Saidur Rahaman Sagor

Scaling businesses to 6 figure revenue through website design & development | CEO @Appsmove

You have less than 5 seconds.

Let me explain:

—————————————————————

People have shorter attention spans nowadays.

Grab their attention within 5 seconds or lose them. 

Nowadays, converting website visitors into leads is like finding a needle in a haystack :

 👉 No storytelling
 👉 Lack of a lead funnel
 👉 No clear value proposition
 👉 Ineffective call-to-actions
 👉 Bad user experience
 👉 No technical SEO


You've probably tried: 

❌ Redesigning the site 
❌ Adding more call-to-actions 
❌ Using basic lead form to get the leads
❌ Using fundamental SEO techniques
❌ Catchy website copy

But none of that works without the right strategy, especially in today's economy, where everyone's wasting marketing budgets, and no one wants to lose potential customers.

That's why at Appsmove, we provide our customers with comprehensive solutions for turning visitors into leads.

Our team will help you with: 

✅ Clear value proposition
✅ User experience based on user psychology
✅ Optimized CTAs so people can't resist clicking 
✅ Storytelling in copy that engages customers
✅ Implement advanced technical SEO 
✅ Set up a lead funnel that works 

& more strategies that work.

All that's left for you to do is reach out. 

Want to turn your website into a converting machine?

DM me "website" and I'll show you how we can implement this.

CEO & Founder

We turn websites into converting machines. Using innovative ideas and technical skills, we design websites that look great on any device. That's not all! We're like long-term friends who keep your website up-to-date and functioning smoothly.

Saidur Rahaman

Richard Stroupe

Technologist | 3x Entrepreneur | VC Investor | Advisor

You're a visionary tech founder with a powerful idea, but face at least 3 of these 5 challenges:

1. Struggling to nail your product-market fit and business model
2. Lacking the processes and team to scale from seed to Series A
3. Unsure how to craft a compelling pitch and impress top VCs
4. Stalled growth and rapidly burning through your runway
5. Founder overwhelm - trying to do it all yourself

Meanwhile, your competitors are racing ahead and snatching up funding.

I've been in your shoes. I'm a 3x tech entrepreneur who's:

•  Bootstrapped, scaled and exited 2 software companies
•  Invested in 50+ early-stage startups as a VC and Angel
•  Mentored founders like you to launch, scale and exit

I combine decades of operator experience with an investor mindset.

By working with me, you'll gain a trusted advisor to help you:

↗︎ Pressure-test your business model and unlock scalable growth
↗︎ Implement processes and teams to go from seed to Series A
↗︎ Craft a winning pitch deck and nail your fundraising narrative
↗︎ Become a magnet for top-tier investors and A-Player talent
↗︎ Avoid the pitfalls which can make your startup one of the 90% that fail

An experienced guide is no longer optional.

With the right playbook and partner, you can beat the odds and build an enduring company.

Let me help you go from seed to scale to legendary exit. Reach out today!

Owner/Managing Director

Constructed in 2022, Saltwater Resort is a 48-room, 84-bed condo-style hotel offering five-star hospitality accommodations. Located just steps from public beach access and a few blocks from downtown Surf City, Saltwater Resort offers breathtaking oceanic views and refined interior design inspired by Wilmington's modern coastal ambiance.

Phase one of our development roadmap included delivering 24 units in 2022.  Phase two includes the additional 24 units along with a pool and full-service entertainment facility, with an expected delivery date of 2024.

Each of our fully furnished condo-style guestrooms offers eight professionally designed room themes to support the needs of families, couples, or remote professionals. Each room offers 700 sq ft of living space with a full kitchen, living area, full bath, washer/dryer, pull-out couch, and a 50-inch smart TV offering cable and Roku streaming services.

From the ground up, Saltwater was engineered and designed to redefine Topsail Island hospitality and to deliver an unparalleled guest experience. We aim to raise the bar for the ultimate Topsail Island resort-style experience while promoting the Wilmington coastal area's unique history, charm, and local offerings.  

For more information or to book your next Topsail Island getaway, please visit us at https://www.saltwatertopsail.com/.

I invested in SpaceX in 2019 when Starlink had 0 operational satellites.

• Zero customers
• Zero revenue
• Zero proof the physics would scale

Many analysts thought Musk was burning billions on a fantasy.

