Key Lessons from the success of Closet tools

Hello 👋

This is a “key lessons” report.

We are diving deep into how the micro SaaS app Closet Tools found success.

To read the story of how founder Jordan O’Connor built Closet tools, you can check out an older post -

How “The Winner” Of Indie Hackers Built A $38K/Month SaaS Business With A ‘Dollar A Day’ Product | Jordan O'Connor

What is “Closet Tools"?

Closet Tools is a chrome bookmark that automates the tedious process of sharing products on Poshmark.

Poshmark is this social marketplace where you can sell your designer clothes and shoes.

It incentivizes engagement on the platform.

So if you want to sell stuff, you must share your products frequently with your followers and groups.

The more products a seller has, the more sharing they have to do. And if someone has more than 1000 or 2000 products then just being active on the platform can take up their whole day.

This can be painful.

That’s where Closet Tools helps.

It’s a chrome extension that imitates human activity and performs key presses that share products from a store.

Closet Tools Revenue

Right now, according to its Indie Hackers product page, Closet Tools is at $28K MRR.

Now, let’s get into the key lessons behind the success of Closet Tools.

We will see:

Growth Strategies 📈
Actionable Insights 📊
Landing Page Lessons 📃
Related Trends and Opportunities 💸
Risks 🚫
Useful Tweets 🦉
Links 🔗

Let's go👇

Growth Strategies📈

Early Growth and validation

Jordan first built the bookmarklet for his wife and her friend to optimize their Poshmark stores.
Once they found success, he thought of productizing and maybe selling it. To test the waters, he gave the tool away for free on the r/poshmark Reddit forum.
The original post is archived by the moderators, but it still got 50 users for Jordan before the mods intervened.
Jordan had been a prolific blogger for years. He understands SEO and content, he wrote a few articles targeting the keywords like “Poshmark Automation” and saw some positive results.
SEO results in a 90 day period during the early days of closet.tools.

These results were enough validation for Jordan to only focus on SEO.

SEO

SEO has been a sustainable source of traffic for Closet Tools. Jordan’s focus has been to write content that focuses on the pain points of his ideal user - Poshmark Sellers.
He hasn’t written a lot of content, but he has written focused content.
Closet Tools’ blog page has just 13 posts, but they rank for the most important keywords.

Top pages:

Top Keywords:

Actionable Insights📊

Go where money is already changing hands. Poshmark sellers make good money using the platform, it’s Gross Merchandising Value (GMV) was $490.8 million for Q 2022.
That’s money made by seller’s + Poshmark’s cut ($84 million)
Seller’s making that much money will happily pay for a tool that saves them a few hours a day.
Try to build micro solutions for marketplaces such as Amazon and Etsy, or platforms such as Shopify or Gumroad. Go where people make money.
Keep the pricing simple - Closet Tools costs 1 dollar a day. ($30/month) It’s a no-brainer if it saves a few hours a day for a Poshmark Seller making thousands.
Turn user questions into documentation. Closet Tools has a rich FAQs and documentation section, all of which are based on questions asked by users. Jordan hasn’t had to answer any question twice.
Make video documentation. Jordan turns many FAQ answers into videos, it’s much easier for users to understand. He even gives detailed product walkthroughs.
Organize Q&As with users. Jordan did a YouTube live for his users and answered many questions important from them, plus got some decent feedback on the product as well.
Go multi-platform. Once Jordan had some traction from the Chrome extension, he built an extension for Safari and made it work for Apple devices. And he even made it work on Android through the Kiwi browser.
Go Deep. Jordan has built a host of small features around the core product now. All micro products make life easier for the same user and add more value to their subscription. Products like: Revenue calculator, relist items, and even a Captcha Alarm. (To notify the user when there is captcha popup on the screen)
Solve your own problems. Or your spouse’s problems. Jordan started Closet Tools to help his wife do more sales on Poshmark.
This is step 1 of The Solo Founder Playbook, once you start building something, you find interesting problems worth solving. Not the other way round. Start then learn.

