Patrick Campbell

The Bezos Number: hunt the fastest-doubling trends before you pick an idea

Patrick Campbell builds a spreadsheet of fast-moving trends (using industry reports and Google Scholar papers), tagging each by doubling time, causes, and effects. The idea: like Bezos noticing the internet grew 2,700% a year, ride a wave so you don't need to be a genius to find a good business.

“And basically when Jeff Bezos started Amazon, he noticed this like crazy stat, you know, this new thing called the internet was growing 2,700% per year. Um, so he knows he's got to build something on it. Um, he didn't know what it was, but he was starting from the trend because when you go where the water”

Steal thisBuild a spreadsheet of trends ranked by doubling time and mine academic papers for the fastest-growing numbers before committing to an idea.

School-safety products: a market built on the rise in school shootings

Campbell notes an entire market has propped up around making students and parents feel safer, from bookcases that swing in front of doors to clear backpacks. He frames it as a trend whose second- and third-order effects spawn buyable businesses.

“So there's things like bookcases that fly in front of, you know, doors, there's things like, clear backpacks. There's an entire market that's kind of propped up against this.”

Buy gas stations to convert exit gains into tax-free depreciation

If your spouse is a real-estate professional, passive real-estate losses become active and offset active gains. Campbell bought a block of gas stations and used bonus depreciation, sheltering a large chunk of his company-sale proceeds.

“your passive losses on like real estate become active losses and they offset active gains. So got a big pile of, you know, kind of gains from the sale of the company. And then all of a sudden I can offset those with depreciation of the gas stations. And I can do that with bonus depreciation in one year. So just to use some round numbers, like if I buy $10 million of gas stations, I basically can take $8 million of depreciation essentially, and that can offset some of those particular gains.”

Steal thisAfter a big taxable gain, have a real-estate-professional spouse buy depreciable property and use bonus depreciation to offset the active gains.

CPI-linked leases written in the early 2000s became a goldmine after inflation

Campbell's $30M gas-station deal had rent increases tied to CPI in leases written in the early 2000s. When recent inflation hit, the contractual rent bumps became significant, which is what made the deal great.

“all of the like rent increases were based off of CPI. And they were, they were written in like the early 2000s. So basically what's happening is, as you've seen all the inflation data, when these rent increases go into effect, the increase in rent is pretty significant.”

Freedom-inducing purchases buy the most happiness for the wealthy

From Campbell's $50K study of rich people, the spend that increases happiness most isn't stuff or even experiences but freedom-inducing items: a jet, a personal assistant, household help. It's not the object, it's the freedom it unlocks.

“the top one was kind of fascinating. Like the things that we coded that built or brought the most happiness were what I kind of labeled freedom-inducing events or freedom-inducing items. So things like a jet, if you can afford a jet and you can fly private, it's not the nature of the jet, it's that it brings you so much freedom. And so we saw this kind of coded in all the responses. And so things like, I know Sam, you've been a little hesitant to it, things like getting a personal assistant, things like getting someone to take care of stuff at the home, those things actually bring a lot more happiness”

Steal thisSpend money on things that buy back freedom (assistant, household help, travel) over status objects.

Nearly every wealthy person keeps a daily to-do list and works out

In Campbell's research, ~90%+ of wealthy people shared two habits: some kind of daily list or to-do system, and consistent weekly exercise. Those who fell off fitness tended to be 'out of the game.'

“Lists was a big thing, like lists or like a to-do list of some sort. Um, wealthy folks almost to a T had some sort of system where every day they were like, here's what I'm going to do. For some, it was like, I got one big thing each day. For others, it was like some hardcore, like to-do list app and all this other fun stuff that was organized.”

The $200M man who fantasizes about toppling a dictatorship with a spreadsheet

Patrick Campbell, who sold ProfitWell for $200M, gets genuinely jacked up about the idea of freeing a country like Cuba, claims it'd take only $300-400M to make a dent, and yes, has spreadsheets for it.

“I get so jacked up about the idea of like toppling a dictatorship one day. I get so excited by it.”

The product-remix playbook: differentiate by aligning with an identity

Across ~10,000 D2C brands Campbell analyzed, there are only ~10 ways to differentiate (cheaper supply chain, celebrity, lifestyle, identity, premium, etc.). Aligning a commodity with an identity (e.g. Black Rifle Coffee) raises willingness to pay 20-40% and lifts retention.