The capital requirements looked impossible. The technology was unproven. The business model was theoretical.

I invested anyway because the thesis was asymmetric:

If it succeeded, it would reshape the entire space industry. If it collapsed, at least the spectacular failure would be educational.

Six years later, Starlink just released its 2025 Progress Report.

The numbers are staggering:

→ 9.2m customers across 155 countries/territories
→  4.6m of those customers added in 2025 alone, doubling in 12 months
→  120 dedicated Falcon 9 launches just for Starlink.

→   650 Direct to Cell satellites deployed in 18 months
↳ Regular phones can now connect via satellite without modification
↳ Pushing Starlink deeper into telecom value chains and competing directly with terrestrial carriers

→  21m airline passengers and 20m cruise passengers connected
↳ Expanding beyond consumer broadband into high-margin enterprise.

Every Starlink subscriber pays roughly $120 per month. With 9.2 million customers, that’s around $13 billion in ARR. That cash flows directly into manufacturing, launches, and R&D.

That’a over 60% of SpaceX's total revenue, according to analyst estimates.

This is an incredible flywheel.

More satellites mean better coverage
↳ Better coverage attracts more customers
↳ More customers generate more revenue
↳ More revenue funds better technology
↳ Better technology deploys faster and cheaper.

Each loop amplifies the next.

This is what escape velocity looks like in business. Once the flywheel spins fast enough, it becomes self-sustaining.

Back in 2019. It went from 0 satellites to 120 in orbit by year’s end, mostly early prototypes.

In 2026, it's an operational juggernaut, with around 9,400 in a mega constellation, the cash-generating engine that makes everything else possible.

With reports of a potential SpaceX $1.5T IPO in 2026, it validates the thesis: Operational revenue can power frontier tech without endless fundraising. The bet wasn't on perfection, just on each subscriber becoming capital for the next technical lea.

Cash flow wins when you're building for decades.
__

If you're investing in space tech or building something in the space sector, I'm happy to share what I've learned watching this model play out over the past 7 years.  Drop me a message if you want to connect:

(These very cool images courtesy of Starlink)

Helping sub $3m tech founders construct their $10m blueprint | 3x Entrepreneur | VC Investor

22,000 new customers per day means Starlink currently adds the equivalent of a mid-sized city's internet infrastructure every week.

The numbers tell the story of its momentum:

SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation went from around1M customers at the end of 2022 to 9.2M by the end of 2025. 

Three straight years of doubling: 1M → 2.3M → 4.6M → 9.2M. 

Each cycle adds customers roughly equal to the total base from the year before.

According to a new forecast from Payload, the pattern is about to repeat.

It suggests the 2025 to 2026 jump could look like:

Starlink customers: 9.2m customers → 18.4m
Starlink Revenue: $10.4B → $18.7B (an 80% YoY jump)

At that scale, Starlink would represent roughly 80% of SpaceX's total revenue (projected to hit $23.8B, up from $15B in 2025)

The run rate supports it. 

Starlink averaged 12,600 customers per day across 2025. By Q4, that pace hit 22,000 per day, a 75% acceleration within the year. 

If 22K/day holds, that projects to around 8M annual adds.

This isn't slowing into an S-curve, it's still in exponential expansion.

Growth drivers:

→ Potential India entry
→ $50 lite tier in US, UK, Canada, Australia
→ Hardware payment plans in developing countries
→ Direct to Cell competing with terrestrial carriers
→ Enterprise: 21M airline and 20m cruise ship passengers addressable

Behind the growth is a self-reinforcing cycle:

→ More satellites
→ Better coverage
→ More customers
→ More revenue
→ Reinvest in better tech
→ Lower costs
→ Expand markets
→ Repeat

Each loop amplifies the next. Once it hits critical mass, the system becomes self-reinforcing. Growth funds growth. Revenue funds R&D.

When I invested in SpaceX back in 2019, the question was whether operational revenue could fund frontier tech at scale. The 2025 numbers answered it. The 2026 forecast shows how the model accelerates, with operational revenue powering R&D.

This is what happens when a flywheel reaches critical mass and each cycle strengthens the next. 

It’s amazing to watch this executed reality powering the next generation of space infrastructure.