Landing Page Lessons📃

The closet tools landing page has a very simple copy, fewer words, and good use of illustrations.
Above the fold - the focus is on “get more sales, get more followers”
There is also a video embedded that answers “what is closet tools” - It’s a very short, snappy 40-second video that explains the benefits of the product.
The video also has a quick demo of the tool, so the user is very clear about what to expect.
Then there are buttons to install CT on all the platforms.
Below the fold - There are 3 sections that re-emphasize the benefits - save time, use it anywhere, safe to use. This addresses all the concerns of its ideal user.
Middle of the page - Testimonials and social proof from users. In simple text, as well as plenty of screenshots from emails, chats, and Instagram stories.
Bottom of the page - The landing page ends with a question - “Are you ready to make sales” and buttons for each platform.

r/poshmark

The r/poshmark subreddit has 59K members with 89 comments and 7 posts per day.
And it’s growing:

The top posts in this subreddit are a treasure trove of problems you can solve. Like this one where a seller’s listings are not showing up in Google searches.
You can build an “SEO checker for Poshmark listings” tool.

r/etsy

r/etsy is a much larger subreddit with 150K subscribers, 156 comments, and 25 posts per day.
Etsy’s GMV is much higher than Poshmark, it’s at $4.2 billion.

This means sellers are making good money on Etsy.
You can help Etsy shop owners make more sales. This article suggests ideas on how Etsy sellers can make more sales - 17 Ways to Skyrocket Your Etsy Sales in 2022 (Etsy Marketing Tips You Can Use Today)
Based on this, you can make tools that help Etsy sellers with SEO, shop analytics, and even email marketing.
This is just for Etsy, but you can solve similar problems for Amazon sellers or Shopify store owners, or other platforms/marketplaces that help people make money.

Chrome Plugins

Chrome plugins and extensions have huge potential. This clip from my first million pod talks about 1 ad blocker plugin that makes $44 million a year.

Ideally, target a niche audience with a painful problem. Automate a tiny part of their workflow and build on top of that.
BlackMagic started like that. The Twitter tools space was too crowded, BlackMagic entered it as a chrome extension instead of a separate web app like every other tool. It only focused on analytics at the start.
But now it’s offering almost every feature that any other Twitter tool offers.
As of now, it’s doing $5K MRR according to it’s founder Tony Dinh’s bio.

Risks 🚫

Platform Risk

Every micro-saas faces platform risk. A slight change in APIs or new feature development can fundamentally impact the business model.
For Closet Tools, if Poshmark changes its UI then the bookmarklet will have to change. And if Poshmark restricts certain actions, or introduces a more intelligent captcha system then it can be risky business for CT.

Competitor Risk

Closet Tools is a UI-only product, easily copyable by competitors.
And once it found some success, competitors and copycat products have gained some market share over the years.
That’s why its revenue has come down to $28K MRR from $41K MRR last year.

Jordan acknowledged both risks in a recent Tweet conversation:

Jordan O'Connor
@jdnoc
Poshmark has built some automations for users in the last year so it has affected my bottom line.

Lots of competition now too!
View on X →

Jordan O'Connor
@jdnoc
Yeah it's an easily copyable product - most of it is client-side.

I'm working on some other stuff that's more platform independent, and less copyable!
View on X →

Useful Tweets 🦉

Jordan O'Connor
@jdnoc
SEO helped me generate over $350k in the last three years (over $200k in 2020 alone).

Indiehackers that focus on SEO tend to have more success than those who don't.

I'll break down what makes it so valuable.

THREAD pic.twitter.com/tMZ0tlSKMp
View on X →

Jordan O'Connor
@jdnoc
Closet Tools helps 1000+ small businesses each make an extra $1000+ and save 100+ hours every month.

All that matters is making those numbers increase.

More businesses helped.
More money for them every month.
More time saved every month.

Win, win, win.
View on X →

Jordan O'Connor
@jdnoc
When I started Closet Tools I talked a lot about revenue.

Several (25+) clones popped up over the last 4 years. At first it worried me.

Only 2 of them have users and have pushed updates in the last 3 months.

Keep shipping - almost everything else is noise.
View on X →

Building a $38k/Month SaaS Business as a Solo Founder with Jordan O'Connor of Closet Tools | Indie Hackers podcast.
Solving Your Spouse's Problem: A Conversation with Jordan O'Connor, Founder of Closet Tools | Software Social Pod
From Nothing to $140/Month in 2 Months | Jordan O’Connor
Content - How to do it the right way | Jordan O’Connor
How “The Winner” Of Indie Hackers Built A $38K/Month SaaS Business With A ‘Dollar A Day’ Product | Jordan O'Connor | Listen Up IH Episode 3

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