🚪How Dan built a newsletter ad marketplace that got acquired

The No-Code Exit Story of Dan Kulkov and Sponsor This Newsletter

Jun 22, 2023

Hello everyone,

Katt here with a new story from No-Code Exits.

This week I talked with marketing king Dan Kulkov.

Learn how:

💪 He validated the idea in 2 days
🏗️ He built a new acquisition channel for indie entrepreneurs
🧪 Scoping down matters
💸 He doubled his revenue by raising his price with 200%

Enjoy it and happy building my friends!

🎈 6 Cool Finds

*This section is a mix of paid sponsorships (in bold) and cool things I use, discovered or made.

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Personalize any web application with PixieBrix. Leverage the power of AI and automation to streamline workflows

Toools is a directory full of high-quality design assets, tools and tips.

The best Bubble courses to get you from 0 to SaaS founder without code. Made by a No-Code Founder who walks the talk.

Small Bets is a cohort course that learns you how to minimize risk with building a portfolio of small businesses.

Create stunning one-page websites with Limey - a new no-code tool to build dream one-page websites.

🔥 Maker Interview

Hello Dan, tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Dan. I am the Co-Founder of MakerBox and Marketing Co-Pilot AI. I create marketing tools and resources for Solopreneurs and Indie Hackers.

One year ago, I left my 9-5 job to build an Indie business with Sveta Bay. No-code helped us to move fast — we built the first landing page in one week and created the first MVP in a few days.

Tell us about your product that you made?

SponsorThisNewsletter is a database of 200+ newsletters ready to promote digital products and services.

We both have newsletters and know how tough it's to monetize your audience there. And we also know that Startup Founders struggle with getting users. Because audience building takes time, and paid ads are expensive.

Combining these 2 facts led us to the simple conclusion — we need to unlock a new acquisition channel for Entrepreneurs. Our product will make it easier to get high-quality traffic from newsletters.

And to make it stand out from the competition, we added 2 cherries on top. No additional commission on sponsorships on our part. And 70+% newsletters are open to affiliate marketing deals (no upfront payments). Building another newsletter database is a highway to get ignorable.

Which No-Code tools did you use?

We planned to build a marketplace of newsletters. But this is a huge scope for the first version. That's why for thee first version we created a database in Airtable. And surveys in Tally to get the data from newsletter Creators. A simple version of the marketplace.

And, of course, Webflow for the landing page, Notion for organizing the files, Senja for testimonials, and Lemon Squeezy for payments.

It's a very lean stack. We only paid $18 a month for Webflow.

What went into building the initial product?

We spent 2 days validating the idea: competitor research, asynchronous surveys with advertisers, and newsletter creators.

I always recommend running interviews and not sending surveys. But we didn't have much time for the validation stage, and something is better than nothing.

Then it took us about 2 weeks to get the first 100 newsletters onboard. I sent a lot of cold Twitter DMs. A thousand at least, all manually to keep it simple and cheap.

Webflow was new to us because we usually build landing pages with Typedream. So, maybe one-two week to learn key features and ship the first version.

Why with No-Code?

I think 95% of MVPs should be built with No-code tools. Because the risk of getting 0 sales is real. Even if you are a seasoned entrepreneur.

With this in mind, I will always choose wasting one week with no-code tools over wasting a few months coding everything from scratch. Test fast. Pivot in days, not weeks.

What was your business model?

We took one-time payments from advertisers. Pay once and get lifetime access to the database. The biggest revenue driver was unexpected. We just increased the price by 200%. And started to get x2-3 more revenue every month without getting more website visitors.

My hypothesis — if B2B customer sees the higher price, they have more trust in the promised value. And you get an increased Conversion Rate and average order value. What a dream!

How did you attract users?

Our key marketing campaign was to launch on Product Hunt. Because there are many potential customers, we have an engaged audience there.

Luckily, we won the #1 Product of the Day. It gave us immediate social proof for the landing page and a lot of customers. Way better than we had planned.

To be honest, we didn't do any marketing after it. We got website visitors from our Twitter bios and Google searches. As organic as it gets!

We tried Google Ads and affiliate marketing promotion, but the results were meh. So we kept the marketing on auto-pilot and switched our attention to other products.

Can you tell us more about the acquisition?

There are 2 reasons why we sold Sponsor This Newsletter:

1) AI hype
There are a few AI-powered marketing tools for Solopreneurs and Indie Entrepreneurs. And this market is growing way faster than the creator economy. So it was a no-brainer to switch to a more promising and exciting market.

2) It required a lot of attention
I am 100% alright to send hundreds of cold DMs one week. But doing it every month is quite overwhelming. We need a more minimalistic product for our digital nomad lifestyle.

We used Acquire to sell the product. I think the whole process took one week and 20 website clicks. Fantastic experience.

Can you share some numbers/stats?

I want to sleep without thinking I shared too much.
So here is my vague-ish overview:

It was a 5-digit sale.
More than one hundred advertisers
All-time sales in the $5000-10000 rang
Around 6000 website visitors

What's your advice for No-Code Makers who are just starting out?

Keep it lean. Tools are distractions in 95% of cases.
Don't build systems and automation before you've validated the demand. You will always have time in the future.
Do marketing that goes beyond your personal brand. If we did that better, we would get x2 better valuation.

🙌 When you’re ready, here’s how I can help

Find product ideas that bring you customers on auto-pilot
Kickstart your no-code journey with these no-code courses
Learn which no-code tool is the best for your idea
Browse through the full library of no-code success stories
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