#029 - Dagobert Renouf (@dagorenouf) - The Startup Meme King

Dagobert Renouf (@dagorenouf) - The Startup Meme King

WHY HE'S FEATURED:

• Left a high-paid software job to bootstrap a businesses with his wife

• Building Logology which is growing slowly but surely and doing an average of about $3k in sales per month.

• Creates and shares 1 meme a day about the startup journey

• Amassed following of over 40K on Twitter

• Builds in public and shares his progress

• Is super active in the maker community–cheering people on, offering unique and honest perspectives, and generously sharing his tools and processes

It's likely I first came across Dagobert's Twitter after seeing one of his hilarious memes on my timeline. When I went to his profile to learn more, I saw that it wasn't just this one meme that did well. He had hit after hit of memes, all about the founders journey, that were unique, funny, and spot on. I immediately had to know how he was doing it.

I had a serious knowledge gap when it came to memes. Where do you get ideas from? What tools do you use? How do you replace text on a meme with your own captions?

So I DM'ed Dagobert to see if he would share any of his wisdom. Dago was really generous with sharing his tips and tricks, and gave me a quick breakdown of his process, which I now get to share with you!

At first, Dagobert used tools like Imgflip and Pinata Farms to make his memes. But pretty soon he ran out of fresh templates to use so he began making his own. To do that he would browse sites like 9gag and Reddit to find new meme template ideas and then find the source of the original images by taking a screenshot and putting it into Yandex image search. Once he had the original content/image without any meme text he could add his own unique captions that were geared towards startup founders. Essentially, he created his own process for developing original memes.

But Dagobert isn't simply a meme machine. It's all a strategy in order to drive traffic to and grow Logology. So far, it's working–Dagobert recently surpassed 500 sales and I'm guessing the compound effects of his audience building is just beginning.

But meme's aren't the only thing driving his growth. Dagobert says it's actually his build in public tweets, like the one above, that drive the most engagement and growth, "basically a text tweet about my startup journey with 400 likes brings me more traffic / followers / quality than a meme with 2k likes."

He plans to release a course in the next couple of weeks on exactly how he used Twitter to grow so fast. Until that comes out, let's see what we can gleam about the strategies Dagobert is deploying to grow his bootstrapped business, as well as three habits he credits to changing his trajectory.

3 Strategies that Dagobert leverages in his work:

✍️ Quality and Unique Memes on a Specific Topic

Dago's memes have a central theme–most founders make the horrible mistake of not doing any marketing.

The key though, is that this topic resonates deeply with his target audience and therefore he's getting attention from the people he can potentially convert to customers.

🔎 Focusing on Twitter

Dago experimented with a couple different acquisition channels, but once he found that Twitter was driving the biggest results for basically no cost, he doubled down.

🔁 Consistently Posting by Reusing Content

Dagobert frequenctly posts a ton of new, original memes, but you'll also see a good amount of them are shared as "Startup meme from the archives".

By reusing and resurfacing his own content, Dagobert is able to post much more consistently than if he were trying to create a new one every time. It's a great strategy considering Twitter doesn't distribute each of your tweets to all your followers, so it's likely a lot of people didn't even see it the first time.

In terms of habits, I asked Dagobert what 3 habits changed his trajectory as a maker. Here is what he said.

3 Habits that Changed Dagobert's trajectory:

⏱ Tracking my time

"For the first year I was so happy to be free from a « real job » that I didn’t track my time. But I wasn’t making a lot of progress which was scary. So I started tracking it, almost down to the minute, to know how much actual time I spend on my startup. This made me realize I was wasting a lot of time not working and motivated me to improve. And being consistent with the tracking doubled my productivity over time."

🐦 Tweeting everyday

"Sharing my story online opened up tons of opportunities for my startup. From getting asked to do podcast interviews to partnership offers, to meeting other founders and supporting each other on the journey. Best habit I have by far.

Tweeting consistently has also made me a better writer as the character limits forces to make my thoughts shorter and clearer."

🥪 Eating the same thing almost everyday

"This one is weird but I thought it would be fun to include. I realized last year I was spending a ton of time wondering what to eat and how to cook it almost daily. So I decided to just have 2-3 meals that I cycle through, with a super easy cooking approach. Then I don’t have to spend 60-90min every day figuring it out, and don’t lose too much momentum in my work from morning to afternoon."

Another great example of the power of tracking (speaking of which, if you haven't checked out Harold the Habit Tracker yet, I highly recommend you do!)

Thanks for sharing your habits with us Dagobert!

Be sure to check out Dagobert's Twitter (@dagorenouf) for his seemingly endless supply of meme gold. And consider giving Logology a try when you need a logo for your next idea! 👍

Oh, and one last thing! Stay updated on all the cool work of our past makers with the Maker of Habit Twitter list. It's an awesome way to feel more connected to the maker community.

Build new habits + stick with them

Looking to build some new habits? Harold is a quirky text-messaging bot that helps you build new habits with one text message a day. 

You can use Harold to build habits like Lewis for example:

• Did you take 2 long breaks today?

• Did you tweet today?

You'll be surprised what can happen with just 1 text message each day.

Psst. I wrote a book!

The Honest Guide to Indie Making is everything I learned when I went full-time on my side project.

You can check it out here.