Lessons from Kinde, an Inkform review + April growth reads from a legendary startup adviser

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This issue is brought to you from the Autumnal hamlet of Central Otago, NZ, where one of us was holed up after weather cancelled a hiking trip. 🍂

Speaking of changed plans, if you have a minute to look at our new services page we’d love to hear your feedback (simply reply to this email). You’ll notice it’s a pivot away from productised marketing services and hopefully a better reflection of how we help from early stage to scale-up, but see what you think!

In this issue, you’ll find the story of how software startup Kinde launched on Product Hunt and ran a speed competition on X. You’ll also find our review of growth tool, Inkform, and this month’s growth reads from the legendary and appropriately named, April Dunford. 😉

Let’s go! 👇️

How Kinde built pre-launch hype and maintained momentum 💥

SaaS startup Kinde seemed to burst onto the market in 2022 with a successful Product Hunt launch, and then rocketed up the growth charts with its authentication and developer tools.

We spoke to Marketing Lead Connor Cameron about how they built pre-launch hype and ran a competition that proved X (formerly Twitter) is a good marketing channel for them.

In our latest Startup Marketing Series story, Connor also shared his top advice for other startups, which we second (strongly!).

Good reads to level up your growth game 🍂

It’s April… so this month we bring you two growth resources from a legendary startup adviser of the same name - April Dunford.

• Nail your product positioning. April has written a best-selling book on this called Obviously Awesome, which breaks down how to position your product so that customers “get it, buy it, love it”. We highly recommend it and this episode of Lenny’s Podcast where she breaks it down in such a clear and compelling way that you’ll become an April fan like us.
  
• How to build a sales pitch that wins. April’s second book is all about this and it’s a game changer for the tried (and often ignored) traditional sales deck structure of features, benefits and about us slides. Grab a taste by listening into this seminar April did with Airtree a few months ago, where she explains the revolutionary idea that buying is actually harder than selling… it’s a great listen.

Growth Tool Review 🛠️

AI and MarTech are evolving FAST so we’re reviewing one tool for you in each edition. Unless stated otherwise, these are not sponsored.

This week’s tool is… Inkform.

WHAT IS IT? 👇️

A custom writing automation tool.

WHO IS IT FOR? 💁‍♀️

Marketers and content producers. We wanted to trial it after Demand Curve touted it as the tool marketers are ditching ChatGPT for.

Inkform was built by the team behind Tailored Ink, which describes itself as “as copywriting and content marketing agency that serves funded startups and Fortune 500 clients like Salesforce and LinkedIn”.

WHAT DID WE TEST? 🧪

We tested Inkform’s ability to write a home page. Having just finished writing a landing page for a client, we took the inputs used for that project and put them into Inkform to test it out. Then we used the same inputs and a more detailed prompt with ChatGPT to compare the results.

WHAT WE FOUND🔎

👍 Inkform's Example Landing Page Template is well thought out. It provides clear directions for the sections that should be on the page (you’ll need to edit these to suit what you want) and a “desired output” writing sample of another landing page (you might need to edit/replace this). Then you copy your inputs into the main "Test your content" box and click "Test".

⚠️ Before you start, make a copy of the example template and work in that. Otherwise you won’t be able to save any changes you make to the example template.

👎 Inkform’s user interface (UI) feels a bit “beta”. In other words, it’s not the prettiest design but it is functional.

🆗 The Inkform result was a good start for a landing page. The section headings and descriptions had the right central ideas but were too fluffy and vague, not quite in the right tone of voice and didn’t speak directly to the target audience to compel action.

🆗 The ChatGPT result was very similar to Inkform’s but only with a detailed prompt about what sections we wanted the page to include. With Inkform, the example template provides the base for this so even though it’s a tool aimed at marketing professionals, this feature probably makes it easier for non-marketing people to use, too.

PRICING 💰️

• Free trial (sign up here – no credit card required)
• Starter plan: $49/month (discounts for 6 and 12-month plans) for 1 user
• Pro plan: $99/month (discounts for 6 and 12-month plans) for 5 users
• 30-day money back guarantee though there doesn’t seem to be any information around the terms of this (even in the terms of service)

THE VERDICT ✅

Overall, we found that Inkform is worth further exploration beyond this initial test. It's a different tool than ChatGPT because it’s all about helping you build writing automations to use repeatedly and produce custom content at scale. You could create GPTs for this but with Inkform, the base steps and sections are already there for you to customise, save and iterate on.

We'll explore Inkform further to see if it can produce high quality work for our clients and produce efficiency gains. The key to this will be establishing strong marketing foundations before using the tool. That includes defining a strong position in the market, clearly articulating the value proposition, and developing core brand messaging and a distinctive tone. Many startups skip these foundations and that’s one of the reasons why we’re beginning to see a rising tide of bland AI-generated content, which doesn’t cut through to target audiences.

We’ll also look into the evolving legalities of this and other AI tools, including intellectual property grey areas and question marks around confidentiality. As a general rule, we wouldn’t provide confidential client material to any AI tool. Section 7b of Inkform’s Terms of Use reinforces the importance of this.

This newsletter is from the team at Stella Startups 👋

ICYMI, we’re Stella Startups – a true marketing partner for AU and NZ startups from early stage to scale up.

We bring you marketing strategy, brand expertise and hands-on execution, all with a commitment to innovation so you can make an impact bigger than your budget. Head to our website to find out more and if you’d like help, book some time to chat (we don’t bite!).

See you next time,
Gemma & Bridget