Suggestions
Lloyed Lobo
Co-founder of Boast.AI with extensive fintech experience.
Lloyed Lobo is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Boast.ai, a fintech platform that simplifies the process for companies to claim and finance research and development (R&D) tax credits and government incentives. He has played a pivotal role in helping Boast.ai grow into a successful business, achieving over $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and serving more than a thousand customers.124
Early Life and Background
Born in Kuwait to Indian parents, Lloyed experienced significant challenges during his childhood, including the Gulf War, which shaped his understanding of community and resilience. His family later moved to Canada, where he began his entrepreneurial journey in 2012. Lloyed faced numerous setbacks and failures in his early ventures before successfully launching Boast.ai.13
Career and Achievements
At Boast.ai, Lloyed has emphasized the importance of community building as a strategy for business growth. Initially, the company faced difficulties in gaining traction, but by pivoting to a community-focused approach, they were able to better understand their customers and expand through referrals and partnerships. This strategic shift ultimately led to the company's success in reaching significant revenue milestones.124
Lloyed has also shared insights on the importance of community in business through various podcasts and interviews, highlighting how it can serve as a powerful tool for brand differentiation and customer loyalty. His experiences have been documented in interviews and podcasts, where he discusses the lessons learned from his entrepreneurial journey and the impact of community on business success.24
Personal Insights
Despite his professional achievements, Lloyed has faced personal challenges, including struggles with mental health and a reevaluation of life priorities after selling a majority stake in Boast.ai. His journey reflects a deep commitment to building meaningful connections and understanding the human aspects of entrepreneurship.13
Overall, Lloyed Lobo's story is one of resilience, community engagement, and innovative thinking in the fintech space, making him a notable figure in the startup ecosystem.
Highlights
🎊 EXCITING NEWS: first print sample of my upcoming book unveiled by the most important person in my life on the most important day of our lives (14yr anniversary).
2 years ago, I embarked on a journey to write a book about Community Led Growth, inspired by the profound impact of community throughout my existence:
- Experiencing the camaraderie of people in the slums of Mumbai through my grandparents who lived there
- Being rescued by a grassroots movement during the Gulf War in Kuwait
- Co-founding and bootstrapping Boast AI to $10M ARR by building the Traction community to +120,000 subscribers and 100s of events over 7 years
- Turning mental health challenges into personal strength through caring companions
In this journey, I talked to a 1,000+ leaders, rewatched 7 yrs of our #tractionconf content, joined several communities to experience them as a member firsthand, and researched more than a 100+ community led businesses including Apple, Atlassian, CrossFit, Duolingo, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, HubSpot, Gainsight, Nas Company, Peloton Interactive, Reddit, Inc., SaaStr, GTMnow (fka SalesHacker), Startup Grind, Yelp, and more.
My learnings led me to 13 common rules to build iconic brands with Community Led Growth which I’ve titled, “From Grassroots to Greatness”.
This journey wouldn’t have been possible without some very special people:
- My grandparents and parents who taught me to always pay it forward selflessly
- My partner Viveta and kids Olivia, Emilia, and Zane for being my pillars of strength
- My sister Loreen Lobo for being my voice of reason
- My brother Sachin Mendonca for igniting my purpose in bringing people together, for your boundless help, and for providing both the book's title and its splendid design
- My co-founder Alex Popa (Boast AI and Traction ) for giving me the opportunity to build Boast together and your support through the highs and lows of our journey since university
- My co-founder Ray Walia (Traction) for your friendship and guidance at every turn to help propel me forward
- My Agony Aunt Melissa Kwan for never hesitating to offer tough love to help me see through reality
- And Jason M. Lemkin for being an invaluable mentor and inspiration. From giving us free booths at SaaStr during the early days of Boast to always being accessible with your advice to writing the foreword for my book, your consistent help truly showcases your commitment to uplifting others.
“From Grassroots to Greatness” is a deep dive into how some of the most iconic brands leveraged the power of communities to start, grow, monetize, and change the world.
This is more than a book for me. I hope to start a movement… to inspire founders to think bigger than just commerce.
Pre-order the digital copy for $0.99 at FromGrassrootstoGreatness dot com or links in the comments below👇🏽👇🏽
THANK YOU for all the love, encouragement, and kick in the pants when I needed it ❤️ 🤗
#community #clg #founder #startup #fromgrassrootstogreatness
This is the absolute best way to bootstrap a company to $1 million ARR. And in fact it is how we bootstrapped Boast.AI to $10 million with no investor money.
UiPath (+9 billion market cap) and Basecamp also started this way.
SELL A SERVICE.
I know this is a bad word, especially in the VC world…
Low gross margins, labor intensive, unscalable.
But here are 6 surprising lessons from bootstrapping to $10 million by selling a service👇🏼
1/ Customers want an outcome, not software.
Customers don’t want more marketing software, they want more leads.
They don’t want more fitness apps, they want to get fit.
When a customer buys a service from you, you are being held accountable to deliver that outcome.
And your job is to deliver that outcome by any means possible.
2/ You will get good at selling.
Not in a spammy scammy way.
But by actively listening and asking targeted questions, you will gather valuable insights to tailor solutions that align precisely with your customers pains and goals.
In the process you will develop strong relationships with them and be seen as a trusted advisor.
3/ You will get good at customer success.
You can’t hide behind buttons and widgets.
Customers are paying you for the outcome.
No outcome = no customer.
4/ You will know exactly what to build.
By doing the work manually, you will learn the exact step by step process to deliver customer outcomes.
And you will learn exactly what to automate to scale the business.
If you’re collecting data manually, you will need to build integrations.
You will need to write code to make sense of the data you collect.
And you will need to build workflows to automate or digitize the necessary tasks.
5/ You will see your gross margins, profits and scale keep going up as the software takes over from manual work.
6/ You will have maximum control with no dilution as your company will be funded by customer revenue.
Today, Generative AI has made this 10x easier.
Remember, if you focus on delivering customer outcomes, word of mouth will spread and more money will follow via customer and investor interest…
Then you can make decisions on your own terms.
What is your best tip to bootstrap a startup? Comment below.
#startup #founder #entrepreneur #growth #community
