ThrottleUp

Every founder dreams of building something revolutionary. But after 6 months of building ThrottleUp, I've learned something different: Sometimes, the best opportunities aren't in reinventing the wheel. They're in making the wheel actually work for people. Most tech founders obsess over building "revolutionary" features, creating "never-been-done" solutions, and chasing "game-changing" technology. Meanwhile, real businesses are struggling with basic problems. They can't see who's on their website. They're paying twice for the same leads. Every solution feels needlessly complicated. Truth is, the technology to identify website visitors isn't revolutionary. But building technology isn't the same as creating value. Real value comes from making complex things simple, solving real problems instead of theoretical ones, building trust through transparency, and creating community around shared challenges. Our best customer conversations don't start with "Wow, your tech is amazing!" They start with "finally, someone gets our problem." The market doesn't reward revolutionary technology on its own. It rewards revolutionary problem-solving. Sometimes, the most valuable thing you can build isn't a new solution but a new community of people solving existing problems better. #startups #entrepreneurship #leadership

What the SR-71 Blackbird taught me about building a company: Most founders chase perfection. They try to build something that does everything well. But the most innovative aircraft ever built teaches us a different lesson. The SR-71 Blackbird had a strange "flaw." It had gaps in its fuselage. As a result it leaked fuel when it was on the ground. The engineers knew about this. They designed it that way on purpose so the airframe had room to expand as it heated during supersonic flight. They understood something most founders forget: being exceptional at one thing is more important than being good at everything. The SR-71 was groundbreaking because: 1️⃣ It excelled at one job: flying super fast. 2️⃣ Engineers made trade-offs to hit that goal. 3️⃣ They focused on the basics. 4️⃣ They were upfront about its limits instead of hiding them. This is exactly our mindset at ThrottleUp: ↦ We're not trying to build an "AI-powered everything platform" ↦ We solve one specific problem: helping businesses identify and convert website visitors into leads ↦ We're upfront about what we can and can't do ↦ We focus on fundamentals that won't change: businesses need quality leads to grow The SR-71 was untouchable because it did one thing exceptionally. Building a company works the same way. You can try to be good at everything, or you can be unbeatable at what's most important. Real success comes from knowing which fuel leaks are worth accepting to achieve your Mach 3. What's the one thing your company needs to do better than anyone else? What trade-offs are you willing to make to get there? #StartupLife #Innovation #BuildInPublic #Leadership

It took me months to learn the below: Your first customers are worth more than their revenue. When we launched ThrottleUp, I thought I knew exactly what customers needed. After all, I'd spent years in investment banking. I had the market knowledge, the technical background, and a clear vision. Then our first customers showed up and taught me everything I'd gotten wrong. They weren't afraid to tell us our initial version "wasn't great." But, instead of unsubscribing, they stuck around. They jumped on calls and gave us brutally honest feedback about what wasn't working. The real value wasn't in their monthly subscription but in the relationships we built. Today, I can message these early customers on LinkedIn or shoot them a quick email asking for feedback. That kind of relationship, you can't buy it, you can't fake it, or growth-hack your way into it. It comes from being genuinely transparent about your limitations and committed to solving real problems. For any founders reading this, your early customers aren't just early revenue. They're your best shot at building something people actually need. Let them tell you what that is. What's the most surprising thing you've learned from your first customers? #CustomerSuccess #StartupLessons #ProductDevelopment #B2B

