From Upwork to a $1M Analytics Agency

"You have no business being employed.” That’s what MaryBeth Maskovas’ future business coach told her the first time she met MaryBeth, the founder of Insight Lime Analytics.

Insight Lime Analytics is an agency that helps companies with their data strategy. In other words, they help companies measure the right data and then understand what that data is actually telling them. As you may have noticed in that opening quote, starting this agency was a bit of an accident for MaryBeth. It began as a small side hustle that grew to over $3,000 in monthly revenue. By year three, they had made over $1 million in annual revenue.

To see how MaryBeth bootstrapped Insight Lime Analytics to over $1 million in annual revenue, let's start with Mary Beth's journey into entrepreneurship, how she started Insight Lime Analytics, and then go through all the growth strategies that they've been using to grow to $1 million in annual revenue.

Before Insight Lime Analytics

MaryBeth started her career at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she studied ecology and evolutionary biology. Something that has a lot to do with marketing, right? Well, kind of, but more on that in a second.

While studying biology, she took on various roles to help pay for her college tuition, including joining a marketing consultancy from 2012 to 2016. After graduating in 2016 with a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology, she, as she puts it, "sold out" to join a marketing consultancy in Copenhagen.

From 2016 to 2020, MaryBeth worked in various marketing roles in Copenhagen, gaining experience in SEO, paid ads, analytics, and social media content. Her background in biology, particularly her understanding of the scientific method and data analysis, proved surprisingly valuable in the growing field of marketing analytics.

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The Start of Insight Lime Analytics

In 2018, MaryBeth began taking on side projects through Upwork. These gigs included Google Analytics work, Google Ads management, and other marketing tasks. By 2020, her side hustle was bringing in $3,000 per month.

Then, like for many of us, COVID-19 hit, upending MaryBeth's life in Copenhagen. She moved back to Colorado from Copenhagen, uncertain about her next steps. During this time, she had a pivotal consultation call with a business coach, who told her, "MaryBeth, you have no business being employed. You're an entrepreneur to the core."

With $3,000 in monthly revenue from her side projects, low expenses (thanks to living with her mom), and extensive experience in marketing consultancies, MaryBeth went full time on Insight Lime Analytics. In September 2020, Insight Lime Analytics was born.

Making the leap to full-time entrepreneur has worked out pretty well. Here is her revenue numbers for the first 4 years of being full-time:

• Year 1: $100,000 in revenue
• Year 2: $400,000 in revenue
• Year 3: $1 million in revenue
• Year 4: Close to $1 million (a slight step back, but still impressive)

Growth Strategies of Insight Lime Analytics

1. Referrals and Repeat Clients

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This is by far the best and most consistent channel they have for growing Insight Lime Analytics. They're really focused on keeping clients and growing contract size. They do this primarily by looking for different opportunities while working with clients.

As Mary Beth explains, "Some of our really big clients started with something like the strategic migration to GA4 (Google Analytics 4), and once we're in there, we're seeing all these other elements. The way that you grow that business is by looking for the other opportunities while you're consulting instead of just staying hyper-focused on the project you're doing."

This approach has led to an impressive 80% repeat rate with clients and a high Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Repeat clients doesn’t necessarily mean that a client stays with them every single month. It could mean that they do one project to start and then they come back months or even years later for future projects.

One last note on this strategy though: There’s one small question that they ask clients when closing a project that helps them keep clients and gain new clients: “do you know a company that you could put us in contact with that would be a good fit?”

That question not only helps them meet new clients, but also reminds the client they’re closing a project with that they can still do more work.

For Insight Lime Analytics, it’s helped gain new clients and even start new projects with current clients.

2. Upwork

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MaryBeth has a "love-hate relationship" with Upwork, but it played a crucial role in her journey. Her first clients, which grew to that initial $3,000 monthly revenue, came from the platform. Even after starting Insight Lime Analytics, Upwork continued to be a source of clients.

As Mary Beth puts it, "99% of the time, it's not great. And there's, you have to really sift through a lot, but it was actually my first clients that grew to that like 3k a month were originally from Upwork."

One of the most significant ways it’s helped grow Insight Lime Analytics is from one particular referral from a software development agency.

Just by having a profile on Upwork, a software development agency was able to refer business to MaryBeth. This referral felt too good to be true to MaryBeth that she originally thought it was a scam 😂

Can Upwork lead to millions of dollars of revenue? Probably not. Can it lead to some good starting projects and as a launch point for an agency business? Absolutely.

Partnerships

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Similar to Erin Rollenhagen, partnerships with different but complimentary agencies has been helpful. Insight Lime Analytics partners informally with agencies that offer complementary services, such as software development firms or broader marketing agencies. This strategy allows them to tap into new networks and receive referrals for clients who need specialized analytics services.

One interesting way MaryBeth has developed these types of partnerships is by attending conferences where she thinks potential clients might be.

Instead of chasing potential clients, she builds relationships with potential partners. It’s not that she won’t talk to potential clients at conferences, she just knows that the potential clients are being chased by most at the conference.

By building relationships with potential partners, she’s increasing the size of her potential referral network, which will benefit Insight Lime Analytics in the long run. Long run > short run.

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If you want to learn more about Insight Lime Analytics, you learn more at their website here or message MaryBeth on LinkedIn!