either sell that company, or replace yourself, take some time off, and do it again. And again.
Why?
Because the relative attractiveness of a business like RB2Bā¦
ā¦which LITERALLY RAN ITSELF as a $6m ARR company as the 3 FTEās went off the grid for a weekā¦
vs a VC-backed startup is GREATER than itās ever been.
We sat here and proved that itās simultaneously possible to:
- Hit $6m ARR in 18mo
- Have only 3 FTEās, and
- Be AI-native enough to leave for a week
And today weāre growing FASTER, from a 50% HIGHER BASE, than we were six months ago.
āāā
BOOTSTRAP VS. VC
The risk-adjusted financial outcome of bootstrapping has always been far greater than VC.
Most VC founders donāt make money.Ā (The few that have will comment that I donāt know what Iām talking about. Hi guys š)
At my other business - Retention.com - we were able to DISTRIBUTE $5m in cash to the founders on our way to $10m ARR.
And we havenāt sold, and yes, that business is stuck right now, but the reality is that it generates $9m in profit and we find ways to fight the churn and reinvent ourselves.
Meanwhile, almost all of the venture-backed vendors in the Shopify space (with a few exceptions) are suffering a similar fate while burning large amounts of capital every year.
Yes, Klaviyo is worth $10b.
Yes, there are 1-2 other potential epic success stories.
But for the most part, I think if the founders of the other 80% of companies could turn the clock back, they would have probably chosen to do it more like we were doing it.
And itās not just about the money the founders make. Thatās just a nice perk.
Inevitably most founders stall out and are required to reinvent their businesses completely.
The stress of having to do that when you owe someone $100m and your equity is FOR SURE worth less than that, vs. experiencing a mini-exit once a year while youāre doing it, is a night-and-day difference.
I canāt imagine how miserable I would be if weād raised $50-$100m in 2022.
If Iām honest, I probably wouldnāt be around anymore.
āāā
THE 4 SKILLS THAT MATTER NOW
I believe that an entire internet will be built on top of the current version of LLMs, with little incremental improvement of the base layer necessary.
It can already do an incredible amount of things unbelievably wellā¦
IF AND ONLY IF you know how to prompt well.
Realistically, the average joe will NEVER be able to prompt well.
And there is a multi-100-trillion-$ opportunity in that fact.
CONTINUED BELOW š
In this 1,000 word post Iām going to cover:
1. Bootstrap vs Venture Capital
2. The 4 skills that matter now
3. Where the biggest opportunities are
4. How you should go to market
5. What success looks like
INTRODUCTION
In 2025, what should be the goal of starting a new venture?
Simple.
Generate +$10m ARR with less employees than fingers on one hand.
Either sell that company, or replace yourself, take some time off, and do it again. And again.
Why?
Because the relative attractiveness of a business like RB2Bā¦
ā¦which LITERALLY RAN ITSELF as a $6m ARR company as the 3 FTEās went off the grid for a weekā¦
vs a VC-backed startup is GREATER than itās ever been.
We sat here and proved that itās simultaneously possible to:
- Hit $6m ARR in 18mo
- Have only 3 FTEās, and
- Be AI-native enough to leave for a week
And today weāre growing FASTER, from a 50% HIGHER BASE, than we were six months ago.
āāā
BOOTSTRAP VS. VC
The risk-adjusted financial outcome of bootstrapping has always been far greater than VC.
Most VC founders donāt make money.Ā (The few that have will comment that I donāt know what Iām talking about. Hi guys š)
At my other business - Retention.com - we were able to DISTRIBUTE $5m in cash to the founders on our way to $10m ARR.
And we havenāt sold, and yes, that business is stuck right now, but the reality is that it generates $9m in profit and we find ways to fight the churn and reinvent ourselves.
Meanwhile, almost all of the venture-backed vendors in the Shopify space (with a few exceptions) are suffering a similar fate while burning large amounts of capital every year.
Yes, Klaviyo is worth $10b.
Yes, there are 1-2 other potential epic success stories.
