Ben Gabler, founder of Rocket.net, explains why competitive search engine advertising costs forced the startup to pursue organic cold outreach instead.
Opinion
WP Engine takes 6-12 months to scope features Rocket.net ships quickly
“Activity logging feature at WP Engine, it'd take six to 12 months for them to even figure out what they want to build, whereas we're built in a modern environment, all modern frameworks, end-to-end test suites, API first, things that just don't exist in our in…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rocket.net's largest hosting customer pays $110,000 in ARR
“We were founded in twenty-twenty largest customer, a 110,000 ARR, pretty unheard of in the hosting world.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Sean Hannity hosted his website on Rocket.net's early MVP
“If you look at our first version, you're like, wow, like, Sean Hannity hosted his website on that. He didn't care what it looked like behind the scenes. He just cared that he got a 99% cash hit ratio, and everybody around the world was able to access his websi…”
Insight
Writing a press release first forces discipline and product clarity
“Starting with a press release gives you discipline. You will figure out what you're going to build, nothing more, nothing less. This is it. And what it also does is it helps you sort of find your product market fit, and it will change 20 times over and over ag…”
Disclosure
Rocket.net's MVP was built by piecing together off-the-shelf components
“I took things off the shelf and put them together behind the scenes, knowing my customers would never see it, and I presented a solution in a way that hasn't been done before in this industry.”
Insight
Domain prefixes like 'get' or 'on' confuse offline ad audiences
“Startups like to do get rendered, get whatever the name is, or on cloud, whatever the name might be. That's a great idea. Until you put it on a billboard and nobody knows how the hell to find you.”