Omer (00:10.080)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode, I took to Guillaume Mubesh, the founder and CEO of Lemlist, an automated email outreach platform that uses personalized images to get more replies from cold emails.
Guillaume was running a B2B lead generation agency in Paris.
He was sending out a lot of cold emails on behalf of his clients and he was getting results, but felt he could be doing much better.
He knew that highly personalized emails got more replies, but it was really hard to do that at scale, and automated solutions did basic personalization like replacing the first name or company name.
So he started looking around for an automated solution that would help him do advanced things like sending personalized images with each cold email.
But he couldn't find what he was looking for.
And that's when he realized there might be an opportunity for him to build a software product.
He partnered with a couple of developers and they built what Guillaume calls a very ugly beta in about two weeks.
And in that first month they had about a hundred people sign up for the product.
The product did the job, but the editor and the user interface was almost impossible to use.
His users told him they loved the idea, but the product lacked 90% of the features that his competitors had.
Around the same time, he got an email from someone at Appsumo who had come across his product and told him that they were interested in doing a promotion in a couple of months.
It was a great opportunity, but they knew that they had to make the product much better and had to add more features and they didn't have much time to do that.
A couple of months later their product was promoted on AppSumo and in a couple of weeks they generated around $170,000 in sales.
And most people loved the product.
In this interview, you'll learn how they prioritize the features and development work to get the right product launched on AppSumo and how they generated positive buzz about the product.
We also talk about how they've used product Hunt, Captera, LinkedIn and Facebook groups to grow sales.
It's a great episode jam packed with tons of great insights and ideas, so I hope you enjoy it.
Guillaume, welcome to the show.
Guillaume Moubeche (02:50.490)
Thanks for having me, Omer.
Omer (02:52.410)
So I always like to ask my guests what gets them out of bed?
What inspires and motivates them?
So what is it for you?
Is There a favorite quote that you can share with us?
Guillaume Moubeche (03:00.330)
Yeah, actually, I mean my favorite quote used to be just do it, but after talking to you, it's now, just fucking do it.
Omer (03:10.330)
Jfdi.
Guillaume Moubeche (03:11.290)
Exactly.
I like that one.
Omer (03:14.250)
Okay, so for people who aren't familiar with Lemlist, tell us about what does the product do, who's it for, and what's the big problem that you're trying to solve.
Guillaume Moubeche (03:22.690)
Yeah, so essentially Lemlist is an email automation platform that allows you to get more replies to your email prospecting.
It's essentially for most sales team in SMBs and people trying to get more replies, whether they're doing backlink outreach or sales outreach, or any type of outreach by email essentially.
Omer (03:44.330)
Okay, so why does the world need another email outreach tool?
I mean the market is already full of a lot of products that do exactly what you're talking about.
So what was different about your idea that you felt that you could succeed in the market and there was a need for another product?
Guillaume Moubeche (04:05.630)
Yeah.
So essentially like before I actually started Lemlist, I had a B2B lead generation agency where I was running cold emailing for a lot of customers, mainly like scale ups and enterprise.
And when we were chatting with them, we realized that a lot of people are doing it the wrong way.
They're not adding enough personalization to their outreach and hence their reply rate is really low.
And we wanted to create basically a tool that will allow really advanced personalization to help people build better relationship and help people grow their business through cold email link.
So when I was checking, you know, at even all the content out there and all the type of tools out there, I couldn't find really any tool that would really push the personalization to a whole new level.
And when I'm talking like personalization, I'm talking integrating video, dynamic landing pages, dynamic images and so on.
And once we were actually doing some tests with multiple customers, we actually had amazing results.
So then, you know, I found out my two co founders and we're like, okay, let's start doing something.
And we saw that other people started having like really, really good results and, and we built Lemlist from there.
Omer (05:17.620)
You know, I think that the personalization thing is, is really important because a lot of the times people are like, apart from just personalizing the name, they're not really doing anything else.
Yeah, right.
And even worse, I've seen emails where they personalize the name and the name is in a different font than the rest of the email.
Guillaume Moubeche (05:38.100)
Right.
Omer (05:38.820)
You know, honestly, I could probably start A new podcast called like how not to do cold Email.
And maybe pick an example that I get in in my inbox or spam folder every week and kind of analyze that.
But so why did you believe that you needed sort of that advanced personalization in there?
Guillaume Moubeche (05:57.870)
Yeah, so essentially like when I was testing like, because like our customers, when I had the agency, they were essentially like all using our current competitors and I wanted to add like extra personalization and I couldn't.
