Laura Roeder

Laura Roeder (@lkr) talks life coaching, starting multiple successful businesses (and selling one for millions), early growth via SEO, and designing a company to align with your lifestyle with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

If you had to start your business all over again, what would you do differently? Some entrepreneurs actually get to answer that question.  Take Laura Roeder, who created the social-media scheduling app MeetEdgar, built it into a top marketing tool, and ultimately sold it. Now that she’s out of the social game, Laura has turned her focus to a new business, the coaching platform Paperbell. How well have the lessons Laura learned at MeetEdgar transferred to Paperbell?  Today, Omar sits down with Laura for an extended conversation about the entire journey, from creating her first business to growing her current one. In this wide-ranging interview, Omar and Laura discuss everything from applying hindsight, to ethical marketing, to trusting your own instincts and defining success in your own way. Laura’s road to multiple successful startups wasn’t mistake-free. Of particular value in this conversation are the lessons learned the hard way, like chasing the wrong metrics and allowing your business to depend on someone else’s.  Get an inside perspective on navigating entrepreneurship, with the clarity only experience can bring. Click Play!  SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed | How To Subscribe Give us a Rating & Review Today’s Sponsors Mission Control What if there was an online business coaching program that focused strictly on what you need to do, and held you accountable, and that’s it? No fluff, no busywork, just personal guidance from an experienced entrepreneur. That’s Mission Control, Omar Zenhom’s exclusive new coaching program. Mission Control is a 52-week program where Omar personally guides you to the business outcomes you’re looking for — with no detours or side alleys along the way. Learn more at 100mba.net/mc Recommended Tools Xero By far the easiest accounting software on the market. We use it for all our businesses, because it integrates with all our accounting, billing, and banking apps. With super affordable plans for small businesses, Xero makes keeping the books much, much simpler. Head to xero.com/podcast and find the accounting solution you’ve been looking for! ConvertKit ConvertKit has everything you need for effective email marketing — and they make it ridiculously easy. From newsletter subscriptions to complex automations, ConvertKit is the most straightforward way to build your campaigns. Best of all, ConvertKit will even migrate your whole list, sequences, and forms from another platform for you! Check out the best email platform for independent business people at 100mba.net/convertkit WP Engine WP Engine is our first choice for small business website hosting (seriously, you’re looking at one of our WP Engine sites right now). They’ve got the tools, features, and power you need to keep your online storefront going strong — and customer support is incredible, like having an extra tech team by your side 24/7. WP Engine has a plan for every size business! Get 20% off at wpeng.in/mba and use PROMO CODE WPE20OFF Show Links Paperbell Anything You Want by Derek Sivers The post MBA2153 Extended Interview: Laura Roeder – Lessons Learned From Growing & Selling Her Business and Starting Again appeared first on The $100 MBA.

In this talk from MicroConf Growth Europe 2021, Laura Roeder talks through making hard decisions and restructuring MeetEdgar. Laura went on to sell MeetEdgar at the end of 2021. Links from the pod: Watch this talk on YouTube MicroConf Youtube Channel MicroConf Europe Tickets- Malta I Nov 15-17, 2022  Laura Roeder I Twitter

In 2007, Laura Roeder started selling online courses on how to market through social media. Her courses gained popularity, resulting in Roeder growing an email list of around 70,000 people. Inspired to further serve her customers, she decided to create social media scheduling software. It was one of the first social media planning tools that allowed you to schedule your social media content. Piggy backing off the list she had built from her online course business, the company hit $1 million in recurring revenue in only 11 months.

