<- Back Home

Bundil

• Created a multi channel marketing campaign that led to Shark Tank appearance (Season 10 Ep. 3)

• Acquired initial 300+ beta users for crypto investing app through ASO, Social Ads, and Content Marketing

Links

• Bundil Website
• Blog Post
• Product Hunt Launch

<- Back Home

JomezPro

• Various marketing and growth work: Competitor research, Customer research, Website strategy

Links

• JomezPro Website
• Online Store

<- Back Home

<- Back Home

How I Would Grow a Construction Company

Here’s an overview of how I would think about growing a construction company. I’m doing this for a couple reasons. The first is that I want to get my ideas out there and show the world how my mind works around marketing. The second is that my brother started a construction company, so I wanted to give him some advice and share how I would start from scratch and grow a construction company with no marketing plan whatsoever.This will be just a high level of how I would approach a marketing strategy for the business. First I’ll define the company, then do some quick analysis to figure out who is the customer, and finally I’ll lay out the strategy to go from 0 in revenue to a profitable and sustainable business.The Company
Residential & Commercial Construction Company
Unique capabilities of a personal relationship and high quality work
Differentiated, not lowest costThe company will do both residential and commercial construction. This will require two different marketing strategies, which I’ll get into later. Residential requires more trust and social capital, while growing the commercial side is more about relationships and placing competitive bids. The marketing strategy will have two arms to tackle each of these sections.The unique capabilities of the construction company will be 1) a personal touch and 2) high quality work. The brand/company will need to be differentiated. Based on the qualities of the business, going with a “low cost/cheapest” model wouldn’t be sustainable. On the residential side, most people who are getting their house redone will want quality work. There will be some customers who would prioritize the cheapest price, but they won’t be ideal customers to work with. Especially when starting out, it makes more sense to focus on the high quality work.On the commercial side, relationships and a track record of successful projects will be key to winning bids. High quality work is obviously important here as well, but if you can win projects and deliver on time budget, you’ll be successful.Analysis
There are a few key pieces of information I’d want to understand before building out a marketing strategy for this business. Given that it’s a new business, some of these may not be available, but I always try to start with the customer, move to the business, and then understand the market/competition. When you really boil it down, the two most important pieces of information are:- Who is your customer
- Where is your customerObviously there’s a lot that go into each of those points, and when jumping into a new business, there are other things to understand as well. For example:- Where does current growth come from
- What factors influence them
- Where are the biggest opportunities
- Etc.WhoLet’s walk through these for this construction company and define who they are. First, we’ll go through residential. Who is a customer for a residential construction company? Thinking back on our business, I would look at breaking this up into 2 main segments: new home construction and remodels. Both of these categories are unique, and generally most residential construction falls into one of these buckets. I’ll take a stab at describing each of these - starting with who they are.New Home Construction
People in this segment will likely already know a lot of details and understand the big process they’re about to endure. There might be some outliers, but generally they’ll want someone they can trust to handle a big project while keeping them on time and budget. They’ll probably be dealing with kids/family, juggling a job, and trying to figure out when they will be able to move in, so trust will be key. They might or might not have already looked into the details of a house - floor plan, spoken with an architect, etc. They may even have the lot already picked out and purchased.All of this can give us some good insight into where we might find these possible customers. Here are a few points that most likely define the ideal customer profile for this segment.- Most likely 30-45 years old
- Annual income of $100k+
- Young to middle aged childrenRemodels
Potential remodel customers will generally have a specific task or project they’ll need help with. It could be a small or big project, and they may already know the exact details of what they want to see. Typically they’ll be very focused on one area and might even be searching for it - “bathroom remodel”, “best kitchen colors”, etc. I’ve taken a stab at some points that would define this segment below. Ideally I’d spend some time doing research into both of these customer groups, but for now I’m going based off of instinct.- Current homeowner
- House built before 2000
- Most likely 30-50 years old
- Not handy
- Willing to spend money for expertiseWhile we can also do this for the commercial side, what I’ve generally understood (from those in the construction industry) is that commercial projects are typically driven by some combination of bids and relationships. Segmenting out the different types of projects or companies who are building might prove to be valuable, but for this purpose we’ll stick with those as the most important channels for the strategy. Now that we understand who the customer is, we can figure out where to find them.StrategyNow we can lay out the strategy for how we’re going to find these customers. I want to preface this and say I wouldn’t do all of these immediately. It would depend on a lot of factors: the availability of time to be spent on marketing, the maturity of the business, and the amount of projects.CommercialWith that in mind, let’s start with commercial. I mentioned above that commercial projects are a bit unique because they’re driven by a bidding process. A company or organization will request bids for a commercial project from various construction companies, and make a decision based on the bids they receive. From what I’ve been told the highest and lowest bid are both thrown out, and the organization chooses someone in the middle, typically someone they know or are familiar with.Relationship BuildingFor those reasons, I would recommend 2 main channels for commercial projects. The first is relationship building. As you can tell, relationships are a huge aspect of the business, so it’s important to build relationships as much as possible, with lenders, architects, other contractors, and business people in the different areas of business. Tell every single person you know that you’re interested in commercial projects. There are plenty of ideas and ways to implement this, but I’ll list a few so you get the idea.