Most businesses are still measuring lead quality like it's 2019. Phone number? Check. Email validates? Check. Matches ICP? Check. The entire hierarchy of what makes a "quality" lead has fundamentally shifted. Ten years ago, a validated email address from someone in your target market was gold. Five years ago, it was about finding people actively searching in your space. Today, the new hierarchy of lead quality looks like this: Level 1: Basic data accuracy ✅ Verified contact info ✅ Current role/company ✅ Matches ICP Level 2: Behavioral signals ✅ Industry relevant searches ✅ Content consumption ✅ Event attendance Level 3: First-party intent (this is where it gets interesting) ✅ Actually visited your website ✅ Spent time on specific pages ✅ Showed real interest in your solution Here's why you should pay attention to this: We're seeing conversion rates of 10%+ on first-party intent leads versus 2% on traditional "qualified" leads. The math is simple. Would you rather have: - 1000 leads with accurate contact info (20 conversions), or - 100 leads who've actually engaged with your brand (10 conversions) The second group requires less effort, less outreach, and converts at a higher rate. Quality beats quantity every time. At ThrottleUp, we are focused on surfacing these high-intent leads because we've seen firsthand how the old metrics no longer tell the full story. My advice: Start segmenting your leads by intent level, not just demographic fit. Track conversion rates across these segments. The data will speak for itself. What's been your experience with traditional lead scoring? Are you seeing similar shifts in what defines a "quality" lead? #LeadGeneration #SalesStrategy #B2B #MarketingMetrics

I used to think celebrating small wins was a distraction from the end goal. Coming from investment banking, where only the closed deal mattered, I brought that same mindset to building ThrottleUp. I quickly found myself burned out by this mindset, as numerous initial failures and challenges made each moment miserable. One day I sat down to watch a Thursday Night Football game. I’ve watched hundreds of football games in my life, but for some reason this game made me realize something that I had never thought of before. The best players on both teams celebrated every tackle, catch and block. Even the routine ones. As a result, they played free and fast and looked like they were having fun. In football, the ultimate goal is winning, right? But I realized that you can't just focus on the final score. You've got to acknowledge the first downs, celebrate the defensive stops, and recognize each touchdown along the way. The game becomes unenjoyable if you only care about the W. Once our dev team shipped a small update to our website identification accuracy. It wasn't a massive feature launch. Just a 3% improvement in our match rate. In the past, I would have just brushed it off. "Cool, but let's focus on the next thing." But I've learned that these 3% improvements mean a whole lot. They matter to our customers right now. They show our team their work has impact. Success doesn't come in one magical breakthrough. It's more like stringing together lots of little wins. Every time a customer shares feedback, every pesky bug squashed, even those small tweaks that make things just a bit better... they all add up. They're the first downs moving us toward the end zone. Sometimes, the best thing you can do as a founder is put down the playbook, look at what's working right in front of you and give your team the space to celebrate moving the ball forward. Let's normalize celebrating the small wins. #StartupLife #Leadership #FounderMindset #Entrepreneurship

When a customer visited their website and wasn't identified, I knew we had to change our approach. I could have explained the technical reasons. Given them the "that's just how the technology works" speech. Instead, I realized we weren't being clear enough about what our tool could and couldn't do at the time. In tech there's this pressure to oversell. To make grand promises. To act like your solution is perfect. But perfect doesn't exist. And pretending it does just erodes trust. So we changed our approach with ThrottleUp. We now tell customers upfront we won't identify every visitor. Sometimes it's technical limitations. Sometimes it's privacy settings. Sometimes it's just the nature of web tracking. What we will do is: ✅ Show you enough visitors to make meaningful business decisions ✅ Be honest about ThrottleUp’s limitations ✅ Focus on accuracy over quantity ✅ Keep improving our identification rates What’s interesting is how our users started trusting us more. In tech, everyone's selling magic. But real trust isn't built on promises of perfection. It's built on being honest about what you can and can't do. And then delivering exactly that. #SaaS #ProductStrategy #CustomerSuccess #StartupLessons

Most lead-gen strategies aren't working anymore because they're built for a world that doesn't exist. The traditional playbook goes like this: 1️⃣Buy a list of contacts that match your ICP 2️⃣ Load them into your outreach tool 3️⃣ Blast automated emails 4️⃣ Hope for a 2% response rate I know because we tried it like everyone else. People are drowning in cold outreach. Everyone's using the same contact lists. Automation has made personalization feel fake. Buyers are more defensive than ever. The math doesn't work anymore. And the solution isn't "better automation" or "more personalization." The solution is INTENT. Think about it: Would you rather reach out to: ⇒ 1000 people who match your ICP but don't know you ⇒ Or 100 people who just spent time on your website? When someone visits your website, they're showing first-party intent. They found you, are exploring what you do, and are interested enough to spend time learning about you. That's worth more than any bought list or automation sequence. We’re building ThrottleUp because we believe first-party intent (people actually engaging with your business) beats third-party intent (people who might be interested based on their behavior elsewhere). The future of lead gen is smaller, smarter, and hyper-focused on intent. Adding first-party intent data—the kind ThrottleUp surfaces—shortens sales cycles, improves ROI, and builds real momentum. What’s been your most frustrating experience with traditional lead-gen methods? #LeadGeneration #SalesStrategy #B2B #FutureOfSales