So after building kind of our own tool, we realized that that could be something helping other people.
And you know, like, I'm really against spam.
I love automation.
But I think that whenever you're doing email outreach, it's such a great way to meet with people, build relationship, get business opportunities and so on.
That every time I see like a bad cold email and we all receive so many, I'm like, okay, let's help that person and try to bring them some reason.
And a more advanced like personalized tool with more example.
Because, for example, if you would type like cold email templates on Google, you would probably found out one of the HubSpot cold email templates that 1 million people is already using right now.
So it's all the same copy pasting and they all look the same.
So the first thing that you need to do whenever doing cold emailing is stand out.
And to stand out, we figured out that adding videos and images could really like help you out.
Actually, we did a research at Lemlist because we have more than 10,000 users all over the world, and we've analyzed more than 50 millions of emails sent out across those users.
And we tested like the different level of personalization.
So we've identified essentially five level of personalization, from the simple first name up to advanced personalized video and personalized sentence per candidate.
And we really saw the correlation between the number of positive replies we receive based on the level of personalization you put in it.
Omer (07:46.790)
Got it.
And when you talk about personalizing images, I think there's a good example on your homepage where there's a picture of you in an email, embedded in an email.
And you've got holding up a piece of paper and it says Bonjour Tina from Stripe.
And then there's also like a Stripe logo on that image as well, so.
Guillaume Moubeche (08:05.570)
Exactly.
Yeah, Dynamically we can essentially insert the logo of the company you're reaching out to, the screenshot of their website, the first name, and all of this simply with the email address.
Omer (08:16.450)
Got it.
Okay.
So, okay, so you've got the idea, you see the opportunity.
You've got two co founders.
Guillaume Moubeche (08:23.250)
Yeah.
Two technical geniuses.
Omer (08:26.290)
So how did the three of you.
What did you do next?
So you've got the idea.
Did you start to say, okay, well I've already kind of been validating this with my lead generation agency and there's definitely a need and we should jump into this or let's go and talk to customers or let's start building the product.
What did you guys do?
Guillaume Moubeche (08:44.810)
Yeah, so as I said, like, they're really good at tech.
So once I sold my shares of the agencies and then I was like, okay, let's.
They told me in two weeks we can have like a very ugly beta, so start selling it.
And essentially that's what I did.
So with the beta I went to see people and after two weeks I had about 100 signups.
So I was like, okay, we got something.
And they were really motivated to go the extra mile and start building a really cool product from there.
Omer (09:14.530)
So what were you selling?
Guillaume Moubeche (09:16.290)
So essentially with the beta, I was selling the outcome, which was more replies to your outreach.
And the way I was onboarding users was kind of really like spending time, you know, like in the, I would say like the discovery call and trying to understand their business well.
And before giving them access, I would create a personalized campaign for them with also adding like personalization with images and stuff like that.
So when they're on the platforms, they just have to basically upload some leads or prospects and just send those messages and see, see how it goes.
So it was very risk free for them and for us it was really rewarding also.
Omer (09:58.040)
Got it.
And you were doing this all with this.
Is that an official term?
Very ugly beta?
Guillaume Moubeche (10:02.200)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can call it like that.
Our very ugly beta.
Omer (10:08.360)
Yeah, we have like mvp, but maybe you've also called vub.
Right.
Very ugly beta.
Guillaume Moubeche (10:14.240)
Right.
Omer (10:15.240)
So there wasn't like a lot happening in the product at that time.
Right.
I mean, how much?
I mean there might be tech geniuses, but like how much were they able to accomplish in a couple of weeks and how did that live up to the promise that these people are going to get more replies to their outreach?
Guillaume Moubeche (10:30.960)
The thing is like the basic functionality of creating an email sequence and adding a personalized images was there, but the editor was really impossible to use for the images.
You need to be like a master in.
To have like a master degree in Image Edition to be able to master it.
So of those things would have been really like turning down our customers.
We knew it so that's why I was actually, like, building everything for them before they actually onboard.
And then, you know, based on that, like kind of a plug and play solution, I would say.
Got it.
Omer (11:04.620)
And how are you finding these people?
This sort of first hundred people that you got to sign up?
Guillaume Moubeche (11:08.620)
So there were, like, several.
Several things.
So one thing that worked pretty well to get a lot of users very quickly is to go into communities where you know that your target is.
And for example, I knew a community where a lot of people are doing cold email outreach.
And the things that I would do is post a screenshot of the number of replies I got from a specific template I used with a new approach, I would say, and then I would ask people to comment if they're interested to join the beta of the new software that allows you to get those results.
