What a niche idea
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Welcome to Issue 4 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about a good brand move that helped grow a small business. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.) Hello Reader, If you’re anything like me (or most of the creatives I know), math is not your thing. However, I’m drawn to people who love it. You know, the types who eat, live, and breathe numbers. I’m interested in how these mathy people think because it’s so different from how I think and navigate the world. That’s why when I passed this accounting booth hawking cookies and talking taxes at a recent conference I attended, I had to stop and chat with the people running it. That’s where I met Nate Coughram, the founder and CEO of Cookie Finance, an accounting firm specifically built for online creators. In less than a year, Nate has grown his startup to serve over 300 clients with eight full-time employees and room for two more. You could say it’s thriving. (It is.) And it’s all because Nate had a very specific idea of who he wanted to help and where to find them. He nailed his niche and focused on the most important part of branding first—his reputation. A Good Story Nate always knew he wanted to work with numbers. He also knew that someday he would be an entrepreneur—but first, he needed to put in his time learning the ropes at an established business. After getting his degree in accounting, Nate joined Ernst & Young in the audit department and got his CPA. While there, he was able to glimpse behind the scenes of a very large, highly functional organization and took notes on what worked and what didn’t. Ultimately, Nate didn’t jive with corporate culture and left after only 9 months. He took up finance jobs at various real estate private equity firms—always taking note of the leadership and internalizing what worked well, what didn’t, and what he might one day want to replicate when running his own thing. He ultimately came away with a deep appreciation for strategy and structure and an understanding that bad financial habits are nearly impossible to eradicate once established. And often, those are the things that unravel a business. In 2020, Nate finally decided to take his first stab at building his own thing and launched a subscription-based MS Excel training business with his wife. Thousands of people took his courses before he sold the business the following year. This experience taught him three things: Armed with that confidence and knowledge, Nate decided to try a new business idea. He noticed that his two sisters-in-law—both Instagram influencers with over 100,000 followers—kept coming to him for accounting advice. They worked with an accountant who was used to handling the local floral shop down the street and was not well-versed in the various ways of monetizing a creator business. Like a good finance guy, he did his due diligence and found no other CPA solutions specifically for creators and influencers. There were a couple of larger firms targeting solopreneurs, but no one was speaking directly to this large and fast-growing creator niche—a group that was leaving some serious cash on the table and scaling businesses without a solid foundation. So, last February on Valentine’s Day, Nate threw up a website, created some Google ads, and had a prospective client call two days later. One day after that he signed his first client. With the path to profitability clear, Nate went all in. (It’s romantic, no?) A Good Approach Even though most of Nate’s prospective customers were on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok—where a lot of startups would think to advertise—Nate realized that creators were likely starting at Google to search for help with their taxes. So, after a little keyword research on Semrush, he chose very specific search terms, like “accounting for creators” (I’m guessing here—he wouldn’t tell me specifics), and ran ads with a $2,500 budget. Those original ads are still running today. And they're still bringing in customers. As you would suspect, those targeted ads led to targeted landing pages. Nate’s website speaks directly to creator businesses who want to maximize their profits and don’t want to manage their own bookkeeping. If you’re a creator or influencer making money, it couldn’t be more straightforward that Cookie Finance is for you. Nate said he loves working with creators who are just getting started. Because even though they might only be making, say, $40,000 a year, their fate could change in an instant. He’s worked with a number of creators who went from making $2,000 a month to over $100,000 a month virtually overnight. And when they don’t have the business set up properly, it’s much more difficult to go back and fix it. Nate wants his customers to be set up with a nest egg and a plan for when the algorithm stops favoring them. At this point, Nate says, he could have more than 300 customers. He could have a bigger team (he is hiring), but he’s been holding back to ensure that he can deliver the best experience possible to everyone. He wants his own business foundation and structure to be solid and his team prepared before expanding. As it stands, Nate’s visual branding is fine. (Cookie Finance isn’t code for anything—he just really likes cookies.) His website is fine. His social media presence is fine (ish). But the point is that none of that stuff matters as much as the overall quality of his product or service. Ultimately, "brand" is the experience that people have with your company—including your employees. And Nate’s focus is on making sure he delivers the best quality experience to grow. A Good Lesson Only a year in, Nate says he doesn’t have any big mistakes or lessons to share from running this business. Part of that is because he paid close attention to the mistakes made at the companies he used to work for. The real challenge, he says, is not growing too quickly so that his team can continue to provide the highest quality of service possible. He recognizes that his reputation depends on it. A Good Takeaway Nate’s story proves that you don’t need to invent a new product or solution—you only need to differentiate yours from the rest and remix it for a niche audience. Also, it's a good idea not to go all in with a niche or concept before testing it. You can save yourself a lot of time and money with a small, inexpensive proof of concept that your product, service, or idea is something people even want. In other words, create a test before you:
You could take Nate’s approach and create an ad, throw up a waitlist, host a webinar, interview a handful of people, or do any other low-lift project to see if there’s a need, then refine as you go. Now, if you're wondering whether or not you should try Google Ads, the answer is: It depends. Nate had a specific target market with a specific problem they were going to Google search to find a solution for. I'm no Adwords expert, but I can probably tell you whether or not it's a place you should invest. The short answer is if someone isn't searching for a specific solution to their specific problem, then it's probably not right for your business. (Katy Griffin is an excellent resource if you're keen to learn about Google Ads. She'll tell you if you should even bother). My point is that whatever your idea, test it first before investing too much in the other stuff. Nate admits that if he had gone through the whole process of developing a business plan and overthinking the name or the branding he probably would’ve talked himself out of it. I’m currently trying this by testing a new offer with a set of content strategy workshops for business owners. I’m starting with some webinars around the topic to gauge interest and field questions. Then, I’ll lead a couple of workshops to see how they land before I build out anything else or spend all my time on an official launch. So, that’s one. The other takeaway is once you prove your concept make sure you do everything in your power to ensure that your first few customers have an excellent experience. You can play around with other aspects of your brand (just think of all the fun things Nate could do with cookies) later. Because a good reputation is the best way to grow your business. A bad reputation is the best way to kill it. The upshot: Test, learn, grow, and refine with your customers in mind. And always (always) question your assumptions. A Few Good Resources
Hope you have a good one, |