But for the most part, I think if the founders of the other 80% of companies could turn the clock back, they would have probably chosen to do it more like we were doing it.
And itās not just about the money the founders make. Thatās just a nice perk.
Inevitably most founders stall out and are required to reinvent their businesses completely.
The stress of having to do that when you owe someone $100m and your equity is FOR SURE worth less than that, vs. experiencing a mini-exit once a year while youāre doing it, is a night-and-day difference.
I canāt imagine how miserable I would be if weād raised $50-$100m in 2022.
If Iām honest, I probably wouldnāt be around anymore.
āāā
THE 4 SKILLS THAT MATTER NOW
I believe that an entire internet will be built on top of the current version of LLMs, with little incremental improvement of the base layer necessary.
It can already do an incredible amount of things unbelievably wellā¦
IF AND ONLY IF you know how to prompt well.
Realistically, the average joe will NEVER be able to prompt well.
And there is a multi-100-trillion-$ opportunity in that fact.
CONTINUED BELOW š
Every 22-year-old YC founder thinks they need $20M in VC and 100 Stanford grads working 9-9-6 in San Francisco to get their SaaS off the ground. They're wrong.
You can do it without ANY of thatā¦
And if you do, you will win NO MATTER WHAT.
But in order to build a fast growing, super-lean, super-profitable startupā¦
You have to do things a certain way.
So I just made a video breaking down exactly how we took RB2B from $0-1M ARR in 6 weeks...
1. How I built a 140K follower audience BEFORE launching (and why)
2. The $100M offer framework that generated 1,600 waitlist signups
3. The "inbound-led outbound" strategy that took us from $0 to $1M
4. How we then hit $6M ARR with just 3 people (no sales team, no VC)
Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/dJ5uK8v8
P.S.
If you haven't yet, go subscribe to my Youtube channel. Iāll be uploading my most in-depth AI, GTM and startup content there.
You can do it without ANY of thatā¦
And if you do, you will win NO MATTER WHAT.
But in order to build a fast growing, super-lean, super-profitable startupā¦
You have to do things a certain way.
So I just made a video breaking down exactly how we took RB2B from $0-1M ARR in 6 weeks...
1. How I built a 140K follower audience BEFORE launching (and why)
2. The $100M offer framework that generated 1,600 waitlist signups
3. The "inbound-led outbound" strategy that took us from $0 to $1M
4. How we then hit $6M ARR with just 3 people (no sales team, no VC)
Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/dJ5uK8v8
P.S.
If you haven't yet, go subscribe to my Youtube channel. Iāll be uploading my most in-depth AI, GTM and startup content there.
Founder Friend: Iāve got 35 AI agents making me 100x more productive!
Me: And youāre still on Zoom calls all day???
[Founder nods.]
Me: Then youāre missing the whole point of AI.
Founder: What do you mean?
Me: Youāre trying to bend AI to do things in your existing business. And yeah, you will see some pretty incredible productivity gains come from that. But it's not enough.
Ā
Founder: So whatās the problem?
Me: If you rebuilt your product, pricing, and go-to-market around AIā¦
it could run your entire front line. Every customer conversation. Every interaction. Youād be free to focus on SUPER-high-leverage stuff. Product, brand, growth.
Founder: That SOUNDS nice, but our product requires a sales call to get people properly educated and onboarded.
Me: Youāre missing the point again. If your product, pricing, and positioning is simple enough, AI can handle ALMOST every customer interaction. We proved that in August this year with RB2B.
Founder: But our product is more complex than yours. It has to be.
Me: Thatās what every founder says right before they get out-executed by some YC kid with an AI-native business. Over the next few years, the old guard will stall out, while a new generation of truly AI-native companies emerge who design their product and go-to-market strategies in a way where every human minute spent ACTUALLY gets amplified by 100x.
Founder: What does that even look like?
Me: AI has made the 3-man, $10m ARR SaaS a reality. How? If youāre not on calls all day, you can spend your time on MUCH higher leverage activity like product, pricing, and growth.