So again, like, selling on outcomes rather than product.
And then, like, I had, I think about 200 people commenting.
Interested, interested, interested, interested.
And I reached out to those people.
Out of the 200, 100 decided to really, like, sign up.
And so 50% conversion rate.
And that was pretty, pretty good.
Yeah.
Omer (12:01.150)
And what were you charging them?
Or was it just like a free.
Guillaume Moubeche (12:03.670)
No, no, no, no, no, no.
To be honest, I would have feel, like, really, really bad to charge them for my very ugly beta, but maybe I should have done it, but I don't know, I didn't feel like it.
Omer (12:14.420)
Okay, and so you got these people to sign up and how did that go?
Was it a success?
Was it a big failure when some
Guillaume Moubeche (12:24.060)
of them were okay to launch a campaign with advanced personalization, but they were really, like, unhappy with the user experience, so the retention was really poor, even though they kind of like the outcomes, so they got better results and things like that.
But the thing is, like, the interface was, like, so bad, and the features were really not there yet.
So everyone was like, yeah, it's super cool project.
We love it.
But guys, I mean, you're in a crowded market and you're lacking 90% of the features of your competitors, so you need to catch up.
Essentially, that was the message.
Omer (12:59.090)
Okay, so a lot of founders would take that feedback and say, great.
That means we need to spend the next year getting those 90% of those features, so we have parity before we do anything else.
What did you guys do?
Guillaume Moubeche (13:12.890)
Actually, at that time, because we were making a lot of noise with all those things, kind of building scarcity around the product and only onboarding people we used to appsumo decided to get in touch with us, and they Essentially told us that they were interested in launching our products on, on their platform in about like two months or something like that.
So we just decided to say yes because we're like, fully bootstrapped, so with no external funding.
Omer (13:40.610)
Okay.
At what point did this conversation with Appsumo start after you had shipped the first version of the very ugly beta?
Guillaume Moubeche (13:48.530)
Oh, like three days after I made my post on Facebook on a few communities, I got an email from Jeff at AppSumo who just told like, hey, let's book a meeting.
Like, you have a sexy product, let's talk about it.
So I was like, all right.
Omer (14:01.730)
Okay.
Guillaume Moubeche (14:02.170)
So.
Omer (14:02.370)
So you guys have got like two months to get ready for this.
Guillaume Moubeche (14:04.370)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And that was actually pretty nice because we're like, okay, we knew how it go.
We knew, like, on AppSumo, it's pretty, like, wild, I would say, because you're in front of millions of entrepreneurs and agencies, so you need to be prepared.
Omer (14:18.050)
Okay, so how did you get ready for that and what did you decide you were going to do with the product?
So you were able to improve retention of people who signed up from any AppSumo promotion?
Guillaume Moubeche (14:33.540)
Yeah.
So essentially, with all the gathered feedback we had, we decided to implement pretty much everything we had just so we knew that we had a product ready for people to use it.
So implement the key features that people were listing.
Essentially, when we divide features, we divide them with technical difficulty and marketing impact.
So we decided that all the features that were with a high marketing impact and technically that they were pretty easily done, we would implement them as quickly as possible.
We also decided to actually prepare some features that we will not push until the launch.
Because when you launch on Appsumo, most people know that you are an early stage startup and that you're going to grow, and they want to help you grow.
Like, most users are, are investing in your product long term, so they're just happy to see that you're actually doing something.
So we prepared a public roadmap where people could actually vote.
And when we launched an AppSumo, some of the features were already built, but we haven't put them live yet.
And during the launch, when lots of people were testing the product, we were every day we were pushing a new version with new updates.
So people were getting crazy with that because they were like, oh, that's, that's product.
It's changing every day.
It's amazing.
The team behind it is great.
Let's buy it.
Basically.
Omer (15:56.460)
Got it.
So that was pretty smart, right?
And how did you come up with that idea because you hadn't done an appsumo launch before, so how do you come up with the idea in terms of, hey, let's just try to develop some additional features and then that will give us more of an opportunity to release these things over that period and it'll show that we're innovating fast, updating the product, et cetera.
Yeah.
Guillaume Moubeche (16:21.400)
So essentially I went through all the deal pages of previous launched and I realized kind of a pattern of people always asking for more.
A lot of people were actually trying to know the founder.
I started basically to understand who was my target.
And based on that, I realized that when people were making changes or updating things during the deal, people were getting a huge engagement.
So.
So I decided to do two things because what I figured out that was lacking in most deals is that the founder was not showing himself.
