Hey friends, greetings again from Berlin!
If we haven’t met yet, I’m Bo, co-founder of SavvyNomad, the company that helps U.S. expats cut their tax bill by claiming domicile in states with no income tax.
Each month, I share the raw numbers, the face-palm moments, and the little wins that keep this bootstrapped rocket inching toward $1M ARR.
August was a mix of record-breaking growth and channel experiments finally clicking into place:
We set a new all-time high with 109 paying subscribers, beating the May tax-season record of 90.
good problem to have:)
MRR climbed to $59,794 (+17%), pushing us past 70% of the way to $1M ARR.
It was the first full month working with a Google Ads agency — and performance improved enough that we’re ready to scale the budget next month.
YouTube showed its first real business impact: 4 subs + 3 promo codes, backed by 13k ad-driven views and a new cadence of five long-form videos and eight Shorts.
We also ran our first month of the Americans Abroad Newsletter under our brand, growing to 4,100 readers with open rates north of 50 %.
On the personal side, I spent the whole month in Berlin — working, training, networking with founders, and turning 28 with my best-performing LinkedIn post ever.
Here’s the detailed breakdown:
Key metrics
August brought a smaller top-of-funnel but much stronger monetization efficiency. Sign-ups slipped –21 %, even as website traffic inched up +2 %. The visit → signup conversion rate dropped to 4.1 % (–23 %), but those who did sign up were far more qualified: the signup → customer rate surged +76 %, lifting Added MRR to $8.5k and pushing total Monthly Recurring Revenue close to the $60k mark (+17 %).
Metric | July 2025 | August 2025 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
Sign-ups | 3,089 | 2,451 | –21 % |
Website visits (new users) | 58,000 | 59,000 | +2 % |
Visit → Signup CR | 5.3 % | 4.1 % | –23 % |
Signup → Customer CR | 2.50 % | 4.40 % | +76 % |
Added MRR | $6,308 | $8,482 | +35 % |
Total MRR | $51,312 | $59,794 | +17 % |
Progress toward $1M ARR | 62 % | 72 % | +10 pp |
Active subscribers | 643 | 724 | +13 % |
New subscribers | 77 | 109 | +42 % |
Churn rate | 2.87 % | 4.23 % | +47 % |
Where did new customers come from?
In August, we welcomed 109 new paying subscribers — our best month ever, surpassing the previous record of 90 in May. This record wasn’t just about channels performing better; it also reflects the seasonality in our business.
The April tax deadline created a surge in May, but August turned out to be another strong month.
Our assumption is that many people postpone making a change until they have more time — typically during summer vacations — which helped drive this record alongside stronger Google Ads performance and the first signs of traction from YouTube.
On YouTube specifically, we saw 4 self-attributed subscriptions and 3 promo codes redeemed directly from video campaigns, making it a channel to watch as content continues to compound.
Self-attribution
Self
Key insights
Perception gap persists. Users still mostly believe they came via organic search or direct, even though analytics confirms ads as the leading acquisition driver.
YouTube momentum. Subscriptions and promo-code usage show the channel moving beyond awareness into measurable conversions.
Google Ads scaling. Paid search continues to grow efficiently and has become the backbone of acquisition — more details in the following chapters.
Organic traffic
Organic continued to play a steady role in August, though it didn’t bring a breakout month. Traffic from search engines stayed roughly flat overall, with small shifts between Google and Bing. What stands out is that while raw volumes didn’t move much, conversions from organic remain consistent.
Our backlink profile continued to improve — the domain rating climbed to 43 (+1), with +47 backlinks and +29 referring domains in August — but the impact hasn’t translated into meaningful growth yet.
Given this, I’m considering a strategic shift. Instead of continuing to pour resources into link building, it may be time to redirect budget and focus toward influencing AI surfaces like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overview. If search behavior is tilting toward these interfaces, then being visible there could deliver more leverage than traditional backlink campaigns that haven’t moved the needle.
Bing
Bing was a small bright spot, climbing from 1,400 → 1,600 (+14 %) . While the absolute numbers are still modest, the steady upward trend suggests Bing is becoming a channel worth monitoring more closely, especially as Microsoft integrates search more deeply with AI assistants.