Everyone talks about the financial side of bootstrapping like that's the hard part. But after months of building ThrottleUp from scratch, I've realized bootstrapping trades in many more currencies than just cash. Time? Energy? Sleep? Try all of the above But nobody warns you about the emotional capital you're going to spend. The weight of every decision hits differently when it's all on you. The constant balance between confidence and reality checks. The way a small win can feel massive one day and meaningless the next. Investment banking taught me how to work long hours. But bootstrapping is teaching me how to wrestle with uncertainty, celebrate small victories, and keep pushing when the only person holding me accountable is myself. Truth is, you're never ready. You just decide one day that the cost of not trying is higher than the cost of failing. The journey has taught me resilience in ways I didn’t expect. It’s made me more intentional with my time, more present with my team, and sharper in defining what matters most. But that's also what makes it worth it. Because you're not just building a business—you're building yourself. We need more honest conversations about what this journey really costs and what it gives back. For those of you who’ve bootstrapped—or are thinking about it—what’s been the most unexpected cost or reward of the journey for you? #Bootstrapping #StartupLife #Entrepreneurship #BuildInPublic

Most businesses think they have a traffic problem. Truth is, you probably have a blind spot problem. Let me explain what I mean: Right now, you're spending money to get people to your website. Google Ads. Social. Content. Events. Whatever your mix is. But 98% of those visitors leave without a trace. Then, you spend more money retargeting those SAME people after they leave: more ads, lead lists, and contact databases. Traditional analytics only tell you how many people visited, which pages they clicked, how long they stayed, and maybe what company they were from. But not who they were, what they were actually interested in, or how to reach them. That traffic you're "losing"? Those aren't cold leads. ✅ They actively found you.  ✅ They spent time learning about you.  ✅ They showed intent. You don't have a traffic problem. You have an identification problem.  You're probably already generating more qualified leads than you realize. You just can't see them yet. Stop thinking about traffic as just numbers on a dashboard. Focus on identifying WHO is behind the clicks. I'm not saying this because we built ThrottleUp to solve it (though we did). I'm saying it because sometimes the best opportunities aren't about driving more traffic but seeing the traffic you already have. Start with this: if someone visits your site today, can you follow up with them tomorrow? If the answer is no, it’s time to rethink your strategy. #LeadGeneration #DigitalMarketing #B2BSales #WebsiteOptimization

Transparency is when you're willing to lose a sale to tell the truth. 8 in 10 customers will straight up walk away from brands that feel like they're hiding something. Not because they expect perfection, but because they're tired of the deception. Real transparency is less about oversharing and more about being honest when it matters. 1️⃣ Tell people what your product can't do. Those limitations you're trying to hide? They're actually your best filter for finding the right customers. 2️⃣ Show your real prices—not "starting at" or "contact sales." Real numbers—the kind that let people make real decisions. 3️⃣ Own your mistakes immediately. Not with corporate apologies but with "Here's what went wrong, and here's how we're fixing it.” 4️⃣ Share the messy parts. The failed experiments. The wrong turns. They're more valuable than success stories because they show you're human. When we built ThrottleUp, we could have pitched it as some perfect “AI-powered lead generation engine" or whatever's trending. Instead, we’re upfront about what our users should expect. ThrottleUp helps businesses stop paying twice to reach the same prospects—once to get them to their site and again to find them after they leave. Every lead you get from ThrottleUp is tied to someone who already showed interest in your brand—no guessing, no double-dipping ad spend. We’re not here to overhype but to help you make the most of what’s already in front of you. If your business could talk, would it sound honest enough for people to trust it? Because, at the end of the day, transparency isn't a marketing strategy. It's just good business. #transparency #honesty