Social Media Lead Generation: $5 to $100K MRR

Joshua Parkinson launched Post Planner at $5 a month and barely made enough to pay himself. Then social media lead generation through blogging changed everything. His blog went from 9,000 to 510,000 monthly visitors in two years, and the business hit $100K in monthly recurring revenue.

Before Post Planner, Josh was a philosophy teacher who performed music on the streets of Germany and taught soldiers in Afghanistan. He found his technical co-founder by cold-messaging a developer on Facebook, launched with paying customers on day one, and learned brutal lessons about pricing and social media lead generation along the way. Post Planner's social media growth came entirely from SaaS content marketing - zero paid ads.

Josh raised prices multiple times from $5 to $99, grandfathering existing customers each time. Social media lead generation through content became the primary acquisition channel, but churn remained the biggest constraint. Josh shares why building "badass users" through content-driven acquisition and product investment matters more than just acquiring new customers. His philosophy on social media lead generation proves that a non-technical founder can build a seven-figure SaaS business through relentless content and smart pricing.

🔑 Key Lessons

• 📉 SaaS content marketing is a long game worth starting early: Post Planner's biggest regret was not investing in content sooner. Once they hired a full-time writer, blog traffic grew from 9,000 to 510,000 uniques in two years.
• 💰 Raise SaaS prices incrementally and grandfather existing customers: Joshua raised pricing from $5 to $99 per month over multiple increases, grandfathering current customers each time to eliminate churn risk.
• 🛠️ Build badass users, not just a badass product: Post Planner focused on getting users to invest in customizing the app. The more personalization a user does, the higher the switching costs.
• 🎯 Focus on one product when you see early traction: Josh planned a whole suite of Facebook apps but dropped everything three months in to focus on Post Planner.
• 📉 Social media lead generation solves acquisition but not churn: Even with 510,000 monthly blog visitors and no paid ads, Post Planner's revenue was held back by churn. Acquiring customers is a different problem from retaining them.
• 🤝 Find a technical co-founder by reaching out to existing app builders: Instead of outsourcing to freelancers, Josh found his co-founder by cold-messaging a developer on Facebook who had built a similar product.
• 🔄 Pivot away from declining platform features before they disappear: Josh predicted that custom Facebook page tabs would decline and shifted to content publishing. Competitors who stayed were wiped out.

Chapters

• Introduction
• What Post Planner does and who it serves
• Finding a technical co-founder on Facebook
• Getting the first paying customers on day one
• Pricing lessons from $5 to $99 per month
• Blog traffic from 9K to 510K monthly uniques
• Building badass users and reducing churn
• Current business metrics: $100K MRR

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/52
• Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email