Kind of, yeah, it's a company owned by whatever name, and then that's it.
So I decided to actually make.
Start making videos.
So a lot of videos to connect at a larger scale with our potential audience explaining like, hey guys, we're like a French startup, really looking to build the best email automation platform ever.
Trust us, we will do it, but we need your help.
So really trying to involve them, getting them involved in the project and then, you know, like, from what I could learn from other founders who have launched an appsumo, like, I, I kind of build my plan and, and get ready for the launch, essentially.
Omer (17:29.439)
Okay, I love that.
That's a, that's a great lesson there.
Because, you know, it wasn't like, you know, you had some secret insight about how to do a successful appsumo launch that other people didn't.
Guillaume Moubeche (17:38.239)
Yeah.
Omer (17:38.639)
Like you went through and you looked at previous launches, the comments on those pages, what people had been doing, what looked like what was kind of a successful launch versus not so successful.
And, you know, the lesson here is like, do your homework.
Right?
I mean, that's all you did.
Guillaume Moubeche (17:55.760)
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
Omer (17:57.200)
So how successful was was the appsumo launch?
Guillaume Moubeche (17:59.800)
Oh, it was, it was pretty wild.
So in two weeks we had like, around like six or seven thousand customers.
So in term of cash, it was something around like $170,000 in just two weeks.
So it was a pretty good start.
You know, like, we were.
We're quite happy with it.
Omer (18:22.400)
Wow.
And then the appsumo model usually is like, you're giving them some sort of lifetime.
Guillaume Moubeche (18:27.120)
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Omer (18:28.480)
Yeah.
So probably not the best thing in terms of recurring revenue, but great when you're Starting out in terms of helping with cash flow.
Guillaume Moubeche (18:35.560)
Yeah, definitely.
And actually we didn't.
I mean, we did it for the cash, obviously, but not only, like, the goal was mainly to gather as many feedback as possible because we're a strong believer in the product.
And having so many users testing your product and be on your product all the time is just like pure gold, because you receive, like, tons of feedback all the time, and it forces you to be the best all the time, you know?
Omer (19:01.320)
Yeah.
You also did a Product Hunt launch.
Yeah.
How did that go?
Guillaume Moubeche (19:07.640)
It went also really well.
So we ended up like, number one, product of the day, and then number two, I think product of the week, which was.
So it drives also a lot of traffic.
It's a great way to see how the tech community is receiving your ideas and potentially product out of it.
Actually, I think we closed around like 50 to 60 companies as paying customers in this time in recurring revenue, which was definitely great.
Pretty high conversion rate from Product Hunt.
So we really liked its launch, actually.
Omer (19:41.030)
And what were some important lessons that you learned from that Product Hunt launch in terms of if you were doing this again or if you were advising somebody who's doing a Product Hunt launch, what are some of the most important things they should be thinking about?
Guillaume Moubeche (19:57.440)
I think, to be honest with launches, what I really value is the community.
So on our end, we built, like, a really strong community around our products.
So whenever we launch something, because we're providing, or at least we're trying to provide value, you know, on daily or weekly basis, when we ask a small favor to people, they were really willing to help us and really happy to help us.
Omer (20:19.960)
So.
Guillaume Moubeche (20:20.360)
So the stronger your community is, basically the easier your Product Hunt will be, because people will help you get the initial traction and initial boost.
And if your product is great and your idea is great, then the community on Product Hunt will just, like, lift it up again.
Omer (20:35.480)
And what form was this community for you at the time when you did the Product Hunt launch?
I know you had a Facebook group, but was that it or were you just using an email list in the early days?
Guillaume Moubeche (20:46.120)
Yes, so we had.
We had actually both.
The Facebook group was with about, like, I don't know, 800 to 1,000 people.
And the email list was much bigger.
So it was.
We did both, essentially, like posting the community on Facebook and at the same time send a newsletter to all of our users.
Omer (21:03.560)
Okay.
So the email list was basically everybody who had bought the products or your customers, everybody had gone through the appsumo launch.
People who are signing up for the product to try it out, whether they become a customer or not.
So you've got all those people and then the Facebook community.
How are you getting people into the Facebook group?
Guillaume Moubeche (21:22.940)
So everyone who signs up to lemlist is actually receiving like an invite to join the community.
So we know they're Lemlist users.
And on top of that, we sometimes do, like, we ask people to invite friends who would believe that it's bringing value to them to join the community.
And that way, you know, it's growing, like, pretty well organically.
We haven't pushed it as much as I'd like to do it.
Like, we post at least a few times per week, and then you have like a lot of user generating content.
