How “Must Marketing” Helped Me Bootstrap A Profitable Startup – Andrew Warner Interview by Lisa Bruckner
on Jun 12, 2009 - 7:00 AM PSTMixergy fan, Lisa Bruckner saw me interview other entrepreneurs here and asked, “Where’s YOUR interview Andrew?” She wanted to know how I bootstrapped that $30+ MM/year business and a few other things about me.
So I invited her to interview me. In the interview we talked about business concepts like “must marketing,” which takes viral marketing and adds urgency to it, but Lisa also asked some personal questions about my fiance, childhood and clothing.
The FULL program
Video excerpts
About this program
Lisa Bruckner asked the questions. She is a men’s style consultant for the Trunk Club. She’s also a guest writer for BIG Blog and the Trunk Club Blog, in addition to writing for her own blog Wasabi Nights.
Andrew Warner answered the questions. He’s the founder of Mixergy.com.
Excerpts from this interview
Discovering a passion for business
Lisa: Can you tell us about your childhood and how you grew up?
Andrew: Business and reading were very important to me growing up.
When I discovered reading, my life changed. I was exposed to worlds of new ideas that I never knew before. One of those worlds just happened to be business. I think it’s because the library near my house had a great business section, full of stories of entrepreneurs.
Many of the books at the library were about young entrepreneurs who built mega-successful companies from their homes or college dorm rooms. So I started fantasizing about doing the same thing.
I also come from a family of entrepreneurs and I grew up in a neighborhood where entrepreneurship was encouraged.
In my neighborhood, when it snowed hard, a lot of us kids would go out and shovel snow for their neighbors and we had to negotiate our prices. I don’t think I was very good at first because I heard other kids talk about how much more they got paid. That made me more curious about business skills because they became practical. So I went to the library and read as much as I could about business.
Getting the first big sale
Lisa: Where did you learn the most about entrepreneurship, school or life out of school?
Andrew: My most useful lessons came from books and stories about entrepreneurs who did well.
When I launched Bradford & Reed, my previous company, I needed to sell ads but I couldn’t reach the big advertisers. I heard about a company that represented the big guys, so I called them up and asked, “Could you please sell ads on my site? I think you can earn good commissions from the ads you sell on my site.” They rejected me. They said my audience was too small for them. For weeks I kept calling back, but they just wouldn’t budge.
So I wrote out a check for all the money we had at the time–about $2,000–and made a surprise visit to their office. I told the head of the company, Rosalind Resnick (who I’ve interviewed on Mixergy), that if she couldn’t make money off selling ads on my site, she could keep my check.
Rosalind said, “You’re too small of us. You’re pretending to have a bigger audience than you really do. And even that made up number is too small. But I like your determination so I’m going to sell ads for you.”
That was my first dependable source of revenue, and because I kept reinvesting it in the business, it helped my company take off.
Now I didn’t read a book that told me explicitly how to do that. But after reading hundreds of stories of ambitious entrepreneurs who took initiative, I was able to come up with my own approach.
Building an audience through “must marketing”
Lisa: How specifically did you build your audience?
Andrew: For Bradford & Reed we used a method I call “must-marketing.” Must marketing means that if people want to use your product, they must market it too. In our online greeting card business, a user came to our site, picked out a card and sent it out. Only they really didn’t send the card. They sent a *link* to the card. The greeting card was on our site. So every time someone sent out a card, what they were really doing was sending a link to our site — they were marketing our business for us.
Lisa: Should entrepreneurs focus on one project or many?
Andrew: *For me,* focusing on one — with lots of variations and experiments — thing is better. I didn’t get involved in any other business when I ran Bradford & Reed, but the company experimented a lot. We started out thinking that email newsletters would be our main product, but one of our experiments was online greeting cards and it ended up being the company’s growth engine.
Spending too much time at work
Lisa: Bradford & Reed took up 100% of your time, do you feel you have a personal life now with Mixergy?
Andrew: I’m trying not to repeat the mistakes that I made before.
When I built up Bradford & Reed it was nonstop work. Even when I took time off, I read books and magazines in search of ideas or next steps.
