This has been a huge year of growth and milestones for Groove. Here are the most popular lessons we’ve shared.
In 2015, more than a million people visited this blog.
Many of them read our posts, joined in on discussions in the comments, and shared our content with their networks all over the web.
As we share our journey, we try to make every single post interesting, valuable and actionable for anyone who reads it. And we’ve published every single week since we launched this blog.
But as you can expect, some posts don’t do that well. Many will get an “average” level of traffic. And some will hit all the right chords and be interesting and useful enough that they rise well above the rest of our content in traffic, engagement and shares.
Those posts are below.
If you haven’t been following along all year, I hope that this post serves as a helpful starting point to grasp some of the most important things we’ve learned in 2015.
1) A Hard Lesson I Learned About What’s Really Important
Going through a tough challenge with someone close to me reminded me that there’s a lot more to life than hustling.
2) Everyone Starts With Nothing (Stop Making Excuses)
It’s easy to come up with reasons why you won’t succeed. It also ensures that you never will.
3) What It’s Like Going Up Against Goliath (And Why You Should Do It Anyway)
A lot of startups compete against huge, successful companies. Here’s why you shouldn’t be afraid, and why that can actually be a great thing.
4) How We Increased Our Traffic by 12,024% with Zero Advertising
When we started out, our lack of traffic threatened to crush us. In this post, I share the different ways we fixed that.
5) Didn’t Get Into Y Combinator? Here’s Why That Doesn’t Matter.
Many founders are waiting for an incubator acceptance to begin stepping on the gas. This post explains why you don’t need to…
6) How We Got Our First 100 Paying Customers in 24 Hours
Many startups die trying to find early traction. We tried a lot of things to get our first customers, but only a few of them actually worked.
7) 19 Tools Our Remote Team Uses to Stay Connected, Productive and Sane
We’ve replaced a lot of the benefits of having a traditional office with online apps. These are the ones we use daily.
8) How We Doubled Our Email Subscribers to 50,000 in 6 Months
In the last half year, we’ve systematically grown our email list by more than double. This post explains how.
9) 26 Blogs That Helped Our Startup Grow From $0 to $100K in Monthly Revenue
There’s no shortage of amazing business content online. Here are the ones that we’ve gotten the most from.
10) These 13 books have each changed my life and my business, and they’ll do the same for you.
These 13 books have each changed my life and my business, and they’ll do the same for you.
Bonus: My First $100K Interviews
Another project that we started this year is our interview series, where we talked to successful founders who have built successful businesses, and tried to distill their experience and expertise into actionable takeaways that anyone can apply to their business and life.
These are the interviews that have been read, shared and commented on the most:
11) How One Startup Grew From Zero to $100K in Monthly Revenue In Only 11 Months
Edgar, a social media software company, went from launch to success in less than a year. Here’s how.
12) How Zapier Went From Zero to 600,000+ Users in Just Three Years
Wade Foster on Zapier’s unusual beta program, getting new users and building a successful remote team.
13) My First $100K in Monthly Revenue: An Interview With Hiten Shah
We asked one of the most respected founders in SaaS for his insights on mistakes, marketing, hiring and more…
14) How Moz Built A $35M Company Without A Single Salesperson
Rand Fishkin on growing a SaaS business, battling depression and building an amazing company culture.
15) How Grasshopper Scrapped Their Way To $30M+ In Annual Revenue
Grasshopper Co-Founder David Hauser shares the lessons he’s learned building (and selling) an ultra-successful business.
Your Turn
As we enter the holiday lull, many will have a bit more time than usual for reading, learning and catching up on what they’ve missed while in the trenches.
I’d love to know: what have been your favorite posts of 2015? Not just here, but from anywhere around the web.
Share your favorites in the comments below.
