71. With Risk Taking, There’s No Cheat Code - with Adam Robinson

In just two and a half years, with just six people, Adam Robinson bootstrapped his company, Retention.com, to $12M Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) with 6 employees. By next year, he’s on target to hit $20M ARR.

Join Jim and Adam as they explore the importance of taking calculated risks while building businesses.

3 Key Takeaways

• Focus First, Expand Later: Retention.com sells only to Shopify Plus (top-tier) stores. Find a niche (in the market) and exploit it. Worry about expanding after you’ve won that market.
• Experiment with Minimal Resources: Before throwing substantial amounts of time and money at a business idea, dedicate the least amount of resources to it to check if it’s viable. Try experimenting as lean as possible. Only after you receive a strong signal back from the market should you throw significant capital at an idea.
• Market Variability is Real: Sometimes your business will have growth spurts where you’re growing rapidly, and you’ll need a larger sales force. At other times, it could seem like that sales force is twiddling their thumbs. Be aware of what’s happening in your market and react appropriately.

Resources

Visit Retention’s website: https://retention.com/

Adam Robinson on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/retentionadam

Adam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RetentionAdam

The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win, a book by Steve Blank that Adam recommends: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976470705/

About Our Guest

Adam Robinson is the Founder and CEO of Retention.com. A former finance professional at Lehman Brothers, Adam launched Robly, an email marketing company. With no prior tech background, in two years he grew the bootstrapped startup to $5M in revenue. When a cutting-edge identity resolution feature he added to Robly gained user interest, he pivoted. With an 8-figure exit, he founded what would later become Retention.com. Today, Retention.com transforms anonymous website visitors into authenticated first-party data, helping clients unlock unparalleled high-ROI marketing flows.

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