Hacker News: nathanbarry

New comment by nathanbarry in "Flounder Mode – Kevin Kelly on a different way to do great work"

nathanbarry — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 02:33:26 +0000

I love everything that Colossus puts out. Thanks for sharing this one!

New comment by nathanbarry in "Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?"

nathanbarry — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 17:09:14 +0000

I started ConvertKit (email marketing for creators) as a side hustle in 2013. In 2011 I had started blogging about my process for building iOS apps. In 2012 that turned into an email list on MailChimp and then a self-published book called The App Design Handbook (launched right here on HN).

I thought that social networks like Twitter and Facebook would drive most of the sales, but it was actually the 800 person email list I'd built. From then I became obsessed with how to optimize email marketing. I hacked MailChimp to organize lists, give away incentives for opting in, and more. But it was all hacks. In early 2013 I decided to build an email marketing tool specifically for bloggers and content creators like me.

I made it really easy to give away free incentives (ebooks, sample chapters, etc) to get subscribers, pioneered a new writing interface for time-based email sequences, and made subscriber organization really easy. It stayed a side project for two years (hitting $2k MRR and then flatlining).

In 2015 I decided to double down and make it my full time venture. From there I focused on direct sales and concierge migrations (a fancy way to say I'd do the full switch for you for free). In 2015 we grew from $2k in MRR to $98k. Then in 2016 from $98k to $500k.

Today ConvertKit is at $33M in revenue and has a team of 68, but it all started as a side project!

New comment by nathanbarry in "Disney says it has more streaming customers than Netflix"

nathanbarry — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:52:33 +0000

I didn't know that! runs off to pin the animated robin hood for my 3 year old

New comment by nathanbarry in "Impossible food sues to cancel earlier trademark owners"

nathanbarry — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 16:54:49 +0000

Yikes. I'm glad you're going public with this. Companies shouldn't be able to get away with legal bullying like this.

The Billion Dollar Blog

nathanbarry — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 15:46:16 +0000

Article URL: https://nathanbarry.com/billion

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24422259

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by nathanbarry in "Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled"

nathanbarry — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 22:58:37 +0000

What data do you base that claim on?

New comment by nathanbarry in "Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled"

nathanbarry — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 21:08:37 +0000

Interesting. That wasn't my experience at all. Maybe hunger is the wrong word: love of learning is better.

I grew up to truly love learning and be excited for our weekly trips to the library to get more books. Then when I had access to the internet I spent so much time learning code and design. My parents taught me how to learn and then gave me access to whatever I needed (mostly just the library and a computer).

New comment by nathanbarry in "Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled"

nathanbarry — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:09:06 +0000

Thanks for sharing! Glad you enjoyed the article.

New comment by nathanbarry in "Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, on being homeschooled"

nathanbarry — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:08:43 +0000

Such a great interview. It's fascinating to see how different education styles can have such a big impact.

While homeschooling isn't the right fit for everyone, I was homeschooled and it had a huge impact on me. My habits now for constant learning, working to complete tasks quickly, building projects with my hands (remodeling, woodworking, etc), and my desire to start companies all came from the time and energy that my parents put into crafting a unique education for me.

I'm so excited to see more and more parents considering homeschooling their kids.

New comment by nathanbarry in "Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think"

nathanbarry — Wed, 13 May 2020 04:04:01 +0000

Thanks for mentioning ConvertKit! We're happily building our niche product for creators and growing quickly.

Just a couple corrections, at the end of 2019 we were just under $20M ARR (Not $24M). Today we are at $22M ARR and 30,000 customers.

You can see all our numbers (updated in realtime) here on Baremetrics: http://convertkit.baremetrics.com

I'm happy to answer any questions.

New comment by nathanbarry in "Show HN: A free landing page builder to launch your next creative project"

nathanbarry — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 14:19:11 +0000

Perfect!

New comment by nathanbarry in "Show HN: A free landing page builder to launch your next creative project"

nathanbarry — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:21:41 +0000

Hey HN,

I got frustrated with how long it takes to build a site to get a creative project off the ground, so for the last year I've been working with the whole team at ConvertKit to build a new landing page editor.

It's now totally free and you can start building a page without needing to create an account. I'd love to hear what you think!

Show HN: A free landing page builder to launch your next creative project

nathanbarry — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:18:33 +0000

Article URL: https://app.convertkit.com/pages/new?ref=hn

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22298209

Points: 3

# Comments: 4

New comment by nathanbarry in "Baremetrics Engineering Expenses"

nathanbarry — Thu, 26 Dec 2019 20:13:31 +0000

Love seeing the transparent breakdown!

New comment by nathanbarry in "Climbing the Wealth Ladder"

nathanbarry — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 15:54:43 +0000

If you're interested in more of a discussion on _how_ to increase wealth I wrote a 5,000+ word post on it a few weeks ago called "The Ladders of Wealth Creation".

https://nathanbarry.com/wealth-creation/

The ladders of wealth creation: a step-by-step roadmap to building wealth

nathanbarry — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 18:19:31 +0000

Article URL: https://nathanbarry.com/wealth-creation/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21714704

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by nathanbarry in "Show HN: I wrote a book on Python regular expressions"

nathanbarry — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 17:02:50 +0000

Congrats on writing and publishing this book!

New comment by nathanbarry in "BitBounce – Email paywall that lets you get paid to receive marketing emails"

nathanbarry — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 06:55:02 +0000

This is such a dumb service. Emails just get unsubscribed or reported as spam.

Endure long enough to get noticed

nathanbarry — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 17:00:56 +0000

Article URL: https://nathanbarry.com/endure/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19295422

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by nathanbarry in "Show HN: Open startups with their revenue, metrics, and stories"

nathanbarry — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 13:48:33 +0000

A burn rate assumes a negative number. At ConvertKit we operate with about 18% profit margins.