Founder: Yeah, but we arenāt RB2B. So what should I do?
Me: Stop asking, āHow can AI help us do more of what we already do?ā Start asking, āWhat would my business look like if AI could do almost all of it?ā Design that version. Then build toward it.
Founder: Thatās kind of terrifying.
Me: It should be. Because if you donāt, youāre screwed.
Founder: And if I do?
Me: You win. $10M ARR. A couple FTEs. The FU money of SaaS.
Founder: I like the sound of that.
Me: And youāre still on Zoom calls all day???
[Founder nods.]
Me: Then youāre missing the whole point of AI.
Founder: What do you mean?
Me: Youāre trying to bend AI to do things in your existing business. And yeah, you will see some pretty incredible productivity gains come from that. But it's not enough.
Ā
Founder: So whatās the problem?
Me: If you rebuilt your product, pricing, and go-to-market around AIā¦
it could run your entire front line. Every customer conversation. Every interaction. Youād be free to focus on SUPER-high-leverage stuff. Product, brand, growth.
Founder: That SOUNDS nice, but our product requires a sales call to get people properly educated and onboarded.
Me: Youāre missing the point again. If your product, pricing, and positioning is simple enough, AI can handle ALMOST every customer interaction. We proved that in August this year with RB2B.
Founder: But our product is more complex than yours. It has to be.
Me: Thatās what every founder says right before they get out-executed by some YC kid with an AI-native business. Over the next few years, the old guard will stall out, while a new generation of truly AI-native companies emerge who design their product and go-to-market strategies in a way where every human minute spent ACTUALLY gets amplified by 100x.
Founder: What does that even look like?
Me: AI has made the 3-man, $10m ARR SaaS a reality. How? If youāre not on calls all day, you can spend your time on MUCH higher leverage activity like product, pricing, and growth.
Founder: Yeah, but we arenāt RB2B. So what should I do?
Me: Stop asking, āHow can AI help us do more of what we already do?ā Start asking, āWhat would my business look like if AI could do almost all of it?ā Design that version. Then build toward it.
Founder: Thatās kind of terrifying.
Me: It should be. Because if you donāt, youāre screwed.
Founder: And if I do?
Me: You win. $10M ARR. A couple FTEs. The FU money of SaaS.
Founder: I like the sound of that.
In the last 30 days, Iāve made 4 YouTube videos with Samu KovĆ”cs. Each has 2x the views of the last and 10x my other videos. My last one drove 10 RB2B signups. Hereās my new YouTube workflow (it only takes me 1 hour a week):
Iām excited about the possibility of growing my YT channel for a few reasons.
1. I believe deeply in the power of video to create connection deeper than text
2. Despite what Linkedin says, I think my talking heads negatively affect post performance
3. I spend so much time creating content that it seems insane to only have one channel
4. Twitter seems like an impossible nut to crack (would love some examples of B2B content like mine that does well on X. Share in the comments!)
Iām really excited about working with Samu, first-off because of the immediate improvement in views and engagement (albeit from VERY low numbers), but second, because of how we work together.
Hereās our new workflow for creating YouTube content:
1. We have a running āideasā doc.
This is nothing fancy, but Iām constantly adding to it when I see an old post that should be a YT video or notice a gap in RB2Bās educational content that would be good on YT.
2. Samu picks an idea, asks if I have more content.
I either send him any additional posts about the topic, a voice note, presentations Iāve given on the subject, courses ā¦ whatever I have.
3. Samu writes the intro, outro, and bullets of the body, sends it to me by Friday evening
This is the BREAKTHROUGH UNLOCK of working with Samu. I have so much content out there that he can nail my voice. This would be impossible for me to do on my own.
4. I spend 30min putting it in a powerpoint, so I can invert it and put it on my teleprompter.
I make some light edits, get familiar with it, and tee it up for the teleprompter See the photo attached.
5. I record in Riverside, then send Samu the link.
6. Samu edits.
7. We drop a video every Friday, and send traffic from my newsletter and make a Linkedin post about it. Lara Acosta's posts were a big here.