- Take business cards and drive around to every bank in the area and introduce yourself, the company, and your pedigree
- Take one banker to lunch each week
- Host a meetup for general contractors and sub-contractors in the area to become the most well known GC
- Personally reach out to commercial real estate agents
- Join some local groups and meetups for business owners in the area
- Go and meet with some architects
- Join local chamber of commerce events
- Etc.Cold OutreachThe second is mass cold outreach to find potential projects that you might not have heard of from your network. This could be done through direct mail (postcards), phone calls, or other ways of reaching out. Again, the idea here is to make people aware of your company so they request bids or tell you about projects they know of. There are plenty of ways to implement this as well, so here are a few options:- Scrape business listings in the area and send direct mail (personalized letters or postcards)
- Hire task rabbitters to drive around and find commercial buildings in NWA that are old/need work and contact them
- Research plans of cities, universities, and large organizations to learn about possible large commercial projects that will be happening in the coming years and contact themResidentialFor residential, things get a bit more complicated. Because you are dealing with a larger number of potential customers, there are myriad of ways to connect with them.SEO/Local SEOThe first thing I would do for residential is to focus on SEO & Local listings. Local businesses have a huge opportunity to appear in search results in Google and local business listings. Google is by far the most important search engine for this type of business. I would make sure the business is listed in “Google My Business” and all of the local citations (Yelp, expressupdate, etc.). I’d also create a keyword/content strategy for blog posts.- Create a GMB listing
- Posts on GMB
- Add local citations
- Link building (HARO, local businesses and websites, etc.)
- Keyword research/create contentWord of MouthThe next focus I would have is word of mouth/growth loops. This is a little harder to measure, but the idea is to increase word of mouth. This is where I’d invest into things like business cards, flyers, etc. A few examples of this would be placing a sign in the yard of each project and leaving flyers in the neighborhood. Another more unique idea would be offering $50 off if they share on social media and tag the business.- Flyers in neighborhoods
- Yard signs
- Incentivized sharing
- Referral programEmail MarketingAnother aspect of my strategy would be email marketing. This would be a pretty significant investment, so I would only do this if the email list was big enough and/or the business had someone managing the marketing. Email is a great strategy for growth because everyone has it, and a really good email newsletter can be really valuable to potential customers.- Gather emails
- Send out biweekly email with news and home improvement/maintenance tipsBuilding RelationshipsThe next strategy for residential would be building relationships similar to the commercial strategy. I won’t expand too much because I already gave a few ideas above, but one idea would be to call and visit every realtor and lender in NWA to explain who we are and what we do.- Meet with every architect, lender, realtor, and property manager in the area and ask for referralsLead Generation CompaniesAnother aspect would be using lead generation companies such as Houzz or Homeadvisor. These are done-for-you lead generation services, so they take care of gathering the leads for a specific cost. They can be really helpful at the beginning, but my hunch is that it’s cheaper to do the lead gen yourself (if you can do it well).- Sign up for 3 lead gen companies: Homeadvisor, Houzz, and ThumbtackSocial Media/Paid AcquisitionThe last aspect of my residential strategy would be social media and paid ads. Because the business is very visual, I’d focus on Instagram and Facebook for organic social media. I’d want the social media to be an extension of the brand: very personable, focus on quality, and transparency into the business. For paid ads, I would do the same thing and test running paid ads for lead generation. This would include Google search ads, local map pack ads, and ads on the social media accounts.- Post on Insta & FB
- Run paid ads on Insta & FB
- Run Google search ads
- Run Google local map pack adsConclusion
That’s how I would think about setting up a growth strategy for a construction company. For a small business owner who’s running this business, testing all of these at the same time might be difficult. In that case, I would choose 1 or 2 from each category and test them out. Run the experiments, calculate the metrics (ROI, CAC, ROAS, etc.).After testing and evaluating these, I’d want to focus on a few channels that are the most profitable and fit the business best. Unfortunately I’d only be able to know that information after trying. Thankfully, I’ll be sharing this with my brother, and hopefully be able to help him try some of these ideas. If so, I’ll come back and write an update on how these worked out and which of my assumptions were correct or incorrect.