Then I ran into financial trouble and I thought, if I go bankrupt I won’t get to do all the things that I put off. I won’t be able to date, go on vacation, or any of the normal things people do. I decided that when I got my business straightened out I’d get a life.
Eventually, with the help of great people, I was able to fix the company, make it profitable, and sell it. After the sale, I committed myself to dating, talking to people, and just getting out there.
Relaxing is still a challenge for me, but I’m engaged to a great woman who’s helping me learn how to do that.
Starting Mixergy
Lisa: How did Mixergy get started?
Andrew: It started from my frustration with the “happy-clappy” self-help movement and my determination to replace it with something that’s more in touch with the real business world.
At one of my toughest times running Bradford & Reed, I went to a self-improvement seminar. It was run by a guy who said, “I’m going to take the old business rules and crush them. Then I’ll teach you new lessons and new habits. And I’ll get you pumped up.”
Seemed strange to me, but I committed to doing it. So when he got everyone pumped up and dancing around, I did it too. At the end of the seminar, I said to myself, “This was fun, but my business isn’t going to be fixed from this. I still didn’t know how to grow my sales or keep paying my bills. All my issues are still there.”
But he offered a one-on-one coaching plan with certified coaches. So I signed up. I tried a couple of the coaches, but neither one had any real business experience. They were parroting back what they heard in the seminars, but none of it was based on any real business experience.
That got me fired up. I was determined to someday find away to have real business people help each other. After I turned things around and sold my business, I realized I had the time to finally do it.
I built Mixergy to replace the “all-knowing” seminar gurus with a mix of businesspeople who have real-world experience.
Lisa: Is Mixergy your ultimate plan?
Andrew: I hope Mixergy ends up making me my billions of dollars. But my first goal isn’t revenue. It’s to leave a legacy.
Full program includes
The marketing concept that helped Bradford & Reed become one of the 20 most visited web properties.
Why all those self-improvement gurus are ineffective and who you should learn from instead.
Why school might have hurt your chances of success in business and what you can do to reverse the damage.
Suggested comments
The video of this interview is awful. Should I have only posted the audio and ditched the bad video?
What did you think of the “must marketing” ideas I talked about in the interview?
Was this interview helpful? What would have made it more helpful?
View Comments to “How “Must Marketing” Helped Me Bootstrap A Profitable Startup – Andrew Warner Interview by Lisa Bruckner”
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June 12th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Hi Andrew!
FINALLY! It was about time. I am going to listen to this one my flight back home. Can't wait.
One issue. The audio link (MP3) is not very obvious to find. It will be great to have an icon or something that say MP3 or audio so people can quickly find it, grab a copy and go. Just a suggestion.
Have a great week-end and thank you for doing this.
Mo.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Andrew,
Good interview.
Thanks for taking on this mission of yours. I especially like the idea of using videos to persist and share experiences. There are a lot of entrepreneurs like me out there who live in rural areas and don't have a chance to meet up and learn from others. I wish you could take this to the next level, but I'm not sure where the next level is! Perhaps some sort of dynamically interactive site where people can explore issues and hear from multiple people via video — like having a business meeting just on your topic with some of the best people in the industry where you could ask questions and get video responses? That would be cool. You gotta love us programmers: always trying to take something simple and make it complicated.
I liked your comments on not having all the answers. It took me a long time to learn this lesson. I kept reading books, listening to tapes, and chasing all the “experts” in the field only to finally realize that the best you're going to get is somebody's opinion. Just because they sound confident doesn't mean what they're saying has value.
Must marketing seems like such an obvious idea — it's one of those things that are so obvious people overlook it. I think the catch here is that must marketing must be an integral part of your product. Some products lend themselves to it and some don't. With e-cards you found that sweet spot where the product itself was also a marketing tool. I don't think that would work with a checkbook management program, for instance.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I think this interview was helpful in helping viewers get more acquainted with you. What would've been interesting to hear were the various struggles Bradford & Reed had to go through in detail. I was a big fan of a show that used to air on CNBC called “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch,” and hearing the struggles of entrepreneurs that would frequent the show were very inspiring. Moreover, through reading watching that show and reading biographies I concluded that the trait uber-successful entrepreneurs have is perseverance. Your story seems to support this conclusion as well.