So people posting.
But that's also one of the.
That would be one of the main focus in the.
I wouldn't say Q4, but maybe Q1.
And as of Q1 of 2020.
Yeah.
Omer (22:01.420)
Okay.
Were you also using Lemlist yourself to do cold email outreach and find customers that way?
Guillaume Moubeche (22:09.070)
Yeah, definitely.
Actually, I've got.
So funny story with that because essentially, like, you know, we basically, like, try everything we do because we love testing new things and different outreach approaches.
Everything we do, we try to publish it and share it with our customers.
And sometimes when I do outreach, I've got people, you know, like, coming on calls and then they're like, yeah, I'm not sure, like, videos working well, blah, blah, blah.
And then I was like, what did I send you?
And they're like, yeah, true.
You sent me, like a personalized video.
So, you know, it's this type of things where you can really, like, prove the value of your product by using it.
And also at the same time, I think on the.
On the product size, it's super interesting because I really like the product we built, but I also hate it at the same time because I know all the little things that needs to be improved, and it's really a great way by using it.
I definitely feel the pain of our users sometimes and always try to improve it.
Omer (23:06.540)
So that's interesting about the video because when I looked at the homepage, I saw the thing about personalized images, but I didn't see anything about video.
Is that like a recent feature?
Guillaume Moubeche (23:15.340)
Yeah, it's actually pretty recent.
We're actually entirely redoing the websites as we speak.
So the new website should be live in a couple of weeks.
Omer (23:24.540)
Okay.
And then in terms of, like, the outreach you were doing through Lemlist, how are you building the list?
Like, who are you deciding that you're going to focus on?
Guillaume Moubeche (23:33.330)
Yeah.
So we actually test various verticals.
I would say we have like five top verticals using our products.
So we have like founders and startup owners, we have sales teams in SMBs and scale ups.
Then we have like agencies.
A lot of agencies are actually using Lemlist, so either lead generation agencies or any SEO agencies.
So for backlink outreach and then we also have like recruiters and then inside sales.
So based on the vertical I was doing, I would say like very different type of outreach, showing the value for each audience and trying to really like nail the personalization per vertical and also per Persona.
So I customer profile.
Omer (24:18.700)
So give me an example of let's just pick any vertical, it doesn't really matter but one vertical and then what would that maybe that first email look like in terms of the content, personalization in terms of the text and then maybe whether it was an image or a video or whatever.
Guillaume Moubeche (24:37.750)
So actually something that works really well because again like what we prone is really like the relationship building.
I think in B2B it's key to build relationship, you know, to start establishing your business.
And as an example I would say like I did a campaign targeting ahead of growth of scale ups who have raised more than $50 million or euros.
And essentially my approach was to send like a really quick first sentence.
So like hey, first name was checking your LinkedIn profile and so that would reach out with a quick video.
Then when they click on the dynamic image.
So this image would be like a frame with a play button including let's say their company logo, a screenshot of their website and maybe their name.
Once they would click on it, they would go to a dynamic landing page with a video, a personalized message and calendar integration so they can book a meeting with me.
The video would say something.
I was checking your profile on LinkedIn.
Really appreciate what you guys are doing.
I think your growth must be amazing.
My name is Guillaume.
I grew my company from zero to 8,000 plus customers in less than a year.
I'd love to exchange about growth and what acquisition channel is working for you.
Let's book a meeting and have a 15 minute chat.
That's it.
So pretty straightforward trying you know, like to, to make it about relationship building, about like sharing best practices and tips.
And most people are actually especially like in scale ups happy to share what has worked for them and also trying to find ideas on what could work.
So for us it was a really like successful campaign and I had like actually it was for lunch, networking So I was going to meet a lot of people for lunch and essentially I had like, maybe like something around 30% positive reply rate on this campaign.
Omer (26:27.520)
Nice.
And then was it turning at some point into a pitch?
Like once the reply is like, okay, hey, you know, you kind of turning it into a sales conversation or was it no initial.
Guillaume Moubeche (26:37.930)
Like it's, it's never, I never do that into sales conversation.
I, I don't try to, to be like too pushy.
So I'm, I'm just trying to understand if they're a good fit.
So I'm trying to understand which acquisition channel they're working on.
And eventually they've looked at what we're doing and they've seen the value of Lemlist by just, you know, like the, the first outreach.
So some of them are really straightforward and are like, okay, I like what you're doing, I want to try it.
So, okay, you know, you're like fair.
And others are more like, you know, discussing what has been working for them in outreach, what has not been working.
