🪄 Submagic: From $0 to $83k MRR in 90 days

Hey,

The Spells Master is back!

Welcome to the 137th issue.

Today's topics:

1. Submagic: From $0 to $83k MRR in 90 days

2. A tool to Discover Startups Based On Signals

3. One recommended video on 21 Psyc-Tips to Increase Sales (with Nick Kolenda)

Submagic: From $0 to $83k MRR in 90 days

Submagic grew from $0 to $83k MRR in 90 days. Their Co-Founder and CTO Tsi-Fei built the MVP in just 10 days.

They used a combination of influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, paid ads, and lots of short form videos.

But good marketing can only work if the product is good.

And Submagic is so good that a content creator can easily save 15-20 minutes per video by adding captions.

1. Influencer Marketing

They find influencers organically by scrolling on social media.

They search for all the keywords related to their product on YouTube and then pick the top creators who have made videos in the same niche.

That's how they found 80% of their influencers.

Submagic likes leveraging communities of influencers as they have an engaged audience that trusts their recommendations.

All influencers run in the same circles so if you contact one, then its easier to reach others.

Then they ask the influencers to make a standalone dedicated video about the product rather than making an integrated video. They've found that this converts better.

For compensation, they offer a fixed payment (as influencers rarely accept just affiliate deals) and 30% lifetime commission on sales through their affiliate program.

30% lifetime commission provides them 2 benefits:

1. It helps them lower the upfront fees they pay

2. They have dozens of influencers who they initially paid but now they promote Submagic on their own without having to be paid again so it creates a true distribution flywheel

80% of their collaborations fail but the rest 20% make up for it.

And when they find a winning influencer, they book them out for several months.

2. Affiliate Program

They have an affiliate program that gives 30% commission.

But if you have an audience, then they give you 10% Discount Coupon.

The bio « LEO12 » pour 10% OFF is in French. It means “LEO12” for 10% OFF in English.

3. Paid Ads

They used Google and Meta Ads.

1. Google Ads - They use Search Ads by targeting specific keywords.

2. Meta Ads: They mainly use videos created by Influencers. They test ~15 creatives per month. Currently, they have 45 ads running.

4. TikTok Strategy

Submagic used multiple accounts TikTok Strategy that everyone from Tabs to Media Scaling used to get 100m+ views.

They used a lot of influencers to get the word out on TikTok. This was mostly done during mid-2023.

5. Product Led Growth

Submagic had a free plan that had a watermark on their videos.

This was on their old pricing plan.

The current pricing has removed the free version and has a trial of 3 free videos per month.

6. Cold Email

They find influencers on social media by scrolling through Social Media like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, & LinkedIn.

Influencers have their emails mentioned on their profile. And some even have their DMs open where you can approach them.

An example cold email template that Submagic team uses:

"Hey Bri,

I'm reaching out because we want to partner with you on your (social media).

Submagic is an AI tool that helps creators edit their short-form content faster with AI.

I've seen your last video about (...) and I really believe your audience will love our product.

We've already achieved great success by collaborating with creators like (big names..) and more.

Are you up in partnering with us and discussing this collaboration together?

Best regards,

Elie from Submagic"

Submagic solves a real pain-point of saving time to content creators and that's why it is incredibly successful.

Hat Tip to Elie (CMO of Submagic) for sharing the story.

A tool to Discover Startups Based On Signals

Gravity finds you companies and founders that have recently launched, raised funding, or are operating in stealth mode.

Every great agency owner's secret is finding people who've recently raised as the VC-funded startups have money to spend. Gravity helps with this.

One recommended video on 21 Psyc-Tips to Increase Sales (with Nick Kolenda)

This video covers psychological tips to increase sales like reducing the dollar ($) symbol, why you shouldn't use humans in product photos, and many more counter-intuitive tips.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Workout is necessary for knowledge work. It helps you think clearly. There's science to it.

YC knew this that's why they always recommended to ignore everything and everyone except 2 things: work and workout.

2/

Simple hack to link apps on your TikTok profile.

1-click > 2-clicks

3/

Leadership is the one that sets the standard of the organization. I've learned recently that unless you cover all edge-cases in SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), they won't be covered. Mind you, this gets better with A+ players but then you have to pay A+ salaries.

Rabbit Holes

1. Finetuning FLUX - Flux is the new Stable Diffusion. This short blog tells you how to fine-tune images for <$10.

2. How Google Search ranking works - An in-depth analysis of how Google's complex ranking system works. It is a long read but useful since every new algorithm has taken ideas from Google. It makes as Google made $237 billion in 2023.

3. FREE ChatGPT Prompts by Sabrina Ramonov - This is the holy grail of ChatGPT prompts for just about every niche organized by use-case.

Until next time,

Your Spells Master!

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Read all the old case studies here.

More Startup Spells 🪄

1. Beef Marketing (LINK)

2. Poaching Competitor's Customers and Employees (LINK)

3. One Avatar, One Product, One Channel (LINK)