“identity-based products increase willingness to pay by about 20 to 40%. So if I just had regular coffee and then I had regular coffee or I had regular coffee that was built particularly for this, like, like, we'll just say like conservative, but I don't think they necessarily claim that party. All of a sudden that coffee is worth 20 to 40% because you're niching down into that particular group.”

Steal thisTake a commodity product and remix it by aligning it tightly with an identity or lifestyle to charge 20-40% more.

Add-ons are the most underrated pricing lever, boosting LTV 20-50%

Campbell calls add-ons the most underutilized aspect of pricing across consumer, B2B, and enterprise. The highest-growth subscription companies carry 12+ add-ons; a customer never sees all of them but buys one or two, lifting lifetime value 20-50%.

“add-ons. Um, they're the most underrated, underutilized aspect of all pricing, consumer, B2B, enterprise. Um, they boost lifetime value by about 20 to 50%. So just to make sure this is clear, like, hey, they bought your core product, which is a fitness shirt. Well, add a white t-shirt for $10, like stuff like that. Those are like add-ons. Hey, they bought your SaaS app, add priority support for whatever 10% of your list price is for the software. Um, most companies, like the most high growth companies, at least in the subscription space, they have 12 or more add-ons typically.”

Steal thisBuild a menu of 12+ optional add-ons so each customer buys one or two, lifting LTV 20-50%.

Add-ons are the most underrated pricing lever, boosting LTV 20-50%

Campbell calls add-ons the most underutilized aspect of pricing across consumer, B2B, and enterprise. The highest-growth subscription companies carry 12+ add-ons; a customer never sees all of them but buys one or two, lifting lifetime value 20-50%.

“add-ons. Um, they're the most underrated, underutilized aspect of all pricing, consumer, B2B, enterprise. Um, they boost lifetime value by about 20 to 50%. So just to make sure this is clear, like, hey, they bought your core product, which is a fitness shirt. Well, add a white t-shirt for $10, like stuff like that. Those are like add-ons. Hey, they bought your SaaS app, add priority support for whatever 10% of your list price is for the software. Um, most companies, like the most high growth companies, at least in the subscription space, they have 12 or more add-ons typically.”

Steal thisBuild a menu of 12+ optional add-ons so each customer buys one or two, lifting LTV 20-50%.

Price-increase emails: make it about them, not your costs

Campbell has refined a price-increase email template over a decade (T-Mobile even copied it off his site). The core rule: don't make it about you, make it about them, because customers don't care about your rising costs, only their own.

“how to communicate a price increase. Um, the TL;DR is don't make it about you, make it about them. Um, cause they don't care about your costs or whatever. They care about their costs.”

Steal thisFrame any price-increase announcement around the customer's value and costs, never your own rising expenses.

Bootstrapped ProfitWell exit minted 13 millionaires

Patrick Campbell sold the 100%-bootstrapped ProfitWell to Paddle for over $200M. Despite owning the whole thing, he'd been generous with equity: 13 employees became millionaires and 30-35 made six figures or more.

“Um, we had, I think the headline number is we had 13 millionaires. We had like 30, 35 people made 6Ks or more. And then I think there's like 120 people all in, people who had worked at the company previously and the current employees who got some sort of consideration out of the deal. So, and the price was, I think that it was 200, it was over 200.”

ProfitWell went free after 30 Stripe-metrics clones appeared overnight

Campbell thought metrics software would make them billionaires, but ~30 competitors built Stripe integrations almost overnight. Realizing nobody monetizes metrics well, they made the product free and grew to 30,000 companies before selling.

“And then there were like 30 competitors. And it was like all overnight, like the space where we thought we were going to be billionaires for like metrics, all of a sudden it was like, oh my God, like everyone and their other is building a Stripe integration. And so, um, we did some homework, we did some research, all that kind of fun stuff, and basically discovered that like either this is a terrible business and we should stop doing it because no one is really great at monetizing metrics, or the free route, which is what we did.”

Quilting is a $4.5B industry; quilters spend $8-9K a year

Campbell, whose database tracks subscription revenue, flags quilting and crafts as a fast-growing subscription niche. Quilting alone is roughly a $4.5B/year industry and the average quilter spends $8,000-$9,000 a year on supplies, much of it through local quilt shops.

“what's fascinating is the quilting space. If the, if you didn't know, quilting is, um, it's about a $4.5 billion per year industry. Um, the average quilter spends about $8,000 to $9,000 per year on like quilting supplies. Um, most of that comes not just online, but it comes through quilt shops.”