Must marketing sounds like an idea that coincides/compliments Seth Godin's “idea virus.”
June 12th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I agree, that would very interesting to hear Andrew.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Wow , that was a great post, I definitely can relate to the majority of this interview!
June 13th, 2009 at 3:52 am
Very good Interview Andrew and Lisa. It is great to know more about you Andrew, but I would also like to know much more about the details of how you grew Bradford & Reed step by step. I think the best way to know about that is if you interview your brother Michael ;), that would be awesome.
About “must marketing”, I think it is a great concept, but it can't be applied to every product or business. I've been thinking, but I don't find a way to apply this concept to the app my company is about to launch. If you have any idea it would be great.
June 14th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Good stuff. Thank you Andrew and thank you Lisa!
The way you explained “must marketing” was arguably even more valuable than the concept itself.
Bad audio is way more annoying than bad video; good call on posting both.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Great interview. Although the picture was a bit jumpy the sound was fine, so I thought it provided a better experience than if it were just audio. Definitely worth a watch.
I thought Lisa did a great job. It can't be easy interviewing Andrew, he's so used to being the intrepid interviewer now, he most likely interviews his dog, the mailman and everyone else he meets these days :)
Some thoughts that stood out to me as worthy of further investigation…
- If we agree that there isn't one answer, one path or one solution to the challenges of a start-up or success in general, it makes it harder to create a product. And it makes it a lot harder to get people to buy that product. People want THE solution, THE formula, THE way.
It would be interesting to discuss what viable alternatives exist that people are already conditioned to pay for.
In relation to mixergy and making it sustainable I would say that, some people like to learn, but most people don't like to pay much for learning. What they will pay for are solutions. Specific, “this is the answer to all your problems” solutions.
We see this clearly in the publishing and training world and you touched on both.
More people are willing to pay thousands of dollars to have some magic “downloaded into their brain” over a couple of days than to spend the time really learning about topics in detail through the tens of thousands of cheap and accessible books that are available to us all.
- “Must marketing” is a great concept. I'm going to have a think about if it can be applied to my business. I can't see any obvious way at this point. I suspect this is more than just a technique that can be applied to any business and more of a model that a business is based around.
I do like the idea of building “desired behavior” into the system though. An example that springs to mind is speed dating or games that force interaction at networking events.
If you leave a room full of people to their own devices they will huddle and not mix well.
If you build mixing into the system, you bi-pass all the human foibles that might prevent it.
I was wondering how or if “must marketing” applies to mixergy?
- The style segment was interesting as well, although that's the first time I've seen you get stuck for words Andrew ;)
It's definitely an interesting point about perception and how people dress. I made a quick list of people who I see as strong leaders in their fields and they mostly fell at extreme ends of the spectrum. They either dressed to be very smart or they dressed with no regard for looking smart at all. There were very few in the middle.
I think that would make an awesome split test. Anyone done it? Two video's that lead to an outcome, film one dressed smartly, one dressed casually and see which converts the best.
I'm sure that how we dress makes a huge difference to how we feel and present ourselves as well as how others perceive us.
I can hear people right now saying “but you have to be yourself”. Style is such a personal thing it can easily get emotional, but it's still part of the image and brand we project and probably deserves more attention than we give it.
For the sake of discussion, if we looked at it from a purely marketing / branding perspective is it ever a good thing to try and cover all bases? ie. Look professional as well as casual?
I thought I knew the answer to that, until I wrote it down, but I guess the answer is, it depends on who your market is. Are you targeting a professional market, or a casual market or an in-between average market.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Andrew good interview, thanks for actually telling us what Bradford & Reed was really about.. I actually only made it 48 minutes in and right now im trying to go where i left off but your video content manager wont let me skip to where i was?
June 14th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I love the idea of must marketing, however i have a question that is similar to Daniel Markhamin the comments.. Can it work for every/any product? Its seems like a great idea for a product like email greeting cards or Skype, in which the user has no choice but to “must market”. How would “must marketing work for a product like mixergy? Where your users or customers do not have to market the product in order to use it.
Looking forward to hearing back. Great interview!
