The Nathan Barry Show

Episode 118: Live Coaching – How We're Growing This Business To $5M

Date: March 5, 2026
Host: Nathan Barry
Guest: Michael (Founder & CEO of Nozbe)

Episode Overview

In this live coaching session, Nathan Barry sits down with Michael, the founder of Nozbe—a productivity app business that has plateaued at $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Together, they dive into a comprehensive business diagnostic, aiming to uncover why growth has stagnated and develop actionable strategies to reach the ambitious target of $5M ARR. The conversation features an in-depth breakdown of Nozbe’s journey, the challenges with competition and awareness, and a hands-on coaching approach to positioning, metrics, partnerships, and go-to-market tactics.

1. Background: Nozbe’s Growth Journey

Origin Story

• Michael built Nozbe as a digital solution for Getting Things Done (GTD) after struggling with personal organization.
• First version coded over a weekend; launched originally to crickets, then spread through niche online discussion groups.
• A key break came when a ZDNet blogger reviewed Nozbe, causing a surge in early US users.
  [02:56] “I was this guy from Warsaw, Poland, in an apartment...but I built the first version in English.”—Michael

Milestones & Growth Spurts

• First year: $4,000 MRR, transitioned from consulting to focus on Nozbe full-time in 2008.
  [03:28] “After New Year's Eve of 2007/2008...I decided I'm going to just drop the customers and just focus on Nozbe full time.”—Michael
• Plateau at $20k MRR, broken by the launch of an iPad app that unexpectedly took off in Japan, doubling revenue.
  [04:48] “We had an iPad app...somebody wrote an article in Japan, and suddenly it blew up...20,000 monthly recurring revenue to 60,000.”—Michael
• Reached a peak ARR of $1.5M–$1.6M by 2016–2018, but then growth stagnated.

Rebuilding & Product Evolution

• Recognized that market was saturating with free “to-do” tools; shifted focus to team collaboration features.
• Major (and risky) decision to rebuild Nozbe from scratch, prioritizing “task-based communication”—launched in 2020, but faced adoption challenges and user split between classic and new versions.
  [08:31] “We had this wild idea...to rebuild our tool from scratch, putting the comments and the collaboration as the core feature...which was a mistake.”—Michael

2. Business Diagnostics: Where Things Stand

The Plateau & Mission

• ARR stuck at $1M for years, despite having die-hard fans.
• Michael’s goal is impact-driven: “I would like to have just a bigger impact because I know for a fact, once people get the hang of our app, they love it. But how do we show it to them?” [09:33]

Competitive Landscape & Identity Crisis

• Nozbe faces tough competition from giants like Asana, Trello, ClickUp, etc., with much larger marketing budgets and greater market awareness.
• At times, team questioned continuing—until customer loyalty and feedback reaffirmed the product’s value. [11:10] “We were just thinking, maybe we are the only customer of ours...But then our customers...they came back. They did try ClickUp. They did try Asana. They're just bloated...We want tasks to be the main thing.”

User Base Split

• 60% of current users remain on the legacy app, 40% on the new (growth/revenue is in the new cohort).
• Migration and feature parity are nearly complete, but little incentive for users to migrate unless driven by needs.

3. Key Metrics & Levers for Growth

—From Nathan’s diagnostic board, starting [13:05]

Main Growth Levers

• Awareness – Not enough new users, flat/declining traffic, competitive ad bidding blocking paid growth.
• Activation – Onboarding funnel includes live demos, with a ~50% conversion from demo to paid, but data tracking is inconsistent.
  [22:19] “50% of people who show up for a demo with her [Magda] are not signing up.”—Michael
• Expansion – Additional revenue comes as teams invite more users. 40% of customers are solo; another 40% have 2–3 users.
  [25:59] “40% of our customers have one seat...another 40%, two to three people...”
• Retention – Monthly revenue churn is now around 3%, down from 5–6%—shows strong product adherence among loyal users.
• Referrals – Organic referral power has dropped since the GTD peak; affiliate/reward programs in place, but with limited impact.

Current Weakness:

• Awareness is the bottleneck.
  [26:46] “We just don't...people don't know about this.”—Nathan

• Metrics & Accountability
  Nathan strongly recommends tighter metric tracking and weekly accountability.
  [38:04] “I cannot stress how important it is to have a couple of very simple dashboards that show what is actually happening in the business.”—Nathan

4. Brand, Team, and Product Insights

Brand Analysis

• Name (“Nozbe”) is unique, trademarkable, and not a branding obstacle.
  [15:30] “I think the name Nozbe can work just fine.”—Nathan
• Design is functional but not a differentiator (unlike Linear, for example).

Team Structure

• Shrunk from 25 to 15 people:
  • 4 customer support
  • 6 developers
  • 1 designer & 1 QA
  • 3 marketing (Michael still central to marketing effort)
    [17:26] “I could fire myself from all of the roles in the company except for the marketing role.”—Michael

Product Observations

• Freemium model: up to 3 users/3 projects free; most upgrades happen during promotions.
• Old vs. New Product split, with most growth coming from the new collaborative app.

5. Key Problem Areas and Opportunities

Positioning Problem

• Struggling to clearly articulate Nozbe’s unique value in a crowded market.
• Previous positioning as “simple to-do/project management for small business owners” feels generic.