Google Ads
August was the first month working with an external agency, and the results speak for themselves. With optimized campaigns in place, performance improved across the board: spend rose from $11,019 → $12,755, while conversions jumped from 2,572 → 3,523, driving the CPA down from $4.3 → $3.6 (–17 %). The visit → signup CR also climbed from 4.22 % → 5.82 % (+38 %) .
We’re now confident enough to scale budget further in September and push this channel harder to bring in even more new customers. As part of that, we’ve turned off the brand campaign — since there are no competitors bidding on our brand or keywords, there’s no reason to keep spending there.
It’s also worth noting that customer acquisition costs vary widely across campaigns: some as low as ~$200, others reaching ~$900.
Even with that spread, the channel as a whole is performing well enough to justify additional spend, and we see plenty of room to expand.
August was the first full month since acquiring and rebranding the newsletter as Americans Abroad Newsletter, and the early results are encouraging. We took it over at 3,800 subscribers, and it’s now at 4,100, with most of the growth coming from emailing our existing list. Engagement is strong so far, with open rates consistently above 50 %, and we published two posts during the month.
Looking ahead, we’ll be focusing on two priorities:
Lead magnet — creating a comprehensive tax guide that will both attract new subscribers and incentivize current readers to invite friends (they’ll receive the guide as a reward).
Acquisition channels — testing scalable ways to grow the list further, such as Beehiiv Boost network, Reddit advertising, collaborations with other newsletters, or alternative paid channels.
The goal is to compound growth here, just as we’ve seen with YouTube — by turning a strong foundation into a consistent top-of-funnel channel.
YouTube
August was the month we started to take YouTube more seriously as a growth channel. Mike, our creator, joined part-time, and together we streamlined the editing process, which allowed us to increase consistency. We published five long-form videos (getting close to our target of two per week) and also released eight Shorts.
To accelerate growth, we decided to put $100 of ad spend behind each new video ($800 in total). This gave us a clear split between reach driven by advertising and what we achieved organically.
Advertising generated 13,100 views and 228 new subscribers.
Organic reach accounted for 7,566 views and 84 subscribers.
The channel is still in its early stages, but momentum is building. With a more regular publishing schedule and a structured promotion strategy, YouTube is already starting to show up in attribution (4 self-attributed subs + 3 promo codes in August). It has the potential to become one of our strongest long-term acquisition channels.
Personal updates
I spent all of August in Berlin, splitting my time between work, exercise, and networking with other entrepreneurs.
One of the things I enjoy most about this city is how many founders are based here — it feels like every week there’s a chance to meet someone new who is building something interesting.
Guess who has the highest ARR here? :)
This month also marked a personal milestone: I turned 28.
Man loves flowers too
I used the occasion to reflect on my progress toward the goals I set for myself this year, and I shared some of those thoughts on LinkedIn. That post turned out to be my best-performing post ever on the platform, which was a fun reminder that people resonate with personal stories as much as business updates.
On top of that, I published a YouTube video of my road trip in Portugal with my friends.
Plans for September
For September, the focus is on scaling what’s working while making a few strategic shifts:
Google Ads — now that campaigns are optimized with the agency, we’ll increase budget and push harder on acquisition. The goal is to capture more new customers while keeping CAC within an acceptable range.
YouTube — stay consistent with publishing (two videos per week + Shorts) and continue the $100 promotion test for each video. The priority is to compound reach and start building YouTube into a predictable subscriber source.
Newsletter — launch the tax guide lead magnet to drive organic growth and give current readers an incentive to invite friends. At the same time, test out acquisition channels like Beehiiv Boost, Reddit ads, or partnerships with other newsletters.
Organic search — begin shifting strategy away from heavy link building toward visibility in AI-driven search interfaces (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overview). The idea is to explore where future search attention is moving.
On the personal side, I’ll still be in Berlin for most of the month, doubling down on networking with founders while keeping my exercise and content routines consistent.
As always, I’ll report back next month on what sticks—and what flops.
Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one:)