Flowdesk: From Ugly Emails to Beautiful Designs: The Journey with Martha and Rebecca
Company profile
Company business details
Motivation to build the product
Founders Martha Bitar and Rebecca were motivated to start Flowdesk after encountering poorly designed emails while working in the marketing space. They witnessed smaller brands struggle against larger companies and aimed to empower these businesses with equal design capabilities in their communications.Problem that their product solves
Flowdesk addresses the problem of unattractive email marketing for small business owners who often lack design expertise, making beautiful email communication crucial for maintaining credibility and effective engagement with clients.Their unfair advantage
Flowdesk's unique selling points include its emphasis on beautiful email design, ease of use, and a flat pricing model that charges a single fee irrespective of subscriber numbers, appealing to small businesses with growing email lists.Strategies
Pre-Launch (Product Development & MVP)
User-Centric Feedback Loops
Before launching FloDesk, Martha and her co-founder Rebecca actively sought feedback from potential users to refine their concept. They reached out to small business owners, creatives, and target users through forums and social media, inviting them to discuss their struggles with email marketing. To validate their idea, they built mockups using Figma and InVision, ensuring that the designs remained simple and functional. They encouraged potential users to share what they found confusing, focusing on obtaining 'no' responses to iteratively adjust and enhance the design. This iterative feedback loop led to a final product that genuinely addressed user pain points.
Early User-Generated Content
Early in development, Flodesk leveraged the natural content creation capabilities of its early users. Martha noted that as the beta launched, many users began sharing their experiences through blog posts and tutorials. The Flodesk team capitalized on this by highlighting user-generated content across their platforms, thereby fostering a sense of community and encouraging further sharing. They also created an Affiliate Success Kit to help users create content that benefits both them and Flodesk, enhancing organic reach.
Launch Stage
Viral Footer Implementation
Upon launching FloDesk, the team decided to incorporate a viral footer in every email created through their platform. This footer, which contained a link back to FloDesk, was inspired by early successful models like Hotmail. They knew that each email sent by users would potentially expose a new audience to FloDesk, thus providing organic growth through every user's email campaign. The team capitalized on this by monitoring metrics and seeing how many new sign-ups resulted from this viral feature, leveraging every campaign's reach to exponentially increase brand visibility.
Referral Customer Interviews
In order to acquire their first customers, Martha and her co-founder focused on conducting customer interviews. They aimed for 12 interviews daily, reaching out through various channels like social forums and cold emails. After each interview, they would ask for referrals, leveraging this feedback loop to expand their reach and engage potential users. This approach allowed them to understand customer pain points effectively and generate valuable leads.
Viral Loop Implementation
Martha and her co-founder designed their product to inherently encourage user referrals through a viral loop strategy. Their platform included a footer in outgoing emails that advertised 'made with love by Flowdesk.' When users sent their first email, all recipients could see this footer, generating interest and driving new users to sign up for trials. This organic growth mechanism significantly contributed to their rapid scaling.
Learn more about Flowdesk
416: Flodesk: Bootstrapping a $27M ARR Email Marketing SaaS - with Martha Bitar
Martha Bitar's Top 5 Things That Helped Her Bootstrap to $25M ARR