Breakthrough Moment:

• Nathan helps Michael sharpen the core promise:
  [59:56] “I think this is your promise...Nozbe is the tool that your team will actually use.”

  “You say, look, we strip away everything else. This is the tool that you actually use, and that is what gets the results.” —Nathan [60:21]

  [59:57] Michael: “So one of our customers is a construction company...he said...now I'm at this stage that if I would tell my team that I'm going to take Nozbe away from them, they would kill me because they got used to using it and...it's so simple.”

Top Funnel & Go-to-Market Weakness

• Declining or flat organic traffic.
• Content marketing (podcast, etc.) has limited impact—likely not an acquisition driver.
• Previous spikes in awareness were triggered by influential partners.

Partnerships as a Growth Channel

• Partner program tested with productivity consultants; only successful when partnered was incentivized and received hands-on support.
• Largest obstacle: other potential partners want to remain platform-agnostic; incentives need to be restructured.
• Direct sales for small teams doesn't work, but “direct sales to partners” could provide required scale.
  [54:25] “I would be all in on this direct sales motion of how do I get to the partnership, line up as many partnerships as possible.” —Nathan

6. Actionable Strategies, Experiments, and To-Do List

Fix Metrics & Accountability

• Build key dashboards (traffic, funnel, and conversion metrics), assign owners for each, and run weekly “revenue meetings” for accountability.
  [39:01] “Key metrics with an owner...we’re going to have two, maybe three dashboards...those are the things that are going to be viewed continually.”

Positioning Overhaul

• Shift promise from generic productivity to “the tool your team will actually use,” with benefits of high adoption and less friction.
• Use concrete, “sticky” examples and customer testimonials (e.g., construction company story).

Leverage Partnerships as Main Channel

• Identify key productivity trainers/consultants willing to teach their method with Nozbe (“case study” style).
• Figure out and front load incentives (e.g., pay for webinars/courses instead of relying solely on long-term revenue share—suggests a $5-10k/month allocation as a catalyst). [66:32] “I will pay you to do this webinar and teach this workshop and to implement Nozbe. You’ll make this money upfront.”

Outbound Motion & Team Realignment

• Founder-led outreach initially, transitioning system to marketing staff using AI-driven research.
• Instrument and report on outreach efforts as a funnel, measured weekly.
• Consider reallocating team to focus resource dollars on effective go-to-market (for example, reducing headcount to better fund paid partner collaborations if necessary).
• Go back to “old goodwill” and previous advocates/partners to reignite their interest.

Product & Customer Insights

• Continue to encourage and facilitate migration to the new version.
• Use stories from “die-hard” customers to discover “who do they follow”—tap into their networks for partner lead gen and nuanced customer research. [71:18] “I would go to the customers that you have that are the true fans, and I would say, ‘Hey, who do you follow for productivity advice?’...”

7. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Plateauing:
  “You just don’t...people don’t know about this.”—Nathan [26:46]

• On Competition:
  “We did try ClickUp. We did try Asana. They're just bloated...We want like, because in Nozbe, tasks is the main thing.” —Nozbe customer, as relayed by Michael [11:10]

• On Product Promise:
  “Because everyone is going to say why? Why Nozbe versus ClickUp...Because Nozbe is the tool that your team will actually use.” —Nathan [61:06]

• On Execution:
  “Key metrics with an owner...and then we need this net new...It’s about accountability.” —Nathan [39:01/41:30]

8. Timestamps for Major Segments

• Origin & Early Growth: 01:07–06:15
• Peak & Plateau: 06:15–09:33
• Competition & Identity: 10:33–12:56
• Metrics Breakdown: 13:05–19:41
• Team & Brand Review: 17:18–18:35
• Churn/Retention Discussion: 30:40–32:21
• Referral Struggles: 34:32–36:04
• Go-to-Market Bridge: 38:05–41:32
• Outside vs. Inside Team Energy: 44:03–45:49
• Partners/Case Study Highlight: 46:35–49:43
• Awareness as Core Issue: 54:35–55:15
• Positioning Breakthrough: 59:56–60:36
• Implementation To-Do List: 62:21–68:16
• Reflection & Closing: 74:41–75:47

9. Conclusion & Next Steps

Nathan and Michael conclude with energy and optimism:
Michael commits to applying the new strategy (sharpened positioning, partner focus, and metrics/ownership discipline). Nathan underscores the importance of weekly accountability, perpetual outbound, and playing to customer and partner strengths. Nozbe’s next chapter will hinge on going all-in on what it truly is: a tool teams will actually use.

10. Key To-Do List Summary

(from live notes, [62:21] onward)

• Build and maintain simple live dashboards for traffic, funnel, activation, and referrals—assign an owner for each.
• Run weekly “revenue meetings” with team, focusing on key metrics and actions taken.
• Overhaul positioning: emphasize “the tool your team will actually use.”
• Identify and recruit new partners—focus on productivity trainers/consultants, using case studies and upfront incentives.
• Leverage AI/tools for outbound partner lead generation.
• Tap into fan/customer social graphs: who do your fans follow?
• Reassess team and funding allocation to maximize go-to-market muscle.
• Launch case studies featuring successful partners as proof points.

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