LeadBerry
LeadBerry did not start as a product. Adam Djankovic ran a full-service digital agency founded in 2010, and his clients kept asking for the same thing: B2B leads from their website traffic. The agency's staff were doing this work by hand, digging through Google Analytics, searching for company names, and then pulling profiles from databases and LinkedIn. Adam's team built a tool to automate that process for their own use first.
The in-house tool became a product once the team saw how much time it saved. They launched LeadBerry as a free beta in October 2016 and built it around a simple integration: users connect their Google Analytics account with a couple of clicks, with no code added to their websites. LeadBerry identifies the companies behind anonymous visits and enriches them with business data, visited pages, time on site, traffic source, and common LinkedIn connections, then syncs the results to a CRM.
The beta reached over 2,000 sign-ups, mostly companies, within about six months. Adam attributes much of that to his agency, which used its own PR, marketing, and performance campaigns to send traffic to the LeadBerry site. The team spent roughly $3,000 to $4,000 per month on performance channels while still learning which messages resonated. Adam said the company had also become the number one Google Analytics technology solution in the Google Analytics app listing within five months of the beta launch.
The main differentiator Adam described was the lack of development work: sales teams could start using LeadBerry without involving IT, which he said is often a blocker at mid-sized and large companies. The open question was conversion. Adam admitted, "No, we don't" know whether beta users would pay, and the team planned incentives and a 30-day free trial before moving to paid plans on April 3.
At the time of the interview, LeadBerry had not yet started generating revenue. The agency was still funding the product, and the company was bootstrapped with no outside capital. Adam said the team was focused on building the SaaS business and had over two million leads generated for its 2,000-plus customers.
- •Building the tool to solve the agency's own repeated client problem meant the product was validated by real workflows before it was ever sold.
- •Integrating through Google Analytics with a two-click connection removed the IT approval step that usually slows B2B software purchases.
- •Listing as the top Google Analytics technology solution gave LeadBerry distribution inside a platform its target users already trusted.
- •The agency's existing marketing capacity let the team generate beta sign-ups without outside funding or a separate growth team.
- •Bootstrapping with agency cash flow let the team keep building and testing without pressure to raise money early.
- 1.Start by building an internal tool that automates a repetitive service your agency already delivers for clients, then test it on that work first.
- 2.Choose an integration that installs in a few clicks, such as an existing analytics platform account, to avoid IT approvals and code changes.
- 3.Pursue listings in the marketplace of the platform you integrate with, since app-store placement can drive ongoing discovery.
- 4.Use your existing agency's PR, marketing, and small paid campaigns to drive beta sign-ups and learn which messages convert.
- 5.Plan the paid conversion step early with a free trial and incentives, and track how many beta users actually pay before scaling spend.
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