Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Requiring upfront credit cards yielded more paid members for Checkli
“Asking for the credit card definitely led to a higher conversion rate that got us more paid members in the end because the people who weren't willing to put their credit card in, they weren't really serious customers and they might've, you know, for whatever r…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Checkli receives 50,000 monthly visitors purely through organic SEO
“We're getting tens of thousands of people. I mean, we get 50,000 People to our site every single month now, and I've never done one piece of marketing. I've never done anything. I just did SEO.”
Insight
Russell: Low-price checklist apps cannot achieve sustainable revenue
“There's a ton of free checklist apps, and I thought, you know, we had really cool features that set us apart, and even then, with those really cool features, you know, the price point was like five or six bucks a month, and just even 203 hundred customers just…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Checkli has 500 paying customers, including 36 on its business plan
“We have about 500 people paying for Checkly. Most of them are still on the, just paying us monthly for making checklists. It's like between five and seven bucks, depending on what part of the year they signed up. But now just in the last two months, we've sign…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Checkli grew MRR from $2,000 to nearly $4,000 in two months
“We're growing up until two months ago, we were at like 2000. Now we're closing in on 4000 and we're growing.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Checkli's monthly customer churn rate is 3.4%
“Right now it's at 3.4%, and it's dropped a little bit, so it's not bad.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Checkli generated 100,000 monthly website visitors as of September 2020
“Like I have a 100,000 people coming to my website every single month, but most of them are on the free plan.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Checkli achieves zero CAC through top Google rankings for checklist terms
“It's honestly free because I think we talked about this in the past, like with my site auditor, I have a massive SEO background. Like if you Google free checklist maker or checklist or any of those things, I'm number one for almost everything related to checkl…”
Assertion Partly supported
AddThis generates millions purely by selling user data, says Marvin Russell
“I know they have, you know, they went a hundred percent free and they're making millions off just, you know, selling your data.”
Disclosure
Marvin Russell exited his agency for $300K and MySiteAuditor for $1M+
“No, my first exit was my agency. I built a small agency and that was a 300,000 dollar exit. My company was north of seven figures. I won't give the exact number, but it was over a million dollars.”
Disclosure
SureSwift Capital targets bootstrapped SaaS firms with $1M–$5M revenue
“So there, so there's a team of acquisition people that are, we're looking to acquire, you know, SaaS bootstrap SaaS companies, people with zero investors, right? So bootstrap SaaS companies, and we're looking for, you know, companies that are in the one to fiv…”
Opinion
Russell: Existing to-do list apps are bloated and overly complicated
“There is a lot of to-do list makers out there, but they make you sign up for stuff. They're complicated. They're bloated. They have way too many features.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Acquiring private equity firm for MySiteAuditor invested in Russell's Checkli
“I do a little bit of consulting for a private equity firm, one of the same firms that bought my last software company, MySight Auditor, and they wanted to stay in the business with me. They told me, like, we want to be in the Marvin business. Whatever you're w…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Checkli ranks top two on Google for 'checklist', reaches 90,000 members
“Literally, if you go to Google and search checklist, we're usually number one or number two, and we've got about 90,000 members around the world”
Assertion Contradicted
Russell: All competing checklist tools require immediate signup upon arrival
“If you go to every single checklist software you can find right now on the web, every single one of them is going to ask you to sign up and start for the free trial from the moment you get to the website.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Russell: Checkli user's checklist ranks at top of Google for Hallmark searches
“When you type in Hallmark movie schedule, which a million people a month are doing right now because it's a huge season for that, her checklist is coming up As one of the top results in Google now.”
Opinion
Marvin Russell: Closed Facebook groups are an invaluable business information source
“Facebook groups are a huge source of information. Insane source, especially the closed ones.”
Disclosure
Checkli raised about $50,000 in total outside funding
“Oh, we raised like 50,000 dollars.”
Assertion Supported
SureSwift Capital had acquired roughly 36 companies by September 2020
“You know, they've acquired like, I think, 36 companies right now.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Checkli is operated by a two-person team
“I have one developer who is my lead senior engineer, if you will, but he does all the tech stuff and I do all the business design strategy. I mean, you name it, all the other stuff. So he does tech. I do everything else.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: Checkli will surpass 200 paying subscribers by month's end
“By the end of the month, we'll be over 200.”
