How Chime Social Reached 70 to 80 Customers and Just Under $500 MRR as a Side Project (Interview with Spencer Jones)

Introduction and Background

Nathan Latka

00:00Hello everyone. My guest today is Spencer Jones. He's an unstoppable learner currently learning how to build software companies. He's built three products in the past that made zero and shut them all down. Recently, he launched Chime Social in January this year, a Twitter scheduling analytics tool and his first profitable product. Spencer, you ready to take us to the top?

Spencer Jones

00:17>> Let's go.

Nathan Latka

00:17We love profitable products. Why did you decide to dabble in Twitter analytics as this this last one in January?

Why Spencer Launched Chime Social

Spencer Jones

00:24>> Yeah. My last product, I spent eighteen months building, like I said, zero revenue. And at the end of that, as you you have this experience of, I spent a whole bunch of time. Nobody cares what I've built. Nobody wants what I've built. And so I decided this year, I'm gonna just I'm gonna do things differently, not overthink it. So I was gonna build four products this year, one every three months until something sticks. I wanted to

00:51>> build something that connected with software engineers. I wanted to get active on Twitter. So I started Chime as Twitter scheduling for software developers. That just didn't work out. You know, got some early customers, early users, but but they're more or less like

Nathan Latka

01:05Developers don't developers aren't necessarily the persona that you would attach to tweeting a lot. Right?

01:10Right.

01:10Right. But

First Customer and the Shift to Twitter Analytics

Spencer Jones

01:11>> I had built some sort of developer specific tools like being able to kind of, you know, natively do code snippets and stuff like that that were like well formatted and like optimized for posting on Twitter. But people just it it it wasn't really capturing anybody's attention. So I was doing that in January. But I did get, like, my first customer in January, Dustin McCaffrey, who was on your show a couple weeks ago, which was which was

01:36>> awesome. Thanks. And Great. Yeah. So I just I just didn't overthink it. I just went for it. And,

01:43>> after, like, after a couple months not feeling, like, really much traction there at all, I thought, like, I wanted to do figure out when my followers were active. Been doing a bunch of work with Twitter API, and, like, figured something out. And at the end of a my working session, I had this chart that showed a graph of, like, what's my best posting times were based on my followers activity, tweeted a picture of that, and it

02:08>> kinda instantly got some interest from that. So I built it, productize it, shipped it, got like four or five more customers

Nathan Latka

02:15Show right now. You do you do everything?

Spencer Jones

02:18>> I do everything. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

02:19Own a 100%. No investors.

Spencer Jones

02:21>> Correct.

Current Customer Count

Nathan Latka

02:22Love this. Okay. I don't wanna bury the headline. How many customers today do you have?

Spencer Jones

02:27>> Last I checked, it's somewhere around 70 or 80. 80.

Pricing Model

Nathan Latka

02:31Oh, great. And and and what's the pricing model on this Twitter analytics tool? How much do they pay per month?

Spencer Jones

02:37>> It is currently $9 per month or $89 per year.

Nathan Latka

02:41Okay. So so I have so many questions. Right? Because there's a lot of first time a lot of listeners right now are going, I'm stuck in corporate. I'm gonna launch around SaaS like Spencer. You know, the hard the hardest part might be the hardest part in a SaaS, the whole life cycle from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue is the first customer, like the first paying customer. So Yeah. How did like, tell can you tell

03:00the actual story? I mean, who was it and how did you actually get them to stick in the credit card and pay $9 a month?

Getting the First Paying Customer

Spencer Jones

03:05>> Yep. So I started the price point starting out was a little lower, $7 a month. And it this it was it was cheating a little bit because Dustin was running this thing on Twitter, said, you know, if you're an indie maker and you don't have any customers yet, like, reply to my thing and I will be your first customer. And that kind of blew up. He I I think he ended up, like, being the first customer,

03:29>> like, for 60 people's products or something like that. But he was my first customer, and he's still a customer. And, like, just upgraded to the annual plan to, like, show longer support. But that gave me such a huge boost of confidence. So I think that, like, if you are just out there trying to get your first customer, you gotta hustle a little bit. You gotta put yourself out there. You gotta reply to that stuff. You gotta,

03:52>> like, look for people who are talking about your problems. Say, hey. You go use my product.

03:58>> And getting what I've said is you can get your first customer, then you can get 10. If can you get 10, you can get a 100. If you can get a 100, you can get a thousand. So you just gotta get that first one.

Nathan Latka

04:07Yep. No. Totally. So 75 customers, 6 7 to $99 a month each or they pay annually. So you're doing what, like, $107,100 bucks a month right now in MRR?

Spencer Jones

04:16>> It's a little lower than that. It's just under 500. So Okay. Great.

Nathan Latka

04:21That's great, though. Still, mean, this is this is this is I mean, this is, like, a fantastic story. So after Dustin, explain to me how you went from 10 to 50 customers.

