Bootstrapped Startup Creating an 5-star SEO Strategy (that works)

We had the privilege of catching up with Elston Baretto who worked with our coach, Amar to learn about and build his own SEO strategy tailored to his business. Below is our fun (a little long) interview with Elston - enjoy!

The Problem - No SEO Strategy

Q. Hi Elston, man of the hour! Tell the reader a little about yourself and what makes you unique as a founder.

A. Haha I’m happy to be here.

I’m the founder of Tiiny.host and in a similar position to most indie hackers - working on a side-project alongside a full time job, but have had a career packed with learnings. I started my career at JP Morgan, having reluctantly accepted a graduate job and planned to stay for 6 months. 4 years later, I was still at the conglomerate bank, but wasn't satisfied staying there for the rest of my career.

While at JP Morgan, I launched a few side-projects, some of which still make revenue today, but decided to leave to chase the startup dream. Fast forward a year and the startup dream was over, a company with 14 employees but little traction - sound familiar?

I went back to work full-time whilst I figured things out. In January 2020, he launched Tiiny.host, a super simple way to share your work online.

Q. Yeah, I was going to say that it’s a very tough space to be in no? Given all the competition you face, what’re some top challenges you face growing a startup in your industry?

A. For sure man. Fundamentally, the hosting industry is a very competitive market. Some even would consider it saturated. So launching a new product in this space is not easy and you’re often compared against larger, cheaper and more prominent competitors.

Q. Before you were coached by Sparrow, what were your main roadblocks that kept you from growing your revenue?

A. A growth coherent strategy. We’d got to a point where we could acquire customers but didn’t know how to scale the strategy to grow faster. Does that make sense?

Q. Yeah it does. I can picture that because it’s the case with most of our customers at Sparrow! Before working with us, what other alternatives did you try? How come they weren’t as effective for you?

A. There’s a lot of information on the internet about entrepreneurship. You’ve got platforms such as Indie Hackers, YC and a plethora of founder blogs. Whilst they’re all useful they’re not tailored to your stage, market and company.

The Solution - Step-by-step SEO Strategy Tailored to Their Growth Roadmap

Q. During your check-ins with our coach (Amar), what parts of your startup’s growth strategy did you learn to improve?

A. Advice from a real founder who’s ahead of you but not too far from your stage in the journey has been super helpful. My coach helped me figure out which parts of my growth strategy was the most effective and then asked me to imagine what “10x-ing” would look like. It really helped me think on a broader process-oriented approach which is important to scale.

Q. That’s awesome man. Nice way to put it. How did Amar help you improve your startup’s SEO and content strategy then?

A. He helped me visualize what the next level of my current SEO journey would look like. A lot of times when you want to begin / start scaling your content strategy, it may appear overwhelming since there’s so many things to research, monitor and execute on.

And to make matters worse, there’s no real “right” answer to go about it. My coach, Amar, helped me see things clearly and we came up with an actionable plan to execute on it. It took time to learn and unlearn a few things. But being able to rely on him and trusting his intuition helped me and my team fast-track our path to a sound, defensible SEO strategy!

Q. Haha that sounds fun. Kind of wish I was there with you. What made it particularly fun and interesting to work with your coach? What’s something that you admire about his experience that helped you see things differently?

A. Amar has started from nothing and has been through a real journey to reach certain goals. It’s very relatable and authentic. There’s so many founders / gurus on twitter who boast reaching millions in revenue and then selling $$$$ courses that are so generic. But being able to sit down with someone who’s equally successful but not cocky or full of himself, gives you a confidence boost like nothing else. 

Highly recommend founders to try out Sparrow’s one-on-one approach with growth coaching. I can see why I and others like myself find this useful :)

Q. I understand. Thanks for the shoutout! And by the way, what made you pick Sparrow in particular to help you grow your revenue?

A. Sparrow teamed me up with a real founder who’s been through everything you have. That was a key differentiating factor for me amongst many options. Generally, other platforms just throw you on to a bed of 1000 mentors or gurus to pick from. Not only is that confusing but it also means you’ll now have to spend another 10 hours trying to find the right person who’s even a good fit for you.

Also, Sparrow’s “no risk” approach of setting up a free discovery call with the coach prior to committing to the ongoing relationship really hit the bull’s eye for me. Got me comfortable from the get-go. Kudos!!

Q. Warms my heart to hear man. Lastly, what kind of founders would you recommend Sparrow to? The more specific, the better!

A. A founder who’s got a little traction but is wondering where to take their business. If I were to guess, this is the majority of the indie hacker community on twitter where solo and tech founders are under $20K MRR and struggling to nail down a persistent, tested way to grow their businesses.

Of course this’ll vary from person to person, but standing on the shoulders of giants and speaking with founders who’ve been doing this for 10 years (like my coach Amar) is a no-brainer to getting ahead of others. I know I drastically cut my learning curve in half.

For instance, instead of spending 2-3 hours watching YouTube videos on SEO, I remember talking about my specific challenges and the exact steps I needed to take for SEO, with Amar over a 45 min phone call. Not only did it save me time, but I was able to come back to him in 10 days again and discuss new things I learned, next steps and more importantly - my mistakes! Complete no brainer having founder coaching. Come on.

Q. Thanks for your time Elston. It’s always fun jamming with you. Anything else you would like to mention about your time with us? :)

A. I’m just happy we connected on Twitter and I found Amar in your network. Will come back for more and thanks for having me on here man! Cheers.