VI. Case Studies

Nathan Kontny

Nate Kontny is the developer behind Draft

Product: Draft. He is also the new CEO of Highrise.

Audience: bloggers.

Nate had been blogging for years and was continually frustrated that there weren’t tools like Git for collaborative editing. He decided to build his own. He shared it with his blogging friends, and they loved it.

Nate’s audience is perfect for him: they hang out online in communities like Reddit. He’ll spend a portion of his day answering writing, blogging, and marketing related questions on subreddits like blogging, startups, and design_critiques. You can tell that Nate genuinely enjoys writing, and being a part of the community he serves.

Do bloggers pay for things? In Nathan’s case, yes: thousands of writers pay him $3.99 per month (or $39.99 per year). The surprising thing is this payment is voluntary. Draft is functional whether you pay for it or not. Despite this, Nate has been able to make a good living from his app.

Three things you can learn from Nate:

1. Teaching is your best marketing: Nate invests his time in Reddit threads, answering email, and on Twitter. He actively looks for opportunities to help people with their writing. And it works! When someone helps you for free, you’re more likely to pay for their product.
2. Practice, practice, practice: just like going to the gym, Nate feels that good marketing is about practice. He forces himself to do writing exercises like: “Write ten headlines every day.”
3. Tell your story: Nate makes himself relatable. He shares stories about his life, his marriage, and his family. This is a big part of his brand: he feels like someone you can trust.