Ten Slots Before a Price Increase

Spencer Jones

04:29>> Yep. So I ran something that, like, as I was releasing some of these more analytics focused features, improving the scheduler, I knew I wanted to raise prices. So somebody said, hey. I've I've got, I think I said, 10 slots left at this pricing point, and then it goes up. And those were taken in about, like, in about twenty four hours.

Nathan Latka

04:53Who did you say that to? Like, you tweeted this? It was an email list? What?

Twitter as the Only Acquisition Channel

Spencer Jones

04:57>> All everything's on Twitter. Okay. So you tweeted Yep. Twitter right now is my only channel, which kind of makes sense because it's a Twitter scheduling and analytics tool, so I wanna find people on Twitter. Yep. Yeah. I just was tweeting that to to folks that are following me on my personal account. So so that was a that was a nice little jump that took it to like one forty, one fifty or so. And it's kind of

05:18>> been slowly growing. It's great because it's it's a network tool, so people talk about Chime Social on Twitter. So other Twitter users find find it that way. And then, you know, so so it's kind of like continued slow growth talking releasing new features, you know, tweeting pictures of what's happening, building in public, and that that gets interest. And then I did an official launch. I actually renamed the product to Chime Social. Did an official launch with,

05:44>> like, a nice, promotion that was, like, 25 off for one day just as, like, a launch thing, and that also got a pretty good bump and got it up to about, up to 500 MRR mark that is

Nathan Latka

05:57This is, like, this is a this is sort of a microcosm of what you see in a lot of very successful SaaS companies say. To give you some analogies, Nathan Barry, right, ConvertKit, the way he's, like, driving a lot of growth analysis, he's doing his mini competitions. So so there's some sort of activity or thing that you as the founder put into the world, whether it's a tweet because you're increasing price or letting your customers compete.

06:21And when they compete, they use you more and end up paying more. But doing these, like, little competition things, think, are are really powerful. What's the next one? What's your next idea?

Spencer Jones

06:30>> I am not set on what I'm going to do next to drive some more revenue. I'm releasing I'm gonna be releasing some new features around content analytics. A lot of the analytics so far have been focused on timing when your followers are active, all that. And I wanna get into kinda optimizing your content and figuring out what what's working. So when those features go out live, I'm gonna do some promotions around that as well.

Pricing Philosophy and Going Higher

Nathan Latka

06:53You you're at $9 a month right now. We've got, like, sixty, seventy people on that. What happens if you just increase it tonight to to $47 a month?

Spencer Jones

07:01>> $47 a month? I'm grandfathering folks in because I I think that's the right the right thing to do.

07:09>> Honestly, I don't know. I don't think that the value is quite there yet. So the way I like to frame that conversation is if it's $47 a month, I want to know what makes it worth $47 a month. And I think at that price point, you're targeting power Twitter users who are getting financial gain from Twitter, right? Like they're they're selling, it's an important marketing channel or something like that. So my guess is that my conversions

07:36>> would totally tank at that price point. But I think you could have a really interesting conversation around what is worth $47 a month for a Twitter tool.

Nathan Latka

07:45Generally speaking, with most early stage runners I talked to, they always devalue their own tool. They always think it's worth less than what the market actually thinks it is worth, especially if you just went eighteen months with a product that no one paid for and maybe your confidence took it and now you're like, I just want to get customers seven months, nine months. It feels really, really good. It's always a question I'm interested in asking, How

08:05do you think about pricing and how do you go up? Do you feel like you potentially do devalue the tool? I mean, have you asked? Have you gotten great stories from folks going, oh my gosh, this is so cheap. I'm using it. It saves me three hours a day.

Spencer Jones

08:15>> Yeah. I I haven't gotten any feedback like that. I do know that I've gotten folks from competitive products that are priced higher saying that was too much. So and and Chime Social is kind of right in where some of some other products are. Yep. So I'm a little nervous based on the fact that I've gotten price sensitive customers coming from other products going that was too high.

Nathan Latka

08:38Yep. Yep. When when they come to you and after they sign up and they say it's too high, do you ever ask them, hey, what could they have added that would have made that price point totally worth it for you? And and do you get any product ideas that way? How do you get I mean, this is one of the things you have to do. You're a solo guy, so you've gotta prioritize feature releases. How do

08:55you sort of decide when to listen and when to not listen to your customers?

Being the Primary User: Danger and Benefit

Spencer Jones

08:59>> Yeah. I'm I'm the primary user of my product, and that's that's a dangerous spot to be because sometimes you build something just for yourself. Why is that dangerous?

Nathan Latka

09:11Why is that I think a lot of people listening will go, oh, no. That's a great thing. Why why would you consider it dangerous?

