Kinsta Growth Story, The WP Giant
Kinsta Growth Story, The WP Giant
Kinsta is a bootstrapped WP hosting giant who organically made their way to be one the most prominent players in the industry.
Kinsta is managed WordPress hosting provider who came in an already crowded market but quickly became one of the top contenders. They are also another great example of a bootstrapped success journey. As of now, Kinsta's customers are spread over 120 counties and 6 continents, I'm guessing penguins don't want to use WordPress.
Kinsta came into existence in 2013 and now has grown so big that brands like TripAdvisor, Buffer, MariaDB and other big names have preferred them as their hosting partner.
Product
As mentioned above, Kinsta is a managed WordPress only hosting provider. Its purpose is to let the site owner manage all the content and let them manage all technical and security aspect of your site.
I personally have used their platform a few years back to test their offering and their dashboard/control panel is super cool. It lets you do pretty much everything and it's the most user-friendly interface I have ever used with a hosting service provider. There are 2 key things Kinsta rocks, design and customer support.
Now that we know what Kinsta is about, let's see how they grew.
1. Content Marketing
Content is the King, Execution is the Queen and Blah Blah Blah. Just kidding.
All of my reader by now know how important content marketing is, it’s like the hen which gives golden egg provided you don't mess up. From the beginning, Kinsta has focused on creating good content to reach potential buyers. Their blog is filled up with WordPress guides and solution. That's one of their most successful acquisition channels.
2. Email Outreach
I remember once I was reading Tom's (CTO Kinsta) article and he said that emails are free and were able to attract lots of customers on-board. Just to be clear, he didn't say about email marketing, it's just email conversion.
They used to mail people on how they loved their content and so on, during the conversation some did say that they were looking for a managed hosting provider and that's where the conversion happens.
There's another similar story by Neil Patel from Kissmetrics, he once helped a person on Twitter who was struggling to use their competitors offering. Neil just went ahead and helped, he didn't mention once about his company. Later the person himself found that out and he was so happy that he switched to Kissmetrics.
Sometimes people just want the team running a service/product to be helpful and kind, that's all.
3. Moving Faster
If you are active in the tech startup space then you'll know how important it is to move faster, if you don't then others will replace you. When Kinsta came into the business, very few people knew them and had no reason to switch. Kinsta found that they could have a moat if they started providing the latest updates to their customers faster than others. This one single change in business helped them to bag lots of customers who wish to be of the newest wagon.
4. Leverage Affiliate Network
Web hosting is a very lucrative business but growing is hard. Also to grow Kinsta had to get some recognition on the internet in form of reviews and blog post but no one does this sort of stuff for free.
They could have paid these blog owners to write about them but that would have been unethical and bad for business. Instead, they created a recurring affiliate program which only paid the affiliates when they referred someone. It's like you help me and I'll help you.
Want to see the effect? Just go and Google the term "Kinsta Review", you'll find hundreds of them. Though not all of those articles send customers those are like free marketing of their business.
5. Happy Customer, Free Promotion
Though I have interacted with lots of companies, both small and big but none had a team like this (Hey Kinsta, tell your PR manager, he/she is doing a great job). They have the perfect support team, knowledgeable and helpful. Their PR team is also super nice, I'll tell you a story.
Once I owned a site (now sold) which reviewed hosting providers, I wrote a review about Kinsta and forgot but the PR team never did. Whenever they used to push any change the I would receive a mail from them stating which part of my article needed an update. I wonder how they keep track of all these. The article wasn't popular either. On top of that, they would send me a package of stickers every year with a handwritten note. Such a good gesture.
By treating all of the users well they ensured they made a small space in our subconscious mind. Whom do you think I'll choose whenever I need a managed WP host? You know it.
Also by doing kind stuff like these they get free promotions in form word of mouth and social shares.
Competition
WP Engine
Flywheel
SiteGround
Funding
Zero, Kinsta is a completely bootstrapped and the whole company still owned by their founders and I see nothing wrong. No one needs funding as long as they are able to fuel the growth of a business.
Keep hustling.
Result
This time I'll let you decide, do you think these were the key points which helped Kinsta be what they are today? Let's me know in the comment section, I have my eyes focused.
Keep Hustling,
Ankit : )
Have a spare minute?