Missouri Star Quilt Co. revitalized a dying town with YouTube

A woman's son started filming her explaining quilting on YouTube. The content built Missouri Star Quilt Company into a destination that revitalized a dying Missouri town, with fans bussing in to visit the quilt shop.

“there's this one in Missouri. I can't remember exactly, but it was like this town that was like basically, you know, on its last legs. This woman, her, you know, basically her son started doing YouTube videos where she would just explain how to do quilting stuff. It's created, it basically revitalized the town, like, because everyone comes on buses to come visit the town and go to the quilt shop and all that kind of fun stuff.”

Start your pricing high, then come down

Campbell's pricing rule: older, premium, and niche audiences churn far less. When bootstrapping, start with a high price point to a premium/niche crowd (like ButcherBox's paleo start or Whoop's athletes) and lower it later, because going up later is much harder.

“anytime there is a more premium product or a more niche audience, you just have better churn, like every single time. So like ButcherBox started with the, you know, whole kind of, um, paleo crowd, a very niche, it was very premium, um, in terms of price point, worked out really well. Whoop started very high. They were like, we're athletes. And then all these people who were like, I want to be an athlete too. And they're charging $30 a month. Month, right? Um, that's always what I recommend is if you're starting something, especially if you're bootstrapping, um, start high and then come down.”

Steal thisLaunch at a premium price to a niche audience, then lower it later — raising prices later is far harder than dropping them.

Roll up the trades: plumbing, HVAC, electricians

Campbell likes trades roll-ups because they're skilled enough to have a moat but not so skilled you can't consolidate them. Many owners are looking to retire and sell, and like accountant shops, they rarely fetch more than ~1x — cheap to acquire.

“Uh, trades roll-ups, plumbing companies, HVAC companies, electrician companies. There's a lot of that stuff happening. It's not like machine shops or those types of things where it's just like hard to innovate. It's like skilled enough that there's a niche and there's like a moat, but it's not skilled enough that you can't roll it up. A lot of these guys and gals are looking for basically a way to retire.”

Steal thisRoll up retiring trades businesses (HVAC, plumbing, electrical) — moaty but not so skilled you can't consolidate, and they sell for ~1x.

He ran an NSA-style competitive intel program at his SaaS

Campbell's first job out of school was as an NSA intel analyst. He ported that 'profile a target over time' thinking into ProfitWell, running a one-man competitive intel program with shadow lists of each competitor's customers and shadow NPS surveys collected quarterly.

“Um, and so I had a competitive intel program basically at ProfitWell. It was just me running it where, um, I had every quarter I had stats and it's kind of like what you guys have talked about before, but like a little bit deeper. So what I did is I had shadow lists of like our, each competitor, even our partners, like customers. And I would send like shadow NPS surveys, um, you know, product research surveys, these types of things. And the thing that people miss on competitive intel is like, it has to be done over time.”

Find a competitor's customers via Clearbit, case studies, and logos

Campbell's method to assemble a list of a rival's customers: pull from BuiltWith/Clearbit snippets, their published case studies, and the logos on their website. You don't need 10,000 — just enough to survey on a recurring basis and build a timeline.

“there are many lists of customers that you can find. Um, if they have some sort of a snippet, obviously built with Clearbit, all those types of things, right? That's one. Everyone likes to talk about their customers, right? So they have case studies. That's 2. Everyone likes to put the logos on their website. That's 3, right? And so you're looking at social, you're looking at BuiltWith, you're looking at all these logos.”

Steal thisAssemble a rival's customer list from BuiltWith/Clearbit snippets, their case studies, and the logos on their site.

Survey rivals' customers with 5 questions from a neutral research domain

Campbell's survey playbook: email a competitor's identified users from a neutral domain like marketingsoftwareresearch.com, ask for 30-60 seconds, and keep it to max 5 questions (NPS, most/least preferred feature, open comment). Repeating the same survey over time builds a trend timeline.

“what I would do is I would do more like marketingsoftwareresearch.com or something to that effect. And then the way that I position it is, hey, so-and-so, you've been identified as a user of HubSpot. I would love 30 seconds of your time to understand what you love and what you don't love. Right. And the 30 seconds there, 30 to 60 seconds there is really important.”

Steal thisSurvey a rival's customers from a neutral research domain, ask for 30-60 seconds, cap it at 5 questions, and repeat over time to build a trendline.