<- Back Home

No Code is No Good

Okay, first of all, I apologize for the clickbait title. I don't really believe no code is no good. If you know me, this should be obvious because I'm not a developer and have built 5+ websites and side projects using no code tools. Clearly I'm a big fan of no code and how it empowers everyone to build things.The only reason I've been able to build so many projects is because of these great no code tools:
- Webflow
- Zapier
- Sheet2Site
- Airtable
- etc.If you're reading this, I have to assume you have a decent amount of knowledge about no code tools. If not, let me give you a brief overview.These tools (and plenty of others) allow anyone to create websites, web apps, and mobile apps. I'd venture to say that 90-95% of your side project/business ideas can be built without needing to code. No code tools are democratizing the software industry and making it possible for anyone to build their ideas without needing to code.

My first project, Roaster list

The first project I built was Roaster List. I had the idea for Roaster List because I was curious how many specialty coffee roasters exist and compile them in a single spot. I decided to use Sheet2Site because I could create a simple list website within a few minutes. Then I researched specialty coffee roasters and added as many as I could in an hour or so.I was able to launch within 24 hours and officially built my first website and software product. I was hooked.

But now I have a problem with no code.

My problem is that I have spent way too much time building tools and dividing my time between 3+ projects at a time."That's not a problem with no code, that's your problem."Yes, that's true. But because of the capabilities of no code, I've halfway built multiple side projects without following through on my plans any of them. Here's a quick list of my projects:
- Roaster List - Crowdsourced list of specialty coffee roasters
- Art Shield - Intellectual Property tracking online for artists, designers, and photographers
- MineAid - Mine cryptocurrency using your computer to give to charity
- Boom Roasted - Coffee affiliate site
- Maker Spotlight - Newsletter spotlight for side projects
- Churnkey - Personal failed payment recovery for SaaS
- JobBoard.Best - Find the best niche job boards for your job openings
- Coach Tree - Coaching trees for sports writers and reporters
- Showings.io - Virtual showings for real estate agentsTo clarify, these are projects that I started and built a website for. I have plenty of ideas that I've considered but haven't pursued. No code has given me the ability to do that. In fact, I recently tweeted a list of ideas that I decided I didn't have time for.But the cost to this is that I haven't really focused on any of these.I've decided that I need to narrow down my focus, stop building things for the sake of it, and stick with one idea until I know it is (or isn't) the one.That is why I'll be selling all of my side projects and domains.If you need a half-baked idea with a great plan to revenue, feel free to take a look at what I have. I'll be more than happy to give you my path for each idea/project and help you get it off the ground.If you've read this far, I hope you realize that no code can enable you to flex your creative muscles. I love what I'm capable of doing with no code tools. I will absolutely be coming up with new ideas, but will be a lot more careful with what I decide to pursue.

