I’m Dodd Caldwell. I run MoonClerk, Loft Resumes, and Rice Bowls. You can find me on Twitter.
So this title may be a bit of click bait; I did recently raise the cost of MoonClerk by 66% but it’s just our introductory price and it just went from $9 to $15. That may not sound like a big deal but I put a lot of thought into this decision and MoonClerk is my livelihood, so it sure seems like a big deal to me. I’ve stressed over MoonClerk’s pricing since well before we launched. I wouldn’t say…
Churn is one of those business concepts that isn’t on many first time SaaS founders’ radars. I know it wasn’t on mine. It’s sort of like the concept of cash flow for first time founders of retail or manufacturing businesses. You don’t think much about it until it bites you. The 2 Types of Churn When I refer to a “churn” rate for my startup, MoonClerk , I’m referring to two types of attrition:…
We launched MoonClerk about 14 months ago and from our start to this month (April, 2014), we’d kept the same design for our marketing website. I figured it was time for a refresh and I wanted to make some improvements so I worked with the same designer who helped with our original site to come up with a new design. Now, our original site wasn’t broken. In fact, it had been converting well. We had…
I’m a 35 year old struggling entrepreneur. I haven’t had my Mailbox moment yet. But that doesn’t mean I’m still not trying. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes, even if I was just a toddler. When I was a little kid, my Dad was a struggling entrepreneur too. He was trying to make his greenhouse business work but the problem was, he didn’t have a green thumb. One…
I’ve never run a big business, but I have spent (correction, wasted) tens of thousands of dollars in my startups on Pay Per Click (PPC) ads through Google Adwords and other ad networks. I’ve gotten some business from it but I’ve never been able to make it work. Maybe there are some companies out there who are wildly successful with Adwords, but I’ve never met anyone who has…
This isn't a postmortem. Bellstrike, isn’t dead or dying. We have a great product (we let nonprofits set up attractive, donation-enabled websites in about 1-2 minutes,) but it’s not profitable. I’ve lost a lot of money. But I shipped. And by shipping I learned. I learned why some ventures lose money and why you shouldn’t always be upset about it. Why My Startup Is Losing…
At the end of February, I launched a side project, Loft Resumes , with a friend of mine, Emory Cash . Our tagline is “Style-Conscious Resumes for the Standout Job Seeker.” As you can tell from the Google Analytics screenshot below, from the time that we first tweeted about it on February 21st to mid-day March 31st, we’ve received over 81,000 visits (over 66,000 of them uniques,)…
Two weeks ago, I launched Bellstrike . We let nonprofits setup a good-looking, donation-enabled website in about 1-2 minutes. Here’s what I’ve found to be true for Bellstrike: Getting a little recognition is better than launching to crickets In the 2 weeks since we’ve launched, we’ve received a little over 26,000 visitors (almost 22,000 of them unique). We’ve had about 173 signups. I think a…