Flodesk is an email marketing platform that enables small businesses and creative entrepreneurs to create beautiful, on-brand email campaigns without requiring technical expertise. Co-founded by Martha Bitar and Rebecca Shostak in 2018, Flodesk offers an intuitive drag-and-drop email builder with gorgeous, customizable templates.
Growth Strategies and Tips
- Conducting daily customer interviews: Flodesk prioritized customer feedback from the very beginning, setting a goal of conducting 12 customer interviews per day. The founders used various methods to find interviewees, including reaching out to personal connections, posting in Facebook forums, cold emailing, and even knocking on neighbors' doors. After each interview, they asked for three referrals, creating an exponential, non-scalable growth loop of leads.
- Obsessing over customer needs: Flodesk built its product based on close observation of customer behavior during interviews and walkthroughs. Instead of creating features based on assumptions, the team watched where users intuitively clicked and built the interface accordingly. This customer-centric approach helped them create an intuitive, user-friendly product that solved real pain points.
- Leveraging viral loops: Flodesk implemented a viral loop inspired by the Hotmail model, adding a "Made with love by Flodesk" footer to every email sent through the platform. This exposed the brand to each user's entire email list, driving organic growth. The team focused on getting users to send their first email quickly, maximizing the impact of this viral loop. Flodesk's founders attribute much of their success to this strategy and recommend prioritizing product ideas that inherently have viral potential.
- Offering an open affiliate program: Flodesk launched an affiliate program early on, noticing that users were organically sharing their positive experiences on social media. The program is open to all users, not just influencers, and offers a unique 50% discount code for affiliates to share with their audience. 76% of Flodesk's affiliate revenue comes from a long tail of "small voices" who may only refer a few customers each. The company also focused on providing value for the affiliate's audience, not just the affiliate themselves.
- Offering an open affiliate program: Flodesk launched an affiliate program early on, noticing that users were organically sharing their positive experiences on social media. The program is open to all users, not just influencers, and offers a unique 50% discount code for affiliates to share with their audience. 76% of Flodesk's affiliate revenue comes from a long tail of "small voices" who may only refer a few customers each. The company also focused on providing value for the affiliate's audience, not just the affiliate themselves.
- Timing affiliate prompts strategically: Flodesk displays the option to become an affiliate at the moment users are most excited about the product – right after they send their first email. By identifying this "aha moment" and prompting users to share at the peak of their enthusiasm, Flodesk maximizes the impact of its affiliate program.
- Timing affiliate prompts strategically: Flodesk displays the option to become an affiliate at the moment users are most excited about the product – right after they send their first email. By identifying this "aha moment" and prompting users to share at the peak of their enthusiasm, Flodesk maximizes the impact of its affiliate program.
- Hustling for startup credits: As a bootstrapped company, Flodesk had to get creative to minimize expenses. The founders reached out to companies like Amazon, Google, and various database providers to ask for startup credits. While they received many rejections, they also secured enough credits to cover all their infrastructure costs from launch until they reached $1 million ARR.
- Hiring the best talent globally: From the beginning, Flodesk committed to hiring the best person for each role, regardless of location. This enabled them to build a world-class team while keeping costs low, for example, by recruiting engineers in Vietnam. Flodesk views its team members as owners, not just employees, and credits much of its success to this global, talent-first approach.
