I recently sat down and reviewed how well Cartfuel has progressed in the last 12 months. Last year (2021) we made a total gross of $3,158.12 and a total net of $2,663.92. We had a total of 22 active customers. Those customers collectively made $84,092.95.
This year (2022) we made a total gross of $27,000 and a total net of about $23,000. We have a total of 48 active customers. Those customers made $700,000.
That is a total gross increase of +709.4%.
And a total net increase of +735.0%.
Cartfuel customers processed +732.9% more compared to last year.
Keep in mind these numbers are from the beginning of December 2022, so they should increase before the year ends.
The major shift in revenue and customer GMV boils down to one thing…
Building a product that solves an actual problem for a specific customer segment.
In my case, those customers are HubSpot customers. HubSpot customers needed a way to sell their digital products and have the sales data reflected in HubSpot.
So I built an integration for those users.
And because CRMs are often overlooked, there was little competition.
I don’t have to worry about other digital product-selling tools like Gumroad, SendOwl, ThriveCart, Sam Cart, etc. The reason is, they are focused on a different customer segment.
They focus on the creator economy. I focus on businesses that use CRMs AND sell digital products.
This allowed me to market to customers who use a specific tool (HubSpot), and have a legitimate business. They aren’t newbies who are unsure of what they are selling.
My customers have validated their offer well enough they need a CRM to operate their core business.
In other words, they have money to spend on a tool like mine.
Because of this, I was able to offer the Cartfuel HubSpot integration as a part of our business plan, which was $97/mo.
Compared to our lower-end plans, which were $17/mo and $37/mo, creating a plan that was $97/mo increased MRR quicker.
As they say, the easiest way to increase your bottom line is to raise prices.
So that’s what we did.
But to get to this point I had to make plenty of mistakes. One clear mistake was not focusing 100% on HubSpot customers.
I still had plans and features for non-HubSpot users.
This caused confusion because our messaging and product positioning was unclear.
We were trying to be a product for everyone which impacted our revenue and product direction.
This will be solved in 2023 with more focus on HubSpot users. We will change our product positioning, and messaging and make it clear that Cartfuel is a product specifically for HubSpot users.
We will also remove all lower-end plans and introduce two new higher-end plans that offer more features for specific use cases.
My takeaway from this experience is that if you are starting a business, or re-positioning an existing one, start by identifying a specific customer segment and focus your product, messaging, and efforts on that segment. That way you won’t find yourself trying to attract too many different types of people at once, which can be overwhelming and confusing.
Most of our revenue was driven by HubSpot users. Yet, I was so focused on non-HubSpot customers that we missed out on a lot of potential revenue.
Take this as a warning – always focus your product on a specific customer segment, and don’t try to serve everyone at once.
You’ll find product-market fit and reap the rewards of a compounding SaaS business faster.