“As the business owner, you're always responsible for it. Even if you have a team running it, if somebody quits, you still have to dive in and replace them. You know if something goes wrong, even if no one's ever calling you, the responsibility of the business ultimately lands on you.” - Laura RoederBuilding and selling a business is not a one-day decision, it is a gradual process of moving yourself out of the system and delegating someone to do the tasks you were once doing. In today’s episode, we are joined by Laura Roeder the founder of a new SaaS product Paperbell. She revisits how she build and later decide to sell Meet Edgar(her previous company) and the business skills and discernment she had while creating and selling her previous company.Watch this episode on YouTubeIn this conversation:Laura Roeder:Laura's Company: PaperbellLaura on Twitter: @lkrBrian Casel:Brian’s company, ZipMessageBrian on Twitter: @casjamThanks to ZipMessageZipMessage (today’s sponsor) is the video messaging tool that replaces live calls with asynchronous conversations.  Use it for free or tune into the episode for an exclusive coupon for Open Threads listeners.Quotes:“SEO is magical, it gets better over time for less money. If you have a nice shot at doing SEO work, any business should start from there. ”

Laura Roeder bootstrapped MeetEdgar to $4M+ ARR to then sell the company and start a new project, Paperbell.  How did she manage to reach $1M ARR in less than one year? Why sell a profitable company to start a new one? Best tips for managing social media for your startup? All the answers in the episode!

In this episode I talk to Laura Roeder. Laura and I have been friends for a long time. I’ve learned so much from her, and it’s great to have her on the podcast.Laura started an online community and a course called Creating Fame. She’s done a bunch of stuff in the internet space. She’s one of the people who’s been doing it since the early days.She got into software with a company called MeetEdgar, which is a social media scheduling service, and grew it into a successful company before selling it. She recently started another company called Paperbell. Paperbell is the all-in-one software that solves all the problems of running a coaching and consulting business.There’s so much to learn from Laura. I love her direct, blunt style. She’s given me great advice over the years, and you get to tune in as we jump on a call, hit record, and start catching up.In this episode, you’ll learn: Benefits of choosing a narrow niche for your business Common branding mistakes to avoid when starting out Laura’s advice for writing great copy Tradeoffs between hiring freelancers and employees Links & Resources Mama Gena MeetEdgar Laura Roeder’s Links Laura’s website Follow Laura on Twitter Laura is on Instagram Paperbell Follow Paperbell on Twitter Paperbell is on Instagram Follow Paperbell on Facebook Check out Paperbell on Pinterest

Laura Roeder didn’t use a broker, M&A advisor, or marketplace to sell the social media scheduling tool, MeetEdgar. She found her buyer the same way she’d found success throughout her career: with a gutsy cold pitch. Learn how she and her husband, Chris Williams, built and sold the platform for seven figures — and how they did it without sacrificing all their time to the business. For more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter: https://TheyGotAcquired.com/newsletter

I’m Laura Roeder, the former joint founder and CEO of MeetEdgar and now PaperBell. Since I was 22, I’ve been an independent entrepreneur. I’ve always felt most at home in the small business community, and that’s why I’ve always been focused on giving other entrepreneurs the tools they need to be totally independent. In 2009, I founded LKR Social Media, where I taught business owners how to harness the power of social media marketing and create their own online fame. I was named one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under 30 in 2011, 2013, and 2014, and I even spoke about entrepreneurship at the White House! (My weekly newsletter of social media tips, guides, and news has grown to over 100,000 readers, too, if you wanna check that out.) https://paperbell.com/ https://lauraroeder.com/ https://meetedgar.com/ Here are some of the questions we going to be asking Laura during the interview #1 - Can you give the audience some of the biggest problems you faced connected to growing MeetEdgar? #2 - Some people have remarked that selling a business is in some ways more stressful than building up a successful business would you agree with this and what was it like selling MeetEdgar? #3 - You now running PaperBell connected to helping coaches what does it do and why did you think this was a good market segment to attack? #4 - What have been some of the biggest surprises you have faced connected to growing PaperBell which you didn't expect? #5 - Do you think it's got easier or harder to start and grow and successful online business? #6 - You are part of the mentoring team on TinySeed what are some of the most interesting startups that you have recently been advising?

Almost everyone running a consulting, training or agency business, however successful, will admit at some point that they wish they could run a product business. Why don’t they? Laura Roeder talks about her experience. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message