June 15th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Great interview! Thanks for sharing your experiences in entrepreneurship. Interesting about Bradford and Reed. I can see a Part 2 interview just about the beginning and struggles with starting, running and eventually selling of Bradford and Reed. That would be a good addition to Mixergy about the life cycle of a company using Bradford and Reed as a background.
Thank you too Lisa Bruckner for doing a fine job.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Andrew, I've watched this interview and the one with neil patel and well I've seen enough of you (no offense). Your in every interview so I know the ins and outs of ur public image. I want to hear about your brother Michel (sorry if that isn't his name?). Get someone (not yourself) to interview him and they should ask about the working relationship between the two of you. I want to see the man behind the scenes!
June 16th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I'm never insulted by feedback like this.
Frankly, I'm a little sick of seeing me on Mixergy too. I mean my business history.
I'm not sure how to balance people's need to see me as a real person with a real background and where to stand back and let the site be about a mix of idea.
Interesting idea to have Michael on. I like.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Thanks.
I wish I could tap into the sadness I felt in the hardest days at B&R when I thought I would fail and my life would be over.
I think others need to hear that because when they tell me they're struggling they always assume it's just them and start to think they're stupid or bad business people. When, in reality the struggle is just part of the process.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I'm not sure how to add it to Mixergy — yet.
But I do believe it can be added to most businesses.
Let me think about it and write up a post for you on Mixergy. I want to give you a deeper answer than I can put together in the comments here.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I had the same issue today with another of my videos.
Blip's player does let you move ahead, but it seems to need to buffer a little before giving you its full range of features.
Sorry about that. I'm open to hearing about other players if anyone reading this has a suggestion.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Must Marketing… These are generally the services I avoid like the plague or start cursing at b/c you can never finish the process. I, personally, firmly disagree with the approach of making any users experience anything more than what is the most simplistic possible.
Must Marketing approaches generally get met by more simplified approaches that doesn't use this model, and generally fail as a result.
January 15th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Thanks for sharing Andrew. Love this. Best part I must agree with is that's business coach is the biggest scam. These people have no experience in succeeding, just read a bunch of motivational books and books on how to scam people.
My friend hired one but it was a waste of money, my friend knew more about business than this dude. The “coach” never answered any of his business questions but instead told him generic business advice that he already knew. Useless! I thought it was an anomaly but hearing from you makes sense, if they are so successful, why aren't they doing it and if they made so much money and want to help others why would they charge so much.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I loved the idea of “must”-marketing and I am going to apply a derivation of this concept to a new business idea of mine. It was great to listen to your personal story and I think every real entrepreneur really can relate to your story. There is always the time when we realize we know nothing for sure and that luck plays a part in business.
Thanks for your interviews!
February 5th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Hi Andrew,
I just finished watching your insightful interview with Lisa B!
Thanks for the stories about your childhood and R&B business adventures…
Andrew, I have watched about 6 to 8 of your interviews so far and plan on watching all 200+ interviews eventually. Your message is clear… 200+ interviews with 200+ unique ways to become successful.
I usually come away from your interviews with an inspiring thought or action item!
So thank you once again for your generosity in sharing! I enjoy your transperancy and the opportunity to learn from your experiences & interviews.
Cheers,
PS. Andrew, I am just curious…how did you end up in Los Angeles, CA?
February 5th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
I loved the idea of “must”-marketing and I am going to apply a derivation of this concept to a new business idea of mine. It was great to listen to your personal story and I think every real entrepreneur really can relate to your story. There is always the time when we realize we know nothing for sure and that luck plays a part in business.
Thanks for your interviews!
February 5th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Hi Andrew,
I just finished watching your insightful interview with Lisa B!
Thanks for the stories about your childhood and R&B business adventures…
Andrew, I have watched about 6 to 8 of your interviews so far and plan on watching all 200+ interviews eventually. Your message is clear… 200+ interviews with 200+ unique ways to become successful.
I usually come away from your interviews with an inspiring thought or action item!
So thank you once again for your generosity in sharing! I enjoy your transperancy and the opportunity to learn from your experiences & interviews.
Cheers,
PS. Andrew, I am just curious…how did you end up in Los Angeles, CA?