If this is the first time you’re hearing about Flodesk, I’m going to enlighten you about the revolutionary email marketing platform that blows other popular tools out of the water and has been spreading like wildfire while creating a community of raving super fans. I hopped on the Flodesk bandwagon pretty ahead of schedule, making myself an early dubbed super fan, which is why I am so excited to have had the pleasure of sitting down with the founders of Flodesk, Martha and Rebecca. Today we’re taking a step back behind the scenes of the brand and breaking down why they think they were so successful with launching Flodesk, and how they created their super fanbase. Read on to hear the main takeaways so you can apply them to your own entrepreneurial journey and take on your next million-dollar idea.

How Flodesk Created the Painkiller, not the vitamin

What began as entrepreneurial meetups consisting of drinking wine and complaining about the problems in the world, actually became the catalyst for a major startup business breakthrough. Martha and Rebecca knew that if they were ever going to actually start something, it would have to be a painkiller and not a vitamin. And by that they mean, it needed to be addressing a really, really big problem. That problem was right in front of them all along.

“Email marketing is the highest converting channel. We’re very passionate about entrepreneurs, we are ourselves entrepreneurs, and we know that email marketing will lead to profitable businesses. And entrepreneurs today, especially like this movement of women who are starting businesses because they’re passionate about what they do better than anyone else, they don’t know how to use this channel, so they end up building their audience on Instagram, and Instagram can disappear anytime or the algorithm can change and all of a sudden it just displays your message to a very small portion of your audience. So we were like, “You know what? This is a really big problem. And now that we know that it exists we can’t not address it.” That was it. We knew it was going to be hard, but we were like, “Yeah, this is it. Let’s do it.”

If you start with something you find that you’re very unhappy with and wish to solve for yourself, there’s a pretty good chance that others are also looking for a solution to that same problem. The first step is identifying what that is, so you can improve it for yourself and others.

Find the Total Addressable Market

The next step is once you find a problem, find the total addressable market and understand your audience. So that is, how big is the market of people that also have this problem because that is going to tell you how profitable and sustainable the business can actually be. Martha and Rebecca knew that email marketing was something that entrepreneurs were struggling with, and people got excited that it was finally being addressed. 

Martha points out, “There’s also something special about coming in before these blow-up and understanding that you were in early and wanting to tell the world that, wanting to be part of that growth. And I think that that was a really strong reason for why people were so excited about sharing.”

Additionally, and this is important, especially if you’re trying to build a software product, Martha says that “there is a native viral loop within the product and this is also what explains a lot of the growth.” She explains that if you sign up somebody with 10,000 people on their email list and they send it out, then those people are exposed to the brand and this beautifully designed email marketing. If they find themselves struggling with the same problem, all of a sudden they’re exposed to that same solution right away. This leads to a sign up and once they send an email to their list, it continues the viral loop. When determining your target market, consider how exponential your reach can be!

Rebbeca adds, “And I think that when you’re developing a product, when looking to launch something, it’s important to have an incredible understanding of your audience and research into the product itself and really iterating it until it fits well, before launching. And I think that that helped us a lot too, even though it felt like a very incomplete product to us in some ways, it was still very much designed to give a special feeling that people loved and wanted to talk about.”

Pay Attention to Feedback and Revise

Once you have your platform available to the public, Martha and Rebecca express the importance of being open to feedback and really using it to their advantage. Flodesk is so good about taking feedback and then immediately implementing it, that it makes its users feel heard and allows them to continue making the platform better and better. 

Martha had said, “Okay, let’s be super open to this feedback and let’s truly understand what is working and what is not and how do we solve it and build it to address those issues, and that made all the difference…We thought about our members when designing it from the ground up, and it was built based on feedback that we got continuously from our members. So it was kind of like a custom sewn glove that was created to fit their hands. And the product was really made for the people that we serve and people are like, “Wow, this was just made for me.” 

Because Flodesk listened to their audience and used their feedback intentionally, they surprised us in a refreshing way in that every corner of the product is designed to give people a special experience that leads them to become raving superfans. 

Remember the phrase, if you build it, they will come? Flodesk founders firmly disagree with that statement because at the end of the day, “if you build it to solve a very specific problem for a very specific audience, they will come and they will stay”. 

Flodesk is just getting started, and we’re so excited to see what’s to come as they continue to strive for better solutions to their customers’ problems. Hopefully, these ladies have inspired you to take on some of your own ideas and build something that leads to a community of loyal, raving fans of your own.

So are you ready to hop on the Flodesk bandwagon? Use the affiliate code to receive 50% off your subscription forever. Making Flodesk only $19 per month no matter the size of your list. It’s time to take your email marketing to the next level!