Many successful SaaS startups rely heavily on paid customer acquisition strategies like paid ads or sales teams. However, it is possible to reach seven 7 in annual recurring revenue using only organic traffic from search engines.
Vol Zastavny, founder and CEO of Solva, did just that with his email signature generator MySignature. Starting from nothing more than an idea and $10,000 in savings, Vol bootstrapped MySignature to $700,000 in annual revenue through a laser focus on search engine optimization (SEO) from the very beginning.
This long-form case study details Vol's journey in building MySignature entirely with SEO. It covers the challenges of launching with no technical experience, experiments with minimum viable products (MVP), strategies for ranking high in Google, and ongoing efforts to retain and monetize customers over several years of growth.
The lessons here demonstrate how determined entrepreneurs can build highly profitable software businesses through organic traffic alone, given the right focus on customers, content, and SEO best practices. So if you're looking to launch a SaaS app or already running one, you would want to miss this article on how to grow a SaaS tool using SEO traffic alone.
Vol Zastavny
The Inspiration and idea stage
Many successful businesses started from problems the founders personally experienced. For Vol, the inspiration came from working as a marketer for a television manufacturer.
His company communicated frequently with overseas partners via email, so Vol wanted standardized branded signatures for all employees. However, creating these in Microsoft Word and manually installing them on each computer was tedious and time-consuming.
This experience sparked the initial thought of an email signature solution. Though Vol had no tech, entrepreneurship, or SaaS experience, the idea kept swirling in his mind after leaving that job.
Extensive research into potential competitors reassured Vol there was an opportunity in the niche. A few paid signature generators existed but left room for improvement. The solution seemed simple - design templates, add logos/photos, choose icons - yet no one had truly cracked executing it effectively for users.
With just $10,000 in savings and belief in his concept, Vol took the plunge to pursue building the email signature generator SaaS full-time. The project was called NewOldStamp.
Building the MVP
Vol faced a major hurdle as the sole founder with no coding skills - how to build the product? He started asking developer friends to create an MVP, though none took him seriously at first. Persistence paid off landing one friend's help.
They launched a basic Chrome extension allowing simple signature creation. It functioned well functionally but poorly from a support perspective due to browser updates. Vol identified this quickly through user testing and pivoted.
Dropping the extension format, the next MVP used a signature generator on the website with a copy-paste installation process. This delivered the core functionality in an easier-to-support standalone product.
Usability was primitive with only templates, images, and social icons at this stage. But it let Vol validate assumptions, gain initial user feedback, and refine his process through experimentation - all invaluable steps before investing heavily.
Promoting the SaaS with SEO content
With no budget for ads, SEO became Vol's sole customer acquisition avenue. He hired an SEO freelancer for $100/month initially and brought on an intern marketer.
Vol focused obsessively on search traffic by creating educational, helpful content optimized for keywords. Backlinks were built methodically through outreach. The MVP launched freely to generate data and users organically ranking on Google.
Traffic steadily grew. Vol added live chat to capture timely customer feedback for improvements. Small tweaks addressed issues while testing paid features drew interest to consider monetization.
By the end of the first year's efforts, Vol reached 30,000 monthly sessions proving viability. 20% of visitors created signatures, giving confidence in the concept and SEO strategy working.
Launching paid features
On January 1st, 2016 Vol felt ready to introduce paid plans after a year refining the free product. Subscriptions launched at $6-12/month targeting solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small businesses.
SEO efforts continued amplifying rankings. Positive coverage followed on blogs like Forbes increasing trust and traffic. Revenues hit $5,000 monthly by late-2016, exceeding expectations for a bootstrapped one-man startup.
Vol recognized scaling required help. A developer joined enabling more ambitious projects. A part-time marketer and support specialist handled increasing user volumes.
By mid-2019 revenues had grown tenfold to $25,000/month. Vol saw potential in an emerging competitor called MySignature and made the bold decision to acquire it - using a loan given his cash flow.
Segmenting the market
Combining MySignature with the original signature tool Newoldstamp allowed Vol to better target different audiences. Newoldstamp focused purely on teams of 5-50 at higher price points by removing solo plans.
MySignature served individual freelancers and sole proprietors charging $6-12/month. Revenue increased 27% immediately following this segmentation.
Vol credits acquiring MySignature as a strategic decision accelerating growth potential through specialization. Both sites drove organic leads to one another through cross-promotion until Newoldstamp's sale in 2022.
Here are the statistics of the monthly users:
Scaling success with SEO
Following the acquisition, MySignature replaced Newoldstamp as Solva's flagship email signature product after surpassing its performance. Vol continues optimizing around SEO fundamentals:
- Content Marketing: Detailed guides, how-tos, and tutorials rank well providing value to users.
- Localization: Translating top pages into Spanish, Portuguese, and German expands the international audience reach.
- Link Building: Careful outreach grows relevant backlinks from high-quality niche directories and publications.
- UX Enhancements: Continuous A/B testing and improvements increase conversions from organic sessions.
Today MySignature generates 200,000 monthly visitors and $700,000 annual recurring revenue with these tried and tested SEO methods. Vol's small team keeps refining strategies to widen their technical and business expertise over time.
Here are other key statistics:
- Monthly traffic: 200,000 users per month
- Users: 9,000 -11,000 per month
- LTV: $300
- Average transaction value: $79
- Churn: 3%
- Cost per lead: $37
Keeping customers happy
While customer acquisition comes from SEO alone, Vol aggressively focuses on retention through constant value additions and personalization:
- Dedicated Support: Online help resources solve issues promptly to reduce churn.
- Onboarding Automation: A tutorial series guides new users through signature creation.
- Feature Upgrades: Vol adds requested functionality like tracking, automation, or integrations.
- Community Engagement: User-inspired feature requests influence the product roadmap.
- Personal Outreach: Strategic clients receive personalized emails emphasizing their importance.
Vol closely monitors metrics to refine retention tactics. Low 3% churn stems from understanding persona needs continuously versus one-off transactions.
Continuous development
MySignature started as a basic generator yet now provides a full-fledged solution:
- Signature design templates: Pre-made templates speed up building for various industries.
- Automated signatures: Connect to calendars, CRMs, or CMSs for managing signatures at scale.
- Email tracking: View open and click data directly within the tool for profiling leads.
- Templates marketplace: Users download and sell templates monetizing their design skills.
Vol will expand MySignature's product line through 2024 into a complete marketing automation suite. Future products involve personal websites, digital business cards, and email campaign building to maximize profits organically.
Lessons from Vol's journey
Vol bootstrapped multiple seven-figure SaaS businesses from scratch through a consistent dedication to SEO best practices alone. His experience offers valuable takeaways:
- Research validates concepts: Validate problems thoroughly before committing to an idea long-term.
- MVP iteration quickly: Build the simplest solution allowing real user testing over speculation.
- Focus on search traffic: SEO forms the critical early growth engine when money is scarce.
- Content fuels traffic: Develop helpful, long-tail optimized articles ranking for buyer intents.
- Target niche audiences: Targeting niche subsets better satisfies customer needs than a broad approach.
- Continual improvement: Constantly adding features addressing pain points fuels long customer lifetime value.
- Retain customers proactively: Prevention strategies curb churn more effectively than reactive support.
Vol's story provides inspiration that bootstrapped entrepreneurs can reach millions in sales primarily through organic Google rankings given relentless effort over many years.