Spencer Jones

09:15>> Why is this dangerous? So Arvid Arvid Kahl had a great episode on his podcast, The Bootstrapped Founder where he really dives into this. But the danger is that you you are facing a problem, and either you're the only one who faces that problem or the solution that you build, you're the only one who wants a solution like that. So you really have to balance building something for yourself with with validation from other people who say yes,

09:41>> like, I want that solution, or yes, I experienced that problem in the same way. So if, like, if your goal in building something is actually a profitable business, which I think is what we're what we're after here. So I think that that is a danger. So, but I have I have a vision in my head for where I wanna go with Chime, and there's a set of features that I want. And I want it to be,

10:02>> a really awesome Twitter tool generally. So, stuff around, like, stuff around content, stuff around multiple accounts, stuff around managing your mentions. All these are pains that I experience as a, like, as a, you know, I don't know, power Twitter user. But I balance that with when I have something I want to build, I will tweet about it, I'll ask people, hey, does anybody else experience this thing? Do you have this problem, put up a screenshot of

10:34>> something I'm working on? If I release this as a as a feature, would you want to use it? Stuff like that. And and I get a lot of signal that way to make sure that I'm still on the right track.

Bootstrapped Solo Founder and Future Plans

Nathan Latka

10:43Yep. No. That all makes good sense. Now you are are bootstrapped and team of one today. Right?

Spencer Jones

10:48>> Correct.

Nathan Latka

10:48Any plans to raise or add more people to the team to speed up production?

Spencer Jones

10:54>> No. I am, I am in chats with a a fellow to partner up, so I should I guess I should modify that. So we're planning on partnering up and releasing a a native iOS app, which would have been, like, test driving for a while, and it's it's really awesome. And I think that's that is a huge value add. So this this fella iOS developer, so we'd be partnering on that.

Nathan Latka

11:18How many people listening would go, Man, he went eighteen months without paying himself with a failed project, and then he had some before that. This one right now is up to $500 a month. I would love to do that, but I can't live off $500 a month in revenue, even if I took all that as just my own profits. How have you sort of modeled your personal life to give yourself this flexibility?

Side Project and Full-Time Job

Spencer Jones

11:37>> So this this is an important part of the story. This is a side project. I'm I work full time during the day.

Nathan Latka

11:45When do you when when when do you cut bait? When do you force yourself to go all in on Chime?

When to Go All In on Chime Social

Spencer Jones

11:52>> I think it's I think it's gonna be a while. We live in a fairly expensive area. I've got a wife and two kids. So,

12:03>> yeah, I mean, in the 15,000 MRR range.

Nathan Latka

12:07That's where you need to get yeah. Yeah. And what what's the full time gig? What are you working at?

Spencer Jones

12:11>> I'm a software engineer at a company called Morning Consult.

Nathan Latka

12:15Okay. Very cool. So so you're in the same world, software development. It's not like you're, like, an architect with a soft SaaS side project or something?

Spencer Jones

12:23>> No. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm a software developer there. But the the awesome thing about doing a side project, especially as a kind of one person thing, is that I'm thinking about marketing. I'm thinking about distribution channels. I'm, like, doing design and product development where you work in a, you know, a large software company. You're you're more or less pigeonholed into just like, I just write software in my in my day job. But with Chime

12:45>> Social, I get to do everything, which is which is really fun.

Famous Five Rapid Fire

Nathan Latka

12:48Spencer, on that note, let's wrap up with the famous five number one favorite book.

Spencer Jones

12:52>> I would say April Dunford's Obviously Awesome.

Nathan Latka

12:55Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Spencer Jones

12:58>> I'm I'm paying a lot of attention to Damon Chen, his story on Twitter. He's doing some awesome stuff, just quit his job, and also April Lynn Alter. She's doing some really cool stuff with Tenderfoot.

Nathan Latka

13:12Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Chime?

Spencer Jones

13:16>> I'm a big fan of Render.

Nathan Latka

13:19What what is it?

Spencer Jones

13:19>> Render.

Nathan Latka

13:19What?

Spencer Jones

13:20>> Render.com. They're kind of like a simplified Heroku.

Nathan Latka

13:24Interesting. Okay. Number four. Or how many hours of sleep are you getting every night?

Spencer Jones

13:29>> Four to six. Four to six.

Nathan Latka

13:31Kiddos, it sounds like. So so you mentioned married. How many kids?

Spencer Jones

13:34>> Two kids.

Nathan Latka

13:35Two kids. Okay. And how old are you?

Spencer Jones

13:37>> 31.

13:38>> 31. Last question.

Nathan Latka

13:39What's something you wish you knew when you were 20?

Spencer Jones

13:41>> Sales. I wish I knew that when I was 30 too.

Nathan Latka

13:47There you have it. Chime. So broke his first seventy, eighty customers call it, doing four hundred, five hundred bucks a month in revenue, $6,000 in ARR. He's bootstrapped one man team, launched back in January. So nice growth first four months. Question is what will he do next? Will he ever stop the full time gig and go all in on the side projects? For now though, he's having fun building, he's having fun catering to his users and

14:08building this to ultimately for himself as the number one power user. Spencer, thanks for taking us to the top.

Spencer Jones

14:13>> Thanks, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

14:15One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU, CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it. And the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday, 1PM

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