<- Back Home

Product Requirements Example: Moonlight Work

In this post I'm going to talk through how I would document the work needed to create a new feature for Moonlight Work. This will include ideation, gathering requirements, and writing user stories for development. Documenting this is useful for keeping all information together in a single place. It should be accessible by designers, developers, and any other stakeholders who might need to know the information. There are various formats that people use to create these-personally I like to keep it simple. Complex products typically require more complex process, but I typically try to include 4 basic pieces of information:- The problem that's being solved
- Why we should solve it
- Acceptance criteria-what makes this story complete?
- Any metrics that should be trackedThe ExampleFor this example, I'm going to start with ideation. I had created an account with my company to see what a company sees when searching for developers. After some looking through it from the eyes of a company, I noticed that developers are searchable by Technology, Location, or Type of work (Full Time or Contract projects). These are great filters and necessary for companies to be able to find the right developer for their project or team.

(gray boxes added to hide names)

While looking at this page, I wondered if companies would want to sort developers based on the amount of hours they have worked through Moonlight. The information is available and is part of the developer's profile. My assumption is that companies would feel more comfortable hiring a developer who has a proven track record of working with Moonlight and has experience managing a project through the product. This is typically where I would get in touch with users or potential users and run some interviews to determine if this is a need for companies who are looking to hire. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to speak with anyone, so for this post I'm going to assume that I did 15 interviews with companies that are actively hiring and validated that this is a pain point they have. (Soon I will write a post on how to run customer interviews) Let's also assume that companies typically wanted developers who had at least 10 hours of experience on Moonlight or developers who had at least 50 hours of experience on Moonlight.This brings me to the next part-Why should we solve this? This is normally answered by qualitative data (user interviews, surveys, etc.) or quantitative data (product metrics, A/B testing, etc.). In this case, I would perform user interviews to determine this feature would bring value to users. If possible, I would also view metrics for how a user interacts with the search function.- Do they filter, click into a developer's profile then leave?
- If so, why do they leave? What information are they looking for?
- Is there any information missing in the filter view or in the developer's profile?These are the types of questions I would try to ask and understand before building this feature.Now that I've "validated" my hypothesis, I'll create a prototype to help explain the feature idea to the team. Below is an example prototype I built using carrd.co. This is where the details of the problem and proposed solution would be discussed. Part of the goal here is to introduce the team to the feature to gather ideas and feedback. The other part is to begin documenting acceptance criteria of what would make this feature complete.

(**Disclaimer - this prototype was built using carrd.co, so I didn't have s much flexibility in the design)

As you can see, I want to make this as close as possible to how the feature will look as part of Moonlight. Unfortunately Carrd.co has some limitations and I wasn't able to create exactly what it will look like. I would also consider using a prototyping tool like Sketch or Figma.This is when the details of the feature need to be really fleshed out. The more detail that I can include in these requirements, the less confusion there will be for the team building it. This is especially important for asynchronous teams who rely on clear communication. Here are the requirements and user story for this feature:

As a Company hiring developers on Moonlight, I want to search for developers based on the amount of hours they have worked through the Moonlight platform.

Requirements:
- On the search page that companies use to search for developers, there should be another filter option available to search by hours worked
- The design should match the other filters, but the text box should be a clickable drop down
- The text above the text box should be "Hours worked"
- When a user clicks in the text box, they are presented with a dropdown selection to choose a minimum amount of hours worked
- The options available to choose should be: "0-10 Hours", "10-25 Hours", "25-50 Hours", "50-100 Hours", "100+ Hours"
- When a user chooses any of the options, the developer results should filter based on their selection (i.e. A developer with 12 hours worked should appear when the "10-25 Hours" option is selected. A developer with 60 hours worked should appear when the "50-100 Hours" option is selected.
- When an "Hours worked" filter is selected, no developers outside of the selection should appearThe last part of this feature will be metrics to track. Understanding how your products are used is vital to finding product-market fit. Without this information, you are flying completely blind to the most important part of your company: your users. Here are the metrics I would want to track for this feature:- The amount of times the "Hours worked" option is filtered and used
- The amount of times a developer is hired immediately after the "Hours worked" option is filtered and used
- The Total $ amount spent on a developer after the "Hours worked" option is filtered and usedThis is the basic process I use for creating a new feature. Each step is an important part of creating a new feature. It starts with the user-their problems and needs-and comes full circle back to the user in the form of new valuable features.I hope you enjoyed reading this through. If you have any thoughts or feedback I'd love to hear it!