And sometimes, you know, like, they already have their process in place, they're using like another tool and they have like some key factors or key features that they really need and that we lack of.
And then I'm like, it's okay, you know, it's fine.
You can't please everyone and you shouldn't try to be hard selling.
It's better, you know, to get insights on your target and try to understand better, like what they need, what they want, rather than just trying to be too pushy and salesy.
Omer (27:39.140)
Okay.
No, I really like that.
I think that's, that's another podcast show what not to do after a prospect replies to a cold email.
Okay, now I know you also used Capterra as one sort of channel marketing channel.
And like any, if people aren't familiar with Capterra, it's basically a site where you, you can find, you know, listings of different products and some reviews and things like that, and you can list your product in there for free.
They have a paid advertising offering which is kind of basically like Google AdWords in terms of is pay per click.
You're bidding for placement and basically it's not an ad, it's just in terms of the rank, in terms of the order where they'll show your product in the listings and then you have reviews from people.
So I know that a lot of people have had some success with.
Well, not a lot of people.
I know several people who've had some success with Capterra.
And using the paid advertising as a way to acquire customers.
You didn't do the advertising piece but it still worked for you.
So tell us a little bit about how you approached Capterra.
Guillaume Moubeche (28:51.170)
Yeah, so actually Captera approached us because we started having like quite a lot of five star reviews and then they asked us like hey we, the way we do things is like we can do a partnership where you will email your list and ask them to leave a review and we can give them Amazon coupon for the review if they do it.
So it's like an incentive for our users to basically give a review.
We have like I think more than 250 like 5 star reviews and something.
And, and after that, you know, they ask you like now that you have so much review you probably want to show it to pretty much everyone.
So you should definitely do cpc, you know, start advertising on our platform.
And the thing I was not very confident with using Captera is the way they categorize the software.
So for example, they would put us in the email marketing type of software and we're actually much more of a sales automation platform and they don't really make the difference between those.
So essentially like they would ask us to compete and bet against like mailchimp, Haweber, Autopilot and things like that when all those tools are amazing.
But for newsletter and marketing automation where our tool is really focused on sales automation so it's a different target.
So that was the first thing.
And the second thing is we preferred actually like growing, you know, and not spend a lot of on ads and CPC just because you know, we are having already like a really good growth without using those channels for now.
And we actually use Capterra in a different way and we used it as a social proof on our website.
So whenever people, you know, are wondering the use case or whatever our customers think about us, we just like show them the Capterra page and they have plenty of reviews there to.
To watch.
Omer (30:39.420)
Yeah, I think that the Capterra thing is interesting, especially what you said about the categorization because I was looking at that recently actually from a conversation I was having with somebody and, and that was the one thing that struck me was like if you do the advertising route, you can't choose which category you show up in.
You show up in the category that you're in.
Guillaume Moubeche (30:57.460)
Yeah, definitely.
Omer (30:58.620)
And if you're a product that's charging, let's say $50 a month for, you know, your product and you're categorized with other products that maybe charge $5,000 a month, and they're also advertising and bidding, then you're probably gonna have a little bit of a hard time getting a decent ranking there, right?
Guillaume Moubeche (31:22.360)
Yeah.
You're gonna lose for sure.
Omer (31:23.960)
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I don't.
Anyway, that's probably a separate conversation in terms of how to make the best use of that.
But how did you get all those reviews?
Guillaume Moubeche (31:31.880)
Yeah, so I think because of the community for us and the way we always try to provide as much value as possible whenever we ask something to our users.
We don't often ask things, but when we do, they tend to be really happy to help.
So every time we ask something, it worked really well.
Maybe.
Actually, now that you're saying that, maybe I should ask more often for favors to our users.
Omer (31:57.240)
Okay.
The other thing in terms of growth I wanted to Talk about was LinkedIn and you were telling me a little before we started recording, you were telling me about what you've been doing on LinkedIn and what sort of views and responses you get to your post.
So tell us a little bit about that.
Like what happens, how active are you?
What kind of responses are you getting to your posts on LinkedIn?
Guillaume Moubeche (32:20.880)
So essentially I post between two to three times per week and my post gets between, I would say, 10,000 to 200,000 views.
So it's a lot of engagement.
Omer (32:33.440)
That's a lot on LinkedIn.
Guillaume Moubeche (32:36.080)
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I do a lot of videos there, Even though like LinkedIn is not pushing videos, so your video get less reach.
But I think it's more impactful.
And what we want is create really a lot of impact when we share like tips and tricks around acquisition, email outreach, cold email, and so on and so forth.