Survey rivals' customers with 5 questions from a neutral research domain

Campbell's survey playbook: email a competitor's identified users from a neutral domain like marketingsoftwareresearch.com, ask for 30-60 seconds, and keep it to max 5 questions (NPS, most/least preferred feature, open comment). Repeating the same survey over time builds a trend timeline.

“what I would do is I would do more like marketingsoftwareresearch.com or something to that effect. And then the way that I position it is, hey, so-and-so, you've been identified as a user of HubSpot. I would love 30 seconds of your time to understand what you love and what you don't love. Right. And the 30 seconds there, 30 to 60 seconds there is really important.”

Steal thisSurvey a rival's customers from a neutral research domain, ask for 30-60 seconds, cap it at 5 questions, and repeat over time to build a trendline.

Keep a 'red team doc' of everything that could kill you

Campbell's defensive playbook: a red team doc logs every thought about what could kill or hurt the company. Each scenario (a Twitter accusation, an attack) gets a pre-planned set of response steps, so you have a head start when it actually happens.

“the other thing that I build off of this are red team docs. I don't know if you guys know what those are, but basically like every thought I've had or every thought that I learned from this data, because this data, like customer data and market data is probably 10x more important, but this is like some interesting data that's easy to talk about in a podcast. Um, But red team docs is when I look at all this data, it's like, what are the things that kill us? Every single thought that I've had that could like kill us or hurt us goes into a doc.”

Steal thisKeep a red team doc: log every way you could be killed, and pre-write the response steps so you have a head start when it happens.

Keep a 'red team doc' of everything that could kill you

Campbell's defensive playbook: a red team doc logs every thought about what could kill or hurt the company. Each scenario (a Twitter accusation, an attack) gets a pre-planned set of response steps, so you have a head start when it actually happens.

“the other thing that I build off of this are red team docs. I don't know if you guys know what those are, but basically like every thought I've had or every thought that I learned from this data, because this data, like customer data and market data is probably 10x more important, but this is like some interesting data that's easy to talk about in a podcast. Um, But red team docs is when I look at all this data, it's like, what are the things that kill us? Every single thought that I've had that could like kill us or hurt us goes into a doc.”

Steal thisKeep a red team doc: log every way you could be killed, and pre-write the response steps so you have a head start when it happens.

Build a quarterly competitive-intel report to replace Forrester

Campbell wants someone to build a recurring NPS/review-data business: pull G2 reviews and run quarterly reports on a company or industry showing new positive and negative reviews plus NPS data — a faster, modern replacement for Forrester reports.

“I think you could create a really good business around collecting NPS data. Honestly, G2 Crowd Reviews, that's where there's a ton of like data. Like I would love— someone should create this because it would just do my job, which is great. Um, quarterly report, kind of like Forrester— this is the thing, Forrester Reports. I think there's also like a market to like blow that whole business up. Give me like quarterly reports instead of these reports where you called 100 people, a quarterly report on the same company or on the same industry that has here the reviews, the new reviews, positive of a competitor, here the bad reviews, um, negative of a competitor.”

Steal thisBuild a SaaS that auto-generates quarterly competitive reports from G2 reviews and NPS data — a modern, faster Forrester.

Money amplifies the worst and best in you — you're the same person

On selling for nine figures young, Campbell relays what Alex Hormozi told him: money just amplifies who you already are. He thought he'd get healthier with money but instead can now afford to go to terrible places all the time — you stay the same person.

“what I told him, and he kind of was like, yeah, exactly, back, was it amplifies the worst in you and the best in you. You're just the same person, right? So like, I thought when I was gonna get money, I was gonna like, oh, I'm gonna be healthier because I can like afford, you know, someone to yell at me about eating. It's like, no, like now I can afford to go to terrible places all the time.”

He's doing a hostile takeover of a publicly-traded human for $13K

Mike Merrill (KmikeyM) became the first publicly-traded person in 2008, selling shares in himself and letting shareholders vote on his life decisions. Campbell quietly bought ~1,930 of ~5,000 voting shares for about $13K to attempt a hostile takeover, purely 'for the quickest path to learning.'

“So I sneakily, I start buying shares and I start researching people who haven't been active because you can see the last time they like logged in and stuff, because I want to start contacting them. He launches this auction of about 2,000 shares. And I know that most votes, there's only about 5,000 shares that are voting. So I was like, cool, if I get 2,000 shares, which is like 10, 11% of the entire thing.”