Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Dunn: ConvertKit only worked out once Nathan Barry went all in

Brennan Dunn · RightMessage Hits $360k Revenue, Co-Founders Going All In · Jun 27, 2020 · at 19:25

Brennan Dunn references friend Nathan Barry's experience with ConvertKit as justification for giving up side projects to focus full-time on SaaS.

0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.8s

720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark

“I mean, he was at the same point with ConvertKit where he was splitting his time. And when he went all in on ConvertKit, that's when everything started to work out.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

ConvertKit's business only started to succeed after founder Nathan Barry stopped splitting his time and went all in on the company.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Historical metrics, public revenue tracking via Baremetrics, and retrospective accounts by founder Nathan Barry corroborate Brennan Dunn's claim across all elements. Between January 2013 and late 2014, Barry split his time between ConvertKit and his existing books and courses business, during which ConvertKit stagnated and declined to ~$1,207–$1,337 in MRR. Following advice from Hiten Shah in late 2014, Barry ceased other product work, invested $50,000 of personal savings, and focused exclusively on ConvertKit. The business experienced an immediate and sustained inflection, growing from ~$1,300 MRR in late 2014 to $97,000 MRR by December 2015 and crossing $1,000,000 MRR by early 2018.

During 2013–2014, Nathan Barry split his attention between ConvertKit and book/course sales generating ~$40,000/month, during which ConvertKit MRR declined from ~$2,480 down to ~$1,207–$1,337.
In late 2014, following advice from Hiten Shah to either shut ConvertKit down or commit full focus and capital, Barry stopped other projects and invested $50,000 to work full-time on ConvertKit.
Following this full-time commitment, ConvertKit's MRR escalated rapidly from ~$1,300 in late 2014 to $97,000 in December 2015, $625,000 by end of 2016, and over $1,000,000 MRR by early 2018.

Checked against

[1] kit.com [2] nathanbarry.com [3] indiehackers.com [4] saasmarketer.io [5] nathanbarry.com [6] libraryofllm.com [7] reddit.com [8] copyblogger.com

Nathan Barry ConvertKit MRR growth Baremetrics history Nathan Barry ConvertKit Hiten Shah shutting down or going all in Nathan Barry "ConvertKit" Hiten Shah advice shut it down or double down

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

ConvertKit Nathan Barry

⚑ Spot an error? Report it

More from Brennan Dunn

Insight

Dunn: Website personalization cannot succeed without customer segmentation

“The big turn issue for us was we were selling personalization software. People bought into it, but you can't personalize without segmentation. So a lot of these companies came on board and they realized they didn't have the data that they needed to accurately …”

Brennan Dunn Jun 27, 2020 ▶ 9:06 RightMessage Hits $360k Revenue, Co-Founders Going All In

Opinion

Dunn: RightMessage has not yet hit true product-market fit

“I wouldn't say that we've hit product market fit in the sense that we have a really good way, a compelling way, Of showing somebody why they should switch from, say, Sumo or OptiMonster or whoever to us.”

Brennan Dunn Jun 27, 2020 ▶ 13:08 RightMessage Hits $360k Revenue, Co-Founders Going All In

Disclosure

Dunn: RightMessage will not raise capital or scale headcount yet

“We wouldn't raise money at this point or scale the team at this point because I think we're so right now we're so individually working together with our current customer base base and subscriber base to figure out Positioning wise, are we in the right place or…”

Brennan Dunn Jun 27, 2020 ▶ 14:41 RightMessage Hits $360k Revenue, Co-Founders Going All In

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Dunn: RightMessage churn is driven by customer education, not disbelief

“We know why we're churning. It's an education problem. We've asked people, we've talked to people, and what we're being told again and again is we completely, 100% believe in The outcome that you're promising us, but we need help on the strategic side.”

Brennan Dunn Jun 27, 2020 ▶ 17:08 RightMessage Hits $360k Revenue, Co-Founders Going All In

Disclosure

RightMessage plans to stay profitable and avoid a Series A round

“Profitable out of the gate. So we're not looking to jump from the different to series A or anything like that.”

Brennan Dunn Aug 6, 2019 ▶ 12:35 1473 How to Raise $500k From Early Channel Partners To Break $20k/mo in MRR

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Dunn: RightMessage ARPU is about $100 per month

“Well, our ARPU is about a hundred bucks a month, but plans start at 30, and we have people paying in a few hundreds a month.”

Brennan Dunn Jun 27, 2020 ▶ 2:52 RightMessage Hits $360k Revenue, Co-Founders Going All In

Dunn: ConvertKit only worked out once Nathan Barry went all in

More from Brennan Dunn

Turn any episode into a week of clips.