Greg Goodson
Cofounder, Rafflecopter
Discussion
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
Hi - I'm Greg Goodson, cofounder of Rafflecopter, a SaaS app that helps you run and manage the process of running an online giveaway. We're a bootstrapped startup located in Boulder, CO and have been working on the business for almost 5 years.
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Junius
@juniusfree
Hi @GregGoodson
How will you spend your time if a you've got one hour to solve a user problem/need?
Thanks!
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@juniusfree Hey Junius! After answering tens of thousands of support requests over the years through our help desk, email, social media channels, etc., I’ve come to learn that while 90% of the questions we receive are questions that we’ve been asked many times before.
That said, it’s always worth spending some extra time addressing the specific question that’s asked. We have a few hundred macros set up in our help desk (we use Zendesk) and while these help us get through everyone’s questions in a timely manner, writing a sentence or two specifically addressing the users’ question / need goes a long way in making the person asking the question more comfortable with the answer.
If I didn’t answer your question, feel free to elaborate!
Junius
@juniusfree
@greggoodson Thanks! Sorry if my question is vague. My question is actually related to product development.
Harry Stebbings
@harrystebbings · Podcast Host @ The Twenty Minute VC
@GregGoodson thanks so much for joining us. How do you compare marathon running to running a business? Are there skills or attributes which are transferable to both? Would be awesome to have you on @twentyminutevc and hear more from you!
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@harrystebbings Hey Harry! Thanks for writing in :)
Yeah - there are definitely some attributes. First, I can tell you that running a business isn’t a sprint. In the first 6-12 months of running Rafflecopter we treated it like a sprint, working the longest hours. Took me a while to calm down from the hype of “starting a startup” and running a business.
If I had to compare running a startup to a running event, I’d say it’s more like a multi-day race (http://multidays.com/).
I’ve run about 30 marathons / ultra marathons over the years and I always dreaded not finishing a race that I’ve started (DNFing). Running a 50 mile race, it’s almost inevitable you’ll hit highs and lows, but you push through it and not finishing is never an option. I think having that mental mindset is pretty important and has transferred well to running a business.
Yeah - would be happy to chat further. Can you tell me a bit more about @twentyminutevc?
Yoshi
@dnxx28 · Student
@greggoodson Hi Greg-san! I'm Japanese Yoshi! So Are you gonna launch Rafflecopter in Japan or other countries or is this possible to associate about Internet of Things?
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@dnxx28 Hey Yoshi! Technically, you can use Rafflecopter no matter where you’re located, but as of now (and if I’m understanding your question correctly), we only offer Rafflecopter in 6 languages, and unfortunately Japanese isn’t one of them.
We have plans to go beyond those 6 languages, but I’m not certain Japanese is on the list of next languages to implement. While a third of our traffic is from outside the US, Japan isn’t a country that we get a lot of interest from to be honest. Not 100% sure the reason that is.
Adam Rotman
@adamrotman · Co-founder, Stencil
@greggoodson what's it like having a startup in Boulder, CO?
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@adamrotman Thanks for joining us, Adam! A fair amount of the population is into outdoor recreation here. That stands out first. Boulder, CO is located at the base of the Rocky Mountains, so our hiking, skiing, trail running, climbing, and other sports are second-to-none. It’s a fun place to be in that regard.
The city itself isn’t that big -- around 100k population IIRC. Lots of pros and cons because of that. Maybe a little tough to hire because of that compared to living in a city (though Denver is a 30-45 minute drive from here).
The tech scene here is great. Plenty of great tech companies have locations here (Gnip / Twitter, Soldfire, Google, Sendgrid all come to mind). Big IBM campus just outside of town as well.
It’s expensive here though. We moved here in 2011 to focus on the company and have watched commercial and residential rents skyrocket in a short amount of time. Starting to see a trend of folks moving to the outskirts of Boulder.
Kingsong Chen
@kingsongchen · Founder at Lace, Marketplace for GovTech
Hi Greg, when did you realize there was a market for Rafflecopter and how did you find your first customers to champion you?
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@kingsongchen Hey Kingsong - thanks for joining us!
Before Rafflecopter, my cofounders and I were working on an app that would allow blogs to embed an affiliate ecommerce store on their site. As the non-technical cofounder, it was my job to find product market fit back in those days, so I emailed hundreds of bloggers who I thought would be a good fit for this project.
In surveying and interviewing these folks, it was pretty apparently that a lot of them were hitting the pain point of running a giveaway on their blog (everyone was asking their readers to enter by leaving a comment in their wordpress comments section). So we decided to work on an MVP, got one out the door in 6 weeks, and almost immediately there was a good amount of interest.
I think the amount of time that we saved our early adopters made it a no-brainer for them to champion the product. Also, a giveaway widget embedded on a site is inherently viral, so we got a lot of interest in a short amount of time. Once we had ~100 people beta testing and using our product, the word quickly spread from there. Being ‘invite only’ the first 6 months also helped.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
@greggoodson thanks for joining us today! During your career to date, what's been the best piece of advice you've ever been given. Flip side, what's the worst?
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@ems_hodge Hey Emily - thanks for inviting us to participate! My first job out of college was working at an ad agency that specialized in search marketing. I was always impressed with the founder of the company.
After working there for a handful of months, I remember talking to my dad about how I was so impressed with his leadership and how he was able to grow a company from 2 people in an apartment to 100+ employees in a span of 5 years. I thought that was cool & really looked up to him.
My dad’s response was that every morning he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like you. Maybe that’s not advice per se, but that’s always stuck with me.
Worst advice? I interviewed at a company after I had freelanced a bit where chatting w/ the CEO of the company, he scanned my resume and told me it was a bad idea to put that on my resume. When we receive resumes, I love seeing freelance projects, side projects, and passion projects.
Jacqueline von Tesmar
@jacqvon · Community, Product Hunt ✌️😻
What has been the most successful online giveaway Rafflecopter has been a part of?
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@jacqvon Thanks for having us, Jacq! Trying to determine the best promotion run through our platform is all relative based on how it’s being run or who is running it, but we had Arnold Schwarzenegger run a giveaway with Rafflecopter a few years ago, promoting his new book.
The winner of the giveaway sent a script of a voicemail to Arnold, who then recorded himself reading the script out loud, so the winner received a custom voicemail message. I thought that was a really creative prize. It received a heck of a lot of entries as well.
Aaron Miller
@millerboyz999 · GPShopper
How do you mainly see your clients utilizing your service? Mainly blog promotions, non-profits, companies?
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@millerboyz999 Hey Aaron! Our service helps folks run a sweepstakes promotion, where an item is given out to a selected winner in an entry pool at random. Our clients use Rafflecopter to give away an item as a way to engage their fans, grow their network, or just as a way to give back.
A good example is we have a lot of authors and publishers using Rafflecopter to give out copies of a newly released book. Running a giveaway to give out a few copies of a book before it’s released to the public for instance is a good way to get your fans excited about the release date.
Amber Mrs. Moto
@confidence101 · Financial Office manager
@greggoodson I don't really have a question but I just wanted to tell you how easy raffle copter makes it to enter and keep track of contest entries! Keep it up!
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Greg Goodson
@greggoodson · Cofounder, Rafflecopter
@confidence101 *Blushes* Thanks Amber! It’s comments like these that keep us motivated. It’ll be an exciting 2016 for us… can’t wait to show you what’s in store :)