Right Message

Brennan Donies had already built and sold a SaaS company called Planscope, but the real money came from his info product business, Double Your Freelancing, which taught freelancers and agencies how to earn more and work with better clients. While creating content and courses for that business, he started experimenting with on-site personalization—showing different messages to different visitors based on their profile data. The tactic worked so well that he realized the market needed a standalone product to do this at scale.

In January 2018, Brennan launched Right Message with a technical co-founder (Shy) and a small team. The product tapped into email marketing apps and CRMs as the identifier, allowing customers to change website content based on whether a visitor was anonymous, a subscriber, or a customer. Unlike competitors that relied on cookies, Right Message merged email data with custom fields to create truly personalized experiences. Within about 3.5 months of launch, the company had already hit $20,000 MRR.

Brennan's first customers came through direct sales—the founders and early team conducted sales calls to learn about customer needs and close deals. While unconventional at a $99–$299 price point (averaging $144), this hands-on approach served multiple purposes: it provided deep customer insights, generated case studies, and helped Brennan understand the market language. Most of the early growth came through this direct-sales channel rather than organic or paid acquisition.

The biggest challenge was education. Right Message was so feature-rich that customers didn't know what to do with it—unlike email marketing, which had been around for years, on-site personalization was brand new to most of the market. Brennan tackled this by launching a product called RIPART, a sticky welcome bar that automatically showed different calls-to-action based on where visitors were in the sales funnel. This solved the overwhelming complexity problem and gave customers a clear, guided path. Monthly churn sat at around 5% (gross logo), with most departures coming from customers who signed up for a promotion but never implemented the product.

By mid-2018, Right Message had 150+ paying customers, a team of eight spread across the US, Canada, UK, and Australia, and a 30–40% month-over-month growth rate. Brennan had raised $500k through a SAFE round from a network of investor-friendly partners like ConvertKit, Leadpages, and Drip—companies that integrated with Right Message and had strategic reasons to support its success. Unlike typical VC-backed startups, Brennan explicitly aimed to reach profitability rather than chasing Series A, staying true to his bootstrapper roots while leveraging patient, friendly capital to accelerate growth.