TAKEAWAY
1,500 views per video really isnāt that muchā¦
ESPECIALLY when you compare it to either my LinkedIn presence, or any big YouTube channel out there.
But the trend is moving in the right direction.
Iāve been interested in YouTube for a long timeā¦
Samu finally came up with a workflow that was light enough for me that producing 1 video per week takes under an hour of my time and is painless.
The last time I posted about YouTube I stated my goalā¦
A channel like Instantlyās.
Which gets 3,000 average views per video.
That seemed impossible when I was getting 100-200 views a video.
4 videos in - weāre halfway there!!!
Iām staring to think I didnāt set my goal high enough.
Iām excited about the possibility of growing my YT channel for a few reasons.
1. I believe deeply in the power of video to create connection deeper than text
2. Despite what Linkedin says, I think my talking heads negatively affect post performance
3. I spend so much time creating content that it seems insane to only have one channel
4. Twitter seems like an impossible nut to crack (would love some examples of B2B content like mine that does well on X. Share in the comments!)
Iām really excited about working with Samu, first-off because of the immediate improvement in views and engagement (albeit from VERY low numbers), but second, because of how we work together.
Hereās our new workflow for creating YouTube content:
1. We have a running āideasā doc.
This is nothing fancy, but Iām constantly adding to it when I see an old post that should be a YT video or notice a gap in RB2Bās educational content that would be good on YT.
2. Samu picks an idea, asks if I have more content.
I either send him any additional posts about the topic, a voice note, presentations Iāve given on the subject, courses ā¦ whatever I have.
3. Samu writes the intro, outro, and bullets of the body, sends it to me by Friday evening
This is the BREAKTHROUGH UNLOCK of working with Samu. I have so much content out there that he can nail my voice. This would be impossible for me to do on my own.
4. I spend 30min putting it in a powerpoint, so I can invert it and put it on my teleprompter.
I make some light edits, get familiar with it, and tee it up for the teleprompter See the photo attached.
5. I record in Riverside, then send Samu the link.
6. Samu edits.
7. We drop a video every Friday, and send traffic from my newsletter and make a Linkedin post about it. Lara Acosta's posts were a big here.
TAKEAWAY
1,500 views per video really isnāt that muchā¦
ESPECIALLY when you compare it to either my LinkedIn presence, or any big YouTube channel out there.
But the trend is moving in the right direction.
Iāve been interested in YouTube for a long timeā¦
Samu finally came up with a workflow that was light enough for me that producing 1 video per week takes under an hour of my time and is painless.
The last time I posted about YouTube I stated my goalā¦
A channel like Instantlyās.
Which gets 3,000 average views per video.
That seemed impossible when I was getting 100-200 views a video.
4 videos in - weāre halfway there!!!
Iām staring to think I didnāt set my goal high enough.
You know your startup is way too lean (in a good way) when your customers say your product feels like it was vibe-coded by a crackhead and you REFUSE to do anything about it. #BOOTSTRAPPER4EVA
Retention.com & RB2B grew 1.2% in Sep ā25 to $25.6m ARR. RB2B grew 5.6% to $6.3m ARR and Retention shrank 0.7% to $19.5m ARR. Hereās the good, bad, and ugly that happened last month:
GOOD:
- RB2B hit $6m ARR on Sep 3, WHOOP!
- RB2B did not blow up when all 3 FTE went off the grid for a week and AI ran everything
- We had a GREAT in-person AI hackathon with both teams in NYC
- We are working on re-inventing R!.com in a way that I am incredibly excited about, led by Phil Roselli
- We about to drop a Person-Level Identity API - provide an IP/useragent and get back an email/biz email/biz profile
BAD:
- Unfortunately our core R! business is still stuck (but weāre working on that as we speak)
- I am deathly afraid of reinventing RB2B, even though it is totally obvious what needs to be done - because there is something magical about the current simplicity of it ā¦ so we keep putting it off
- Only generated $799k of cash this month (6mo rolling average was $1.1m last month)
UGLY:
- Maybe Iām looking through rose colored glasses but I see no ugly.
