Dmitry Prokopenko

Founder & Dog Daddy 🐶

Building @MeiroAI ✨ &  (CIS market) 🎙
Tweets about growth and my startup journey 🙌

[Meiro @MeiroAI]

Black Friday Magic is here 🖤

Get any Meiro plan at 50% off for 3 days only.
Use the promo code FRIDAY23 at checkout → https://t.co/UZDNG37UrF ✨

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@petyaaa6 @MeiroAI ESP: https://t.co/NdaaLyhCtv
Email builder: https://t.co/X8VleChidI / https://t.co/Dlk6AKwlZz + custom HTML

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

Lifetime access is a great starting point, but it's not advisable to rely on it indefinitely.
Today, we sent out a last call, and in celebration of Halloween, we crafted a festive newsletter for our users 🎃

#halloween2023 #buildinpublic

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@mikececconello @MeiroAI More 😉

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

The 2nd month after @MeiroAI public launch:

💰 $20,255 total revenue (+59.2%)
😻 193 customers (+59.5%)
👥 1,900+ total users (+18.8%)

#buildinpublic

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@evh_genius @MeiroAI Could you share the link to the catalog?

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@gjdaniel99 Thanks! You have a great UI as well 🙌

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

Meiro Affiliate Program is now live 🥳
Check out our awesome site → https://t.co/yzV0XiS6Kn

Big shoutout to @hellogimaev and the @ToltHQ team 🙌

[Meiro @MeiroAI]

Do you love Meiro?

Prove it, share the love, and get a 25% revenue share. Forever.
Meiro Affiliate Program is launched 🥂

What are you waiting for? 👉 https://t.co/UrgVtKAOwu

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

Meiro's Affiliate Program. Coming soon 🔥

#workinprogress #buildinpublic #affiliate

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

Working on one of the most highly requested features for https://t.co/nYezgZLCxK 🙌
Here's a sneak peek at the custom domain feature 👀

#workinprogress #buildinpublic

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

$0 marketing spend: not something to be proud of 😐

You might have come across numerous posts boasting about how a startup attracted hundreds of thousands of users by spending $0 on marketing over 3-5 years. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

It may sound impressive, but in my opinion, it's not an accomplishment.

While this approach might make sense for bootstrapped startups, it has more downsides than benefits. Moreover, if you plan to raise funds, knowing your actual customer acquisition cost (CAC) is essential. Having a CAC of $0 can raise concerns.

TL;DR: Spending a budget and time experimenting with new marketing channels is important.

📌 Why spending significantly more than $0 on marketing is crucial:

1️⃣ Accelerating growth
Growing organically is viable and necessary, but organic growth doesn't last forever, even with the use of SEO and content marketing. Startups that, let's say, grew to 100K users with a $0 marketing budget could potentially have reached 1M users by investing in marketing.

2️⃣ Speeding up the achievement of organic growth
To get organic users and word-of-mouth working, you need to surpass a certain user number threshold. For some, it’s 1K users, for others, 10K or 100K. Reaching these numbers can take months. Using a marketing budget, word-of-mouth effects can be triggered faster.

3️⃣ Quick hypothesis testing
Spending on paid ads, integrating into newsletters, influencer marketing, etc., serves as a quick starting point and rapid mechanism for hypothesis testing. SEO doesn't provide instant results, nor does content marketing. But there are many channels that deliver faster results.

4️⃣ Flexible marketing control
As I’ve mentioned, no marketing channel works forever. At any moment, what used to be a key tool for user acquisition may lose its potency. A diverse marketing mix is crucial to ensure you have an alternative channel for scaling when needed.

5️⃣ Scaling and reducing threats from competitors
It’s impossible to capture your entire market capacity and reach your potential audience without a marketing spend. It’s just a fact. Not to mention that a competitor, who is willing to spend on marketing, may snatch up your market share.

6️⃣ Understanding the real CAC
This is crucial knowledge.

And in reality, nobody spends $0 on marketing, even the authors of those posts. Content marketing and SEO aren’t cost-free. Why isn't the time of content managers, copywriters, editors, designers, and other specialists being accounted for?

🏁 Drawing a line: you can develop your startup by spending $0 on marketing, but in doing so, you're consciously not leveraging the full potential for growth and consistently placing yourself in a precarious situation of reducing the growth rate.

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

Started gathering testimonials to add to the @MeiroAI website 🙌

#buildinpublic

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@mikececconello Thanks 🙌

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

The first month after @MeiroAI public launch:

💰 $12,700+ revenue
😻 121 customers
👥 1,600+ total users
📈 14.2% Conversion Rate: Trial → Paid

#buildinpublic

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

As I've already mentioned, there's no magic here 😀

We were in beta for a few months and developed the product based on user feedback. After the beta phase, our beta users began converting to customers.
Product Hunt gave us a good initial boost.
Let's see how we can achieve significant results in October. It seems like it might be challenging 😅

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@Brandt_Concept Thanks 🫶

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

No magic here.
We grew and developed step by step. We were in free beta for a few months, during which we gathered feedback, refined the product and built relationships with our beta users.
After that, we had a public launch, were featured on Product Hunt and offered lifetime access to the first 100 customers. Gradually, we started using paid ads and got some integrations in newsletters.
Word of mouth began to spread 🙂
Now, we're launching an affiliate program to boost the acquisition of new customers.

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@jakekovoor Thanks!
Shooting for $15-20K in October 🙌

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

@frantzfries Wow, congrats 🎉

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

How can you use these tools for free?
Check out the following platforms and grant programs:

✨ @JoinSecret: https://t.co/DJB69c4psS

✨ @FounderPass: https://t.co/h19O6JumNn

✨ AWS Activate: https://t.co/oVeLAGayGi

✨ ProductHunt Marketplace: https://t.co/Is7mADIjVH

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

How to get $100K+ from the best-in-class tools when launching a startup 💸

As a bootstrapped startup, our focus is on minimizing product expenses while delivering the best product experience.
Here are the tools we use to develop and maintain @MeiroAI, spending only $70/mo 🧵👇

[Dmitry Prokopenko @dmtrprokopenko]

⚡️ Miro – $0
- $1,000 in credits (lifetime)

���️ GitHub – $0
- 1 year free

⚡️ Producter – $0
- 6 months free

⚡️ Linear – $0
- Using free plan

⚡️ Tally – $12.5 (50% off for 1 year)

⚡️ Tilda – $10/month

⚡️ Google Workspace – $42/month

The total savings amount to over $100,000.