Essay · 15 min read

Growing ConvertKit to $5,020 in Monthly Recurring Revenue

Nathan Barry Free Intermediate

Barry documents personally emailing bloggers he had researched individually, offering to migrate their email lists by hand for free in exchange for becoming a customer, the purest version of trading effort for trust instead of faking proof he did not have. It is a longer, more honest account than most growth stories, including the stretches where almost nobody replied.

  • Offering to personally do the hard part for a prospect can replace the case study you don't have
  • Niching down to a specific, well understood group of people made outreach far more effective
  • Early growth was slow and mostly manual for far longer than the eventual success story suggests
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The question it answers

  1. How do I cold email my first ten customers when I have no logos, no traction, and no case studies?

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