Don’t Wait for Customers to Find You. Go Get Them.
Stuart Draper · RizeX Monthly Mastermind · Eastern Idaho
Stuart Draper got laid off in 2008 with no paycheck, a seven-year-old Honda Civic, and an idea. He drove to Arizona with his living room TV in the back seat to sponsor a dental conference he couldn’t afford — and picked up three new clients. Eleven years later, Stukent hit number 268 on the Inc. 500, serves over 1,100 universities in 40 countries, and is tracking ahead of Under Armour’s early growth curve. His session wasn’t about theory. It was a playbook.
What Stuart Covered
Be First in the World at Something. Stukent didn’t invent textbooks or simulations — both had existed for decades. What they did was combine them in a way nobody had for digital marketing education. Stuart’s framework: take things that already exist, recombine them in a way that serves an underserved market, and own that space before anyone else figures it out. The book Zero to One by Peter Thiel is his recommended read on this principle. The question to ask your own business: what combination of existing things could make you first in the world at something your audience actually needs?
Get on a Plane. For Eastern Idaho businesses especially, Stuart pushed hard on this one. Go to the conferences where your customers already gather. Don’t just attend — sponsor at a level that gets you a speaking slot. Stukent’s first conference investment was a platinum sponsorship that felt reckless for a young startup. It filled a room with 60 standing-room-only attendees. An exhibitor booth would have gotten 20 passersby. The difference between being seen as a vendor and being seen as an authority is often just the budget level you’re willing to commit to.
Email Is Still Your Best Tool — If You Use It Right. Stuart’s single highest-performing growth channel is email. His rules: write subject lines that create FOMO, always deliver on what the subject line promises, and only email when you have a genuinely good excuse — a useful article, a free resource, a real opportunity. Every email needs a unique value proposition and a clear call to action. Collecting emails through a free giveaway on your website (Stukent offers a free syllabus download) is one of the fastest ways to build a list of people who actually want to hear from you.
Growth Hacker Tactics That Actually Work. Stuart rattled through a list of specific, low-cost tactics the room could use immediately — collect cell phone numbers at point of purchase for text marketing; use Facebook geo-targeting to run video ads aimed only at people inside a conference venue; send handwritten thank-you notes with Starbucks gift cards to new customers; use Fiverr to create 3D-printed name tags as part of an onboarding package; join and contribute to Facebook groups where your customers already talk to each other. The through-line: find ways to be memorable and make people feel like you went out of your way for them.
GovSpend.com. Stuart shared one resource that stopped the room — govspend.com aggregates invoices sent to publicly held entities (schools, municipalities, agencies), which by law are public record. You can search a competitor’s name and get a list of every public institution that has ever paid them, complete with contact information. For any business that sells to government or educational entities, this is a direct line to a qualified prospect list that most competitors don’t know exists.
What the Room Walked Away With
A practical short list: start collecting cell phone numbers at every customer touchpoint, build a simple email drip for new customers that thanks them and walks them through your product, go to one conference this year at a sponsorship level that gets you in front of a room, and look up GovSpend if you sell to any public entity. Stuart also pointed to GenM.co — a platform pairing business students with small businesses for free — as an underused local resource for getting marketing help without the cost of a full hire.
A Moment That Landed
Stuart described telling every new Stukent hire the Under Armour story — showing them the revenue numbers from Under Armour’s first years in business and then revealing that Stukent has tracked ahead of that curve every year since launch. His point wasn