āāā
I stopped posting about Retention.com for a while because I thought it was distracting from the focus of RB2B and its top-of-funnel.
Apparently some of our prospects on that side of the business now think that company is only at $6m and has a team of 3ā¦
And people on the B2B side donāt realize that I have another business, or that the combined scale is in the mid-20ās ARR.
So there you go. Full business update.
āāā
I havenāt been as excited about our business as I am now for a long long time.
RB2B is exciting because weāre showing you how far you can get in 2025 with a combination of a Founder-Led Freemium GTM, entirely AI customer interaction, and a tiny core team.
(Weāre shooting for $7m ARR by year-end and $10m ARR year-end 2026, with 3 FTE!)
Retention is exciting because if this product reinvention works, weāre incredibly well positioned to experience another S-curve of growth in the Shopify ecosystem.
TBD there ā¦ but weāre seeing very encouraging signs.
āāā
I was speaking to a founder friend this morning about how when youāre really excited about your business, everything else in your life is so much better.
Itās an energetic tailwind.
The same is true for the other way ā¦
When things suck (and they have for us, many times)ā¦.
Itās a cloak of anxiety thatās impossible to get out from under.
But manā¦
What a gift - to have something so interesting and dynamic to work on every day.
And with such talented people.
Entrepreneurship is truly the greatest, most interesting game in the world.
The sad thing is that some day the music will just stop.
For me, for my biz, for you, for all of us.
At that point, Iām only have one regretā¦
That I couldnāt just do it all over again.
So Iāll just keep building.
GOOD:
- RB2B hit $6m ARR on Sep 3, WHOOP!
- RB2B did not blow up when all 3 FTE went off the grid for a week and AI ran everything
- We had a GREAT in-person AI hackathon with both teams in NYC
- We are working on re-inventing R!.com in a way that I am incredibly excited about, led by Phil Roselli
- We about to drop a Person-Level Identity API - provide an IP/useragent and get back an email/biz email/biz profile
BAD:
- Unfortunately our core R! business is still stuck (but weāre working on that as we speak)
- I am deathly afraid of reinventing RB2B, even though it is totally obvious what needs to be done - because there is something magical about the current simplicity of it ā¦ so we keep putting it off
- Only generated $799k of cash this month (6mo rolling average was $1.1m last month)
UGLY:
- Maybe Iām looking through rose colored glasses but I see no ugly.
āāā
I stopped posting about Retention.com for a while because I thought it was distracting from the focus of RB2B and its top-of-funnel.
Apparently some of our prospects on that side of the business now think that company is only at $6m and has a team of 3ā¦
And people on the B2B side donāt realize that I have another business, or that the combined scale is in the mid-20ās ARR.
So there you go. Full business update.
āāā
I havenāt been as excited about our business as I am now for a long long time.
RB2B is exciting because weāre showing you how far you can get in 2025 with a combination of a Founder-Led Freemium GTM, entirely AI customer interaction, and a tiny core team.
(Weāre shooting for $7m ARR by year-end and $10m ARR year-end 2026, with 3 FTE!)
Retention is exciting because if this product reinvention works, weāre incredibly well positioned to experience another S-curve of growth in the Shopify ecosystem.
TBD there ā¦ but weāre seeing very encouraging signs.
āāā
I was speaking to a founder friend this morning about how when youāre really excited about your business, everything else in your life is so much better.
Itās an energetic tailwind.
The same is true for the other way ā¦
When things suck (and they have for us, many times)ā¦.
Itās a cloak of anxiety thatās impossible to get out from under.
But manā¦
What a gift - to have something so interesting and dynamic to work on every day.
And with such talented people.
Entrepreneurship is truly the greatest, most interesting game in the world.
The sad thing is that some day the music will just stop.
For me, for my biz, for you, for all of us.
At that point, Iām only have one regretā¦
That I couldnāt just do it all over again.
So Iāll just keep building.