And essentially like the first step is really like to build your audience when you're on LinkedIn.
So what we did is every person that signs up to Lemlist receive a personal invite from me on LinkedIn.
So for those who are interested in maybe like replicating this, essentially we built a script.
So with first name, last name and company name, you do advanced search on Google to find the LinkedIn profile.
So you do essentially like first name and last name and company name site LinkedIn.com and then based on that you would find a profile and then you can automate the adding using any tool such as Phantombuster for example, to do that.
And the response rate is actually great because every time someone signs up, he receives potentially a message.
So I know those persons are interested in email outreach, sales and growing their company.
And based on that, they are really reactive to the content I post.
And that helps getting the initial traction and then growing your audience with that.
Omer (33:58.670)
So how many connections you have on LinkedIn or followers?
Guillaume Moubeche (34:02.250)
Uh, it's around like 12,000.
12 to 13,000 followers or connections.
Connections, I would say.
Yeah.
It's more or less like it's very close.
Omer (34:11.610)
Wow, okay.
And you, you mentioned something about like a couple of hacks that you use.
So I don't know how much of those are secrets or what you're willing to share, but.
Guillaume Moubeche (34:22.250)
No, no, no, that's.
That's something I can share.
Like, strategy is pretty straightforward.
Is essentially like.
The way I see LinkedIn is you need to provide as much value as possible, and then once you've done it, you can get a lot of traction out of it.
So the idea is to Post out of 10 posts, you would go with nine posts only, providing value and trying to engage with your audience.
So with a simple question, for example, and then the last post would be about something you've done.
So, for example, what we did is said we built the most extensive guide on how to find anyone's email address online.
If you're interested in getting that guide, simply comment interested.
And by doing so, people starting commenting and commenting.
And the more you see people commenting, the more people are actually commenting.
So it's like really like a virtuous circle, I would say.
And then it gets kind of viral.
And some of my posts got like around like 200,000 views out of that.
But the funny part about it is that that guide was not even in a league magnet format.
It was actually the first article you can find on our blog.
So the next step was actually to message to all those people and send them to our blog.
But just because, you know, we made it as something, you know, you can get it for free, but you need just to comment.
And it was a bit like, scarce, you know, and very rare.
People were just, you know, like, going after it and going for it.
So was pretty great.
Omer (35:47.870)
That's a nice little tip there.
Okay, so it's been like less than two years since you launched the business.
Where are you guys in terms of revenue right now?
Guillaume Moubeche (36:01.060)
So revenue right now we're around like 6 to 700k.
ARR.
Omer (36:06.500)
Okay.
Guillaume Moubeche (36:08.260)
And growing at between like 25 and 30% month over month.
So we're soon to the million.
Omer (36:16.660)
That's great.
So if you sort of look back at the last two years.
Less than two years.
Right?
I mean, we've talked about.
Okay, you, you, you saw the opportunity.
You had Your co founders build the very ugly beta in a couple of weeks, but it still did the job.
The most important thing, we've talked about all the different growth strategies and channels that you use from Appsumo, Product Hunt, building the community, cold email, outreach, et cetera, all of those things.
And you guys have done really well in a very short space of time.
But when you look back over that period, what's a mistake or a big lesson that you learned that you wish you had done differently?
Guillaume Moubeche (37:00.320)
I would say that our biggest mistake was with the affiliate.
So because of the community and the traction we were getting, we were like, okay, we can launch an affiliate program and it's going to work on its own.
So we started, like, initially it didn't work.
So I decided to invest a bit more time in the affiliate program.
And after a while, I started seeing quite a lot of traction from the affiliate.
So I was like, that's amazing, you know, because I love this idea of affiliation.
It's like, people bring you customers, you make money, they make money, everyone's happy, you know.
But actually, I went to, when I was on holiday in Sri Lanka, I checked on Google Lemlist and I realized that the first result was from, you know, like, ads.
So AdWords campaign.
And we never ran AdWords campaign, so I was like, that's weird.
So I clicked on the link, and then I realized that it was an affiliate link.
And actually one of our affiliates was spending very few money, you know, on buying the Lemlist name.
Getting, like, stealing essentially our organic traffic towards our website and getting, like, money out of it just by essentially, like putting, you know, you.
When you buy your brand name, it doesn't cost anything, you know, because you're directing people to what they're looking for.
And it's.
It's very cheap.
And this guy was having the exact same conversion rate as organic traffic.
So it was like.
I was like, all right.
And I only noticed that after maybe like four months or three months.
And then I was like, oh, seriously?
