How Wufoo Turned A Profit In 9 Months By Selling Slick, Simple Forms – with Kevin Hale

Kevin Hale, Wufoo, Bootstrapping, Customer Acquisition, Subscription (Membership) Model

Kevin Hale and his 2 co-founders started building their business before they even knew what business they’d be in. They did something that I’ve noticed other Mixergy entrepreneurs have done: they built an audience first. Then, when they launched their company, that audience became a big pool of potential customers, evangelists and defenders.

The idea for their business came from investor Paul Graham, who suggested that the 3 founders build a web app that lets people create forms. But when they heard it, the entrepreneurs weren’t interested. “We looked at other form builders, and we were like, ‘All these people are crappy. And we don’t want to be in that space.'” Then it dawned on them. If everyone in the space is crappy, then they can stand out by creating an exceptional user experience.

In this interview you’ll hear how Wufoo, the company they launched, creates an experience that attracts users with a simple, elegant free app and converts them to paid members. (You’ll also hear the admittedly unscientific way that one Mixergy listener tested Wufoo as I was interviewing Kevin live.)

Kevin Hale

Wufoo

Kevin Hale is the Co-Founder of Wufoo, the company whose goal is to be the easiest way to collect information over the internet. Kevin is the co-founder responsible for safeguarding the user experience of the Wufoo application and designing every pixel of Wufoo’s interface.

 

[sponsors]

Andrew: Before we get started, I want to tell you about my sponsors. And it seems like people are excited to see that I’ve got sponsors here on Mixergy, to see that I’m actually starting to bring in some revenue with the work here on Mixergy. So thanks for the positive feedback, everyone. All right. And with, and by the way, with each sponsor, because I don’t want to just hear a list of commercials, with each sponsor I’m trying to do something unique. Something that’s designed just for the Mixergy audience. So here goes.

 

RichWP, the website that you go to to get a new theme for your website, to make it look good, professional, easy to navigate, easy to communicate to your audience what you have to say. If you go and buy a RichWP theme, and send me the receipt within the next week, I will show you how I do my interviews here on Mixergy, and I’m going to help you get started doing your own interviews, too....

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