{"id":916,"date":"2019-11-01T09:30:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T09:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.co\/?p=916"},"modified":"2024-06-12T13:00:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T13:00:19","slug":"our-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.co\/our-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we\u2019re sharing Our Journey…"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Welcome to the Project.co Our Journey <\/em><\/strong>series!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve created this series to document and share every<\/strong> aspect of our drive to grow Project.co: the good, the bad and the ugly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll be laying out, in glorious technicolour detail, every tactic, technique, trial and tribulation – as well as all the results – as we try to grow the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, in itself, is a fairly big, unusual – and risky! – decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, where better to start, than by discussing why we\u2019re doing it – and what we hope to achieve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why bare our soul?! <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ok, so we\u2019re not the first company ever to share our story with warts-and-all transparency. I\u2019ve followed other brand\u2019s stories with great interest – GrooveHQ<\/a>, ConvertKit<\/a> and Buffer<\/a> are a few that come to mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this type of content stands out because of how honest and transparent it is. That transparency is a breeding ground for real <\/em>value. You know, and trust, that if something doesn\u2019t work for them, they\u2019ll tell <\/em>you it didn\u2019t work. It builds a sense of investment, and personal connection to those brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We live in a world where everyone <\/em>has a platform – but so many people only use it to highlight the best bits. The big investment, the rebrand, the staff social night out. Nobody dares share anything other than total success stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This creates an illusion that growth is this tidy, binary thing that occurs along a neat and tidy straight line. Of course, this isn\u2019t the case!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach means we all hide and bury our failures – and, at the risk of sounding cheesy, that denies everyone a real chance to learn and improve. I\u2019d actually argue that failure, far from being something to be ashamed of, is necessary <\/em>for genuine success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project.co is a totally new brand.  We do have our first users on the system – around 4,000 accounts, gathered predominantly through a launch campaign we ran with AppSumo<\/a> – but we\u2019re very much at a standing start with our monthly recurring revenue (MRR). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project.co is a totally new brand, and the chance to tell the story from \u2018nothing\u2019 to \u2018something\u2019 is a really appealing one. This is particularly true because I often wish I\u2019d documented the growth of our other brand, Wyzowl<\/a>. We could have added so much value – inspired people to try the things that worked for us, and maybe encourage them to think twice about pursuing the things that didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overcoming the doubts…<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course, for all the benefits I\u2019ve outlined above, this hasn\u2019t been a cut-and-dried decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because <\/em>of how airbrushed everybody\u2019s brand story is these days, it does feel pretty uncomfortable when you start thinking about putting all <\/em>your successes and failures out there for people to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having had the idea, I brought it up with our internal marketing team, and there were some mixed opinions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all saw the value and felt a sense of excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we also shared the same concerns and anxieties; what if Project.co isn\u2019t <\/em>the success we want it to be? What if it is <\/em>a success but growth is slow, and unremarkable, and uninteresting? Would that be embarrassing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, though, we agreed that – for better or worse – this is <\/em>our story, and it\u2019s better to share than to hide. I hope that being open and transparent will help us reach people who can comment, share their own advice and tips in return. It\u2019s a two-way street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m particularly excited about being able to share our story with some of the great communities out there, like Growth Hackers<\/a> and Indie Hackers<\/a>. We\u2019re looking to help, inspire, add value – and also start a communication around the best ways to grow a SaaS business. This should be a great exercise for us and <\/em>you, our audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens next?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, going forward, we\u2019re going to be releasing regular updates – starting bi-weekly – about what we\u2019ve done, and what the results have been. You\u2019ll find them right here on the Our Journey <\/em><\/strong>blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll also be sharing a monthly round-up by email which will give an update as to where our customers have come from – to the best of our tracking ability – indicating the tactics that have been the most successful for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can sign up and get that email straight to your inbox by filling in the form below\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, that\u2019s a bit about Our Journey. We hope you\u2019ll join us for the ride!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve created this series to document and share every aspect of our drive to grow Project.co: the good, the bad and the ugly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":288734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-journey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Why-were-sharing-Our-Journey.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgGBe0-eM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}