And to be honest, I was like, okay, it's smart.
And then I was a bit annoyed.
And when I digged into it, I realized that some users were actually using the affiliate program to kind of get a 30% discount because we were giving like 30% share revenue.
And those guys were essentially like, connecting on a vpn, creating a new account, paying for that new account with the affiliate link, and just getting like, that 30% payback after a while.
But it was actually the same user who shouldn't use an affiliate link.
So that was very one of our big mistake.
But it's a great learning also.
Omer (39:15.600)
So do you still have the affiliate program or did you shut it down?
Guillaume Moubeche (39:18.400)
We do it, but in a different way.
So now we really select carefully our affiliates and we do it based more on trust.
So we're going to give them access to, let's say a link or whatever or if they say like we can bring you bigger deals.
So let's say teams of, I don't know, 15 to 30, then you know, we can start talking with them.
Omer (39:40.530)
Got it.
Okay.
All right.
I think we should wrap up.
Covered a lot of stuff here and Swiss are running out of time.
So I'm going to go into the lightning round.
Guillaume Moubeche (39:47.410)
Yeah.
Omer (39:48.050)
And I'm going to ask you seven quick fire questions.
Guillaume Moubeche (39:51.770)
You ready?
Awesome.
Omer (39:52.730)
Yeah.
Guillaume Moubeche (39:53.010)
Let's go.
Omer (39:53.650)
Okay.
What's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?
Guillaume Moubeche (39:57.790)
I think it's be patient.
You know, like running a business is a marathon, not a sprint.
And that's so true.
Omer (40:04.430)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Guillaume Moubeche (40:07.150)
I really love the Predictably Rational by Dan Ariely.
Just because, you know, it's a great book to understand how people think.
And even though people think that they make decisions based on their own choice, sometimes it's not the case.
Omer (40:22.430)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder?
Guillaume Moubeche (40:26.450)
I think grit and kindness.
I think being like understanding like the person you work with, being kind is most often unvaluing business.
But I still think it's really important.
Omer (40:38.530)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Guillaume Moubeche (40:41.650)
I love Notion.
Like seriously, Notion is such a great tool to build your growth experiments, manage your to dos, have an overall check on the team.
It helps you save so much time.
Omer (40:55.120)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Guillaume Moubeche (40:58.800)
If I had the extra time, I'll probably create something for analytics.
I think the current analytics platforms don't answer the need most people have.
Like Google Analytics is for example, amazing tool but it's over complicated for most people and most people get lost with Google Analytics when you could have actually like very simple dashboard for everyone.
Omer (41:21.920)
And yeah, what's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Guillaume Moubeche (41:27.340)
I actually got scammed in China by like Chinese mafia and I actually scammed them back and make money out of it.
Omer (41:34.860)
So what?
Guillaume Moubeche (41:36.300)
Yeah, that was another story.
Omer (41:40.300)
Yeah, you and I will have to have an offline conversation about that.
Guillaume Moubeche (41:43.020)
Yeah.
Omer (41:43.740)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work.
Guillaume Moubeche (41:47.820)
I love spending time with my family, my nephew, my girlfriend, my friends and that's.
And I love sports also.
So, yeah, love it.
Omer (41:56.180)
Awesome.
Great.
Now if people want to find out more about Lemlist or try the product, they can go to lemlist.com and if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Guillaume Moubeche (42:07.620)
They can either reach out to guillaume list.com so most people wouldn't know how to write my name.
So you can just Otherwise connect on LinkedIn with me and search for CEO of Lab List.
That's like the easiest way.
Omer (42:21.420)
And if you want to know, Guillaume is G U, I double L, A U, M E. Thanks for write that down.
Guillaume Moubeche (42:27.100)
Yes.
Yeah.
Omer (42:29.340)
Okay.
Great.
Guillaume, thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
Great chatting with you.
Great kind of, you know, really great digging into all of the really interesting stuff that you guys have been doing in a very short space of time.
Congratulations on what you've managed to achieve in under two years.
And I wish you guys all the best as you continue to work on and grow the business.
Guillaume Moubeche (42:49.760)
Thanks a lot.
It was really a pleasure to be, to be here and thanks again.
Yeah.
Omer (42:54.440)
And just for people who are listening, it's your mother's birthday today and you're at your parent, at your parents home.
And it's probably a little late now anyway there in Paris, but it's time for you to get back to the celebrations.
So thanks for taking the time to do this.
Guillaume Moubeche (43:11.680)
Thanks again.
Omer (43:12.640)
All the best.
Cheers.
