The marketing magic of a €200k ARR timer tool

Stagetimer.io is a timer app, used by live streamers, event managers, conference organizers or people holding meetings, made by Lukas Hermann. 

Basically, it’s a timer app. Those app that you’re see on Google after you typed “5 minute timer” on the search bar.

Kinda boring, right? 😅 

But they’re making €200k a year and ~105k website traffic per month

I saw this tool just today browsing X. Lukas wrote this post about the upsides of building B2B SaaS:

I was immediately fascinated by his lessons shared and his product.

While already shared in another comment that his main marketing channels are SEO, paid ads and word of mouth, I still went on to analyse the marketing and growth secrets of Stagetimer, especially their SEO game.

Here’s what I found:

TL;DR

1. SEO is king for small utility tools - blogs, landing page optimisation and pSEO.

2. Google Ads (Mostly search)

3. Product-led growth (Word-of-mouth)

Channel 1: SEO

In this interview last year (when Lukas was still at $10k MRR), he said this:

If people need a timer, they search for it.

So SEO is obviously the #1 channel for Stagetimer.

I found this case study blog written by the SEO agency Lukas hired, and here’s basically their main strategies:

1. Funnel more keywords to landing page.

2. Write helpful blog post in the live show niche.

3. Do pSEO (programmatic SEO). Build pages specifically for countdown-related queries like “X minute timer”.

I highly recommend you to read the above blog for detail analysis.

Channel 2: Google Ads (especially search)

Countdown timer is a competitive niche. So it makes sense to run Google Ads for more traffic.

And since Stagetimer position themselves as a B2B tool, it makes sense to run paid ad campaign given the LTV could be pretty high (their most expensive plan is £309/year per seat!)

They also ran Youtube ads ahead of Product Hunt launch 2 years ago.

Channel 3: Sponsored Youtube

In terms of content marketing, Youtube is probably the best for live show timer tool (since it’s a very narrow niche and people likely will go to Youtube to find resources).

Lukas partnered with this Youtube channel called Here to Record that makes content about live video production (exactly the niche of Stagetimer), and posted videos about Stagetimer.

One of the sponsored video is a direct promotion of Stagetimer.

The channel’s creator even made the demo video on Stagetimer’s landing page!

Channel 4: Word of mouth.

If SEO is king, product-led growth is the GOD.

The theory of PLG is that:

• if you build a product that people really like, it will grow organically.

• And if your product inherently needs more people to use together for it to work, people will find peers to use it together and it will grow organically + exponentially (like Zoom, Slack…)

Stagetimer checked the above two boxes perfectly.

At the end of the day, it’s about user using your tool and loving it. That’s the ultimate marketing.

Lukas nailed it.

Channel 5: Reddit (early stage)

Reddit works like a charm for niche tools in the early stage.

In a blog written by Lukas himself, he said this:

I found this post by Lukas 4 years ago. It got tons of replies. It worked!

Closing

Finally, let me conclude this issue with this reply by another founder to Lukas’ post:

It’s very true that B2B SaaS is attractive, but to be able to build a tool like Stagetimer is very rare. It takes years of dedication (he started 4 years ago) and the instinct on the niche.

The truth behind their insane growth is way beyond just about “what marketing channel to use” or “how to get more ROI”.

If you uncover the veil of Stagetimer’s success, you will only see 3 things: 

A beautifully built product;

A narrow niche market;

and a hard working founder.

So, well done Lukas. 👏 

Note: all the above information and data are retrieved from data providers like Semrush and Meta, there could be error and are mostly assumptions.

Thanks for finishing this issue! 😄 

If you like this one, comment what you think to let me know. Share to your friends if you think it’s useful.

I’ll see you in the next issue!

Desmond