__

If you're investing in space tech or building something in the sector, I'm happy to share what I've learned watching this model play out. DM me if you’re working on a hard space problem or monitoring an opportunity, happy to swap notes.

The founder you are today will seem unrecognizable in 90 days if you shed 1% of your old self daily. 

•  Different standards
•  Different tolerance levels
•  Different people in your circle

Right now, you’re probably carrying patterns from your old self. 

But you can't remain the same person in a business demanding someone new.

The meetings you take still include people and agendas which don't move the needle. The problems you solve are ones you should have delegated months ago. The standards you accept are lower than what your next stage requires.

You know you need to change. But the gap between "current you" and "who you need to become" feels massive. So you keep postponing the transformation, thinking you need some big moment to make it happen.

But here's the mechanism that makes it possible.

James Clear sketched it out it mathematically: 1% better every day = 37x better in one year.

That's the power of compound interest applied to identity.

Now shrink that timeframe to 90 days.

What 1% daily shedding looks like:

Day 1: You decline 1 meeting with someone who drains energy. Feels small.

Day 7: You've turned down 5. Your calendar has breathing room for deep work.

Day 30: Your entire meeting cadence has shifted. You're freed from daily firefighting

Day 60: Your team is making decisions you used to make. You're focused on problems that unlock the next stage.

Day 90: You look back at your calendar from three months ago and barely recognize the founder who accepted those meetings, tolerated those standards, spent time with those energy-draining people or tasks.

Each day, the change is marginal. 1% here. 1% there.

That might be: 

•  Declining a virtual ‘coffee chat’
•  Leaving one comms channel you don’t contribute to
•  Deleting one app from your phone that steals 15 minutes daily
•  Declining a request from someone who never reciprocates

Future you is already taking shape in the 1% decisions you're making today. Those choices feel small in the moment. but compounded over a quarter, you’ll be operating in a completely new league.

Bottom line:

Transformation is a million marginal improvements that multiply. 

The founders who understand that don't wait for big moments. They make 1% better decisions every day and trust the math to do what it always does: turn small inputs into exponential outputs. 

The founder your business needs is 1% away, repeated daily.

The comfortable founder and the elite founder can't coexist in the same body.

Average founders optimize for maintaining their current circle. They:

•  Keep relationships that don't reciprocate 
•  Lower their standards in certain rooms to avoid conflict
•  Accept "good enough" from people they should've outgrown
•  Stay accessible to everyone who knew the "old version"
•  Subtly apologize for the fact that they've changed

They tell themselves this is loyalty, connection, being a good person etc.

In reality, it's choosing comfort over transformation.

And that choice comes with a punishing cost:

Your business plateaus
↳  You're surrounded by people operating at your previous level

Your calendar fills with meetings that don't move the needle
↳ Because you won't create the discomfort of saying no

Your standards stay low
↳  Raising them means outgrowing people you've known for years

Your intensity drops
↳  The people around you need you to stay calm, measured, comfortable.

Even if you’re still building and showing up, you’re doing it at:

• Average speed
• With average standards
• Surrounded by average expectations

And average compounds just like elite does (just in the wrong direction).

But elite founders optimize for growth, not comfort. They:

•  Cut relationships that stop reciprocating
•  Raise standards constantly, even when it creates distance
•  Replace "good enough" people with "exceptional" people without guilt
•  Disappear from rooms where they're no longer learning or expanding
•  Never apologize for evolution

This isn't cruelty, it's just clarity.

Elite founders have special intensity, focus, commitment, drive, passion, and high standards, all the time.

Not just when it's convenient or when people approve.

All. The. Time.

Which means:

Your business accelerates
↳ You're surrounded by people operating at the level you're becoming

Your calendar fills with meetings that unlock the next stage
↳ You've ruthlessly cut everything else.

Your standards escalate
↳ You've outgrown everyone who couldn't match them.

Your intensity becomes your competitive advantage
↳You've stopped letting comfortable people slow you down.

And the business you're building three years from now will be the direct result of which one you're choosing today.

Becoming elite doesn’t mean being harsh or heartless. 

It's simply understanding you'll only scale as fast as you're willing to outgrow the comfortable version of yourself. 

Average founders never make that trade. Elite founders make it daily. 

Elite is available the moment you stop protecting average.

Your business will demand multiple versions of you. And each stage requires releasing the previous identity.

