Welcome to Launch Early. This is issue one, so let me tell you what you signed up for.
Can I add $1k in monthly recurring revenue to 20spokes every single month? Not $1k total. An extra $1k this month, another $1k on top of that next month, so a year from now that's $12k a month in new recurring revenue. That's my challenge to myself, and this newsletter is where I document every move I make trying to get there. The launches, the marketing experiments, the pricing calls, the stuff that works, and the stuff that flops.
Here's why I'm doing it this way. I'm 20 years into building products for web, mobile, devices and more, and one truth has never changed: it doesn't matter how great your product is if no one uses it. That's the other half of product market fit that nobody talks about. Can you actually market it and find the audience who needs it? Building has never been my problem. So this challenge is about the other side. Getting customers.
First up: Gethery
At 20spokes we've spent years building and launching startups for others, and we'll keep doing exactly that. What's new is that we're also using our own Foundations platform, the same one we launch client products on, for our own ventures. If it's good enough to bet our clients' launches on, it's good enough to bet our own on. Today I'm officially launching the first one: Gethery, a directory for schools built around parents.
Here's the thinking. For schools, an active, engaged parent community makes everything better. Events get volunteers, fundraisers hit their goals, new families plug in faster. Gethery focuses on exactly that.
I know this space firsthand. I founded a parents association at my kids' park and sit on a school foundation board, so I've seen up close how much of school community building runs on scattered emails and word of mouth. That's the gap Gethery fills.
The plan for this week
No fancy funnel, no ad budget. This week is pure outreach: contacting schools and parent groups directly to get active users on the platform. I'll share the results here, how many I reached out to, how many responded, and what I learned from the ones who said no.
Gethery won't be the only product or play in this. Adding $1k in new MRR month after month is going to take more than one launch. There's more coming, and you'll see all of it here as it happens.
One ask
If you're part of a PTO or PTA, or active at your school in any way, hit reply. I'd love to talk to you.
Same goes if you're launching a product of your own. Everything I'm doing here runs on Foundations, and it's the same platform we build client launches on at 20spokes. If you want to ship faster, reply and I'll show you how it works.
And if you know someone building a product who keeps polishing instead of shipping, forward this to them.