Beginning my firm, I felt assured about two issues. The primary was that I had a profitable concept: 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 tough it was for a house 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 remedy this downside for either side of {the marketplace}.
I additionally knew I didn’t need to increase cash. Regardless that, throughout me, I used to be watching corporations touting themselves as “the Uber for [insert service here]” increase tens of millions 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 somewhat extra slowly if it meant we have been constructing one thing that might final.
Thus started a decade of slowly and steadily rising GreenPal, culminating in us hitting $30 million in income final 12 months. Whereas it’s arduous to sum up ten years of development in a single article, listed below are among 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 12 months in enterprise, we didn’t have any form of person acquisition technique. My co-founders and I had spent practically a 12 months constructing the primary model of the app, and after we completed, we thought, “Man, that was actually arduous, glad that’s completed.”
We didn’t understand the arduous work had solely simply begun. We shortly discovered that for those who 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 objective of getting our first 100 prospects so we may get suggestions (and a few preliminary income), and started working pounding the pavement, passing out door hangers and flyers throughout Nashville. We had no concept what we have been doing and doubtless 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 beneath our belt, we used their suggestions to refine our product, however we additionally bought 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’d ask household and pals for suggestions first but when that didn’t flip something up, they might Google “garden care service close by” out of desperation.
We knew profitable on word-of-mouth would take time. We wanted to maintain engaged on perfecting our product and repair supply earlier than folks would begin speaking about us. However determining methods 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 shortly realized was going to be extremely arduous with how little area authority we had. So, we pivoted to deal with 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 search engine optimisation 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, search engine optimisation is an extended play, and it was positively a gradual burn at first. However I’m glad we bought the momentum going early and constructed a playbook that we might return to repeatedly sooner or later.
Yr 3: Letting the momentum construct
$120,000 in income
Many small corporations spend money on development on the expense of the shoppers they have already got, however it all the time 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 compelled us to deal with the one factor that mattered (the shopper) and gave us the time to ensure we have been serving them to the perfect of our talents.
So, whereas we waited for our search engine optimisation investments to repay, we additionally have been all the time targeted on maintaining our present prospects pleased. There are 1,000,000 issues that may go incorrect 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 identify it. Not solely did we now have to construct the tech to ship a constant service, we had to determine methods to incentivize and educate our distributors to do a great 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 search engine optimisation analysts and content material creators, and investing in every little thing we may to develop the enterprise.
Across the finish of 12 months three, a number of issues clicked without delay. For one, we lastly had a product that delighted the overwhelming majority of individuals: Once they pushed the button to rent any person, that individual confirmed up on time and did a terrific job. On high of that, we began seeing traction from search engine optimisation. 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 way of search after which having a great expertise with the product, we began to see traction from word-of-mouth advertising and marketing. As soon as you have bought a great product that’s delighting extra folks than not, you get what’s referred to as “over-the-shoulder virality.” When folks discover one thing that makes their life somewhat bit simpler, they need to discuss 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 folks the place they have been (on-line looking for an answer to their downside of discovering good garden care), after which delivering on that promise so that they needed 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 subsequent few years have been about enlargement. In 12 months 5, we launched in Atlanta, Tampa, and St. Louis. In 12 months six, we launched Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In 12 months seven, we launched in about 20 extra cities, and from that time ahead simply stored rising. (We’re at present in over 300 cities across the U.S.)
In every new metropolis we added, we targeted on doing extra of what was already working as an alternative of making an attempt to be the perfect at a number of issues. Numerous startups have a look at these large corporations which are in all places—crushing search engine optimisation, 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 targeted on carpeting the web with our content material and getting that content material to rank and convert nicely.
Yr 9: Experimenting to search out our subsequent channel
$17,496,000 in income
We’ve solely lately reached the purpose the place we had sufficient income that I felt we may spend money on experimenting to search out our subsequent large advertising and marketing channel. Regardless that we’ve achieved enormous development 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 a whole lot of analysis and growth round our advertising and marketing, however there’s all the time 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 illustration, we’ve examined some influencer campaigns (sure, imagine it or not, garden care TikTok is a factor). Whereas this noticed some traction—inside a 12 months, we have been in a position to develop the income we attracted from influencer advertising and marketing by 500 %—that’s nonetheless such a small quantity of income in comparison with natural search, which nonetheless drives half of our customers at the moment. 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 search engine optimisation specialist?
In our early years, we have been proper to place extra assets into what we have been already good at. However now, we will should 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 preserve experimenting.
Yr 10: Celebrating each win
$30 million in income
Clearly, we’ve had some fairly large milestones to have a good time alongside the best way. However a lot of our success has been about taking our development step-by-step. It took us eternally 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 stored us motivated.
My recommendation to different small enterprise homeowners: Don’t get bent out of practice if your organization isn’t enormous but. Know that the efforts you’re placing in don’t add up, they compound over time. That’s how we bought to the place we’re at the moment, and I can’t wait to see the place it carries us over the subsequent ten years.