•  Early-stage founder
• Scaling operator
• Strategic CEO

These escalating transformations aren’t optional, nor are they gentle.

Growth demands you leave behind the person who got you here… to become the person who can take you there. 

Some people will understand. Many won't. That's not your problem to solve.

When you grow, you don't stay the same person with new skills. You become someone else entirely.

• Your tolerance for mediocrity drops
• Problems that felt massive now feel solvable
• Your standards for spending time get ruthless

And yes, that means some people won't recognize you anymore.

Tony Robbins has this line: Everything in the universe either grows or dies. There are no plateaus.

That includes the relationship you have with your former self.

He also draws a sharper distinction: You need to be a master of your circumstances, not a manager. 

The founder stuck in old patterns is managing their prior circumstances, apologizing for change, shrinking in certain rooms, pouring energy into relationships that stopped reciprocating ...

The founder who owns the transformation is mastering their new identity, creating a culture around who gets their time, their energy, their attention.

Which means the real decision is this: 

Do you honor who you're becoming, or do you protect who you were?

The early-stage founder releases the safety of a steady paycheck
The scaling operator lets go of being the best individual contributor
The strategic CEO releases the need to touch every decision before it ships

Every founder eventually looks around and realizes they built the room they're standing in.

•  The people in it
•  The energy it runs on ...
•  The standards it operates by

All of it reflects decisions made months or years ago.

This time next year, you'll either be standing in a room you built deliberately
Or one that formed by default around the decisions you avoided making today.

In 2019, Cape Fear Ventures placed our bet on SpaceX with a straightforward thesis: 

This is the foundational infrastructure that will propel humanity's space-faring ambitions and unlock advancements for life on Earth. 

That vision is now materializing in ways the broader market is just starting to grasp. 

As SpaceX's strongly anticipated IPO approaches later this year, I expect serious ripple effects throughout the entire space industry 

Below, I spotlight four strategic investments Cape Fear Ventures made in 2025, and why we're championing these amazing teams.

Cape Fear Ventures Space Investments

Selling your company will challenge all your assumptions about success, identity, and purpose.

The financials matter, but the psychological warfare during and after the deal takes a serious toll.

If you're not mentally prepared, even a great deal will leave you empty.

4 psychological battles that tested me over two exits:

#1: Emotional Attachment vs Business Logic

You built this with your bare hands.

Late nights, huge sacrifices, overcoming near-death moments.

Buyers see an asset. 
You see your identity.
That gap makes objectivity impossible.

You risk holding out too long or selling too fast because emotion is driving, not logic.

Write your walk-away number and ideal outcome before starting. Share it with someone not emotionally invested.

When feelings overwhelm you, revisit what you wrote clear-headed.

 #2: The Identity Crisis 

For years, you've been "Founder of [Company]." Every introduction, every bio, every interview.

Post-exit, that's gone. The stillness and blank calendar can be suffocating.

Founders are trained to launch and scale, but no one teaches you how to land.

Plan your post-exit identity 6-12 months before selling.

What will you build? 
Where will you go? 
Who will you become?

Don't wait until the wire clears to figure this out.

Battle #3: Seller's Remorse Will Hit Hard

Even with a great deal, you'll second-guess everything.

• "Should I have held out?"
• "What if I'd waited?"
• "Did I just give away too much?"

I experienced extreme seller's remorse after my first exit, despite it being the right decision.

Know that regret is part of the process, not a signal you made the wrong choice.

Talk to other exited founders before and after you sign. 
Their remorse stories normalize what you'll feel.

#4: The Temptation to Take the First Offer

When you're exhausted and someone puts millions on the table, every bone in your body wants to say "yes" and be done.

But desperation kills leverage.

The pressure to "just close it" will be intense, especially if you're burned-out or cash-tight.

Create optionality before you need it. 
Start buyer conversations 18-24 months early.

Run a structured process with several qualified buyers, clear deadlines, and competitive tension.

That way, you're not desperate to close. They're competing to win.

Bottom line:

Everyone prepares financially and legally. Almost no one prepares psychologically.

The emotional toll blindsides founders, during and after.

A fulfilling exit requires being mentally ready for what comes next.
___

P.S: I've been through this twice and helped several founders navigate exits. If you're thinking about selling and want to talk through the psychological side, as well as deal mechanics, DM me.

We’d fire an architect who left a single point of failure in critical path. Yet most early-stage founders run their entire company on one:

We know this instinctively when it comes to tech infrastructure. 

When one component owns too much responsibility, the entire system becomes fragile.
 
So as systems mature we engineer redundancy with backup servers, failover systems, and load balancers

But when I audit early-stage companies, I see the opposite.

The founder is the single point of failure for:

→ Pricing decisions 
→ Campaign approvals 
→ Customer escalations 
→ Strategic direction 
→ Team unblocking

If you're unavailable, progress halts.

You've built a single-server company in a world that demands distributed systems.

Every decision routed through you creates delays, and every "let me handle it" builds technical debt.

And every answer you give instead of documenting compounds the dependency.

The costs aren't obvious until they're crushing

You work 70+ hours but revenue plateaus at your personal bandwidth.

Your talented people stop thinking critically because you'll override them anyway.

Strategic work gets deferred because operational fires demand your attention.

And Sunday evenings feel heavy because Monday's already mapped to the same exhausting loop.

I've backed 50+ companies and run several CEO retreats, and the pattern pops up repeatedly at the $250K-$1M ARR stage:

Founders who know how to build resilient systems for their product... and forget to build them for their company.

The fix is re-architecting how decisions get made.

Moving from:

⁠ • Founder-dependent to framework-driven
• Ad-hoc answers to documented logic
• Single-threaded to distributed ownership

The founder who's required for everything becomes the cap on everything.

Re-engineer how decisions flow, and the company finally scales past your personal bandwidth.
________
At the Elevate CEO Retreat, we treat your org structure like a system that needs better design.

That means identifying your single points of failure and building the redundancy frameworks that let your company run without constant founder input.

Cohort #3: March 9-12 North Carolina. 
Built for founders doing $250K-$3M ARR.

Details in the link in the comments and in my “featured section”

One of my portfolio companies works with legacy manufacturers where inventory complexity makes change feel terrifyingly expensive.

Prospects run archaic systems managing thousands of employees and tens of thousands of SKUs.

•  No AI insights
• No predictive inventory
• No easy way to optimize costs

They're giving up future profits every month by not changing.

But there's resistance because change in legacy systems feels daunting, and humans focus more on fear than achievement.

A key principle when scaling from $500K to $5M is understanding why customers stay with painful solutions rather than adopting better ones.

There's a cost of change and a cost to staying the same.

Cost of change: 

Migrating a huge ERP is expensive and disruptive. Someone owns the decision. There’s political risk. What if adoption fails? What if we lose customers?

Cost of staying accumulates silently: 

But if there's no single catastrophic failure, leadership treats it as "fine for now." That invisible erosion is the real cost, and it's compounding daily.

So the job becomes showing how NOT changing hurts more than changing.

How to address that fear directly:

Step #1: Paint The Future Pain

Show how inaction feel more expensive than change.

In 12 months, competitors have AI forecasting. They don't.

In 24 months, they can't recruit top talent because their tech stack is 10 years behind.

In 36 months, they've lost market share to faster-moving competitors.

Outline three consequences they'll face in 6, 12, and 24 months if they don't modernize. Use their competitors or your current clients as examples.

Step #2: Reframe Transformation As The Lower-Risk Path

If better inventory management saves 5% on $50M inventory, that's $2.5M per year. Ask: How many years will you leave that on the table?

Understand each customer's specific fears. 

•  Political backlash from department heads.
•  Operational risk during transition.
•  Budget overruns.

Identify the exact fear blocking the sale. Then rebuild your entire pitch to eliminate that specific obstacle before mentioning features.

Step #3: Build a Bridge From Fear to Action

Break change into phases. 

Start with one division. Show quick wins in 30 days instead of waiting 18 months.

Make the first step small enough that the risk feels manageable.

Resist pitching the full migration upfront. 

That's achievement framing, and it triggers fear.

Your product might be 10x better. 

But if adopting it requires facing fears they don’t feel “ready for”, they'll stick with their current solution.

Bottom line:

Traditional industries are desperately afraid of making the wrong call.

Show them that standing still is the riskiest bet they can make.

taplio

The Battle

Saidur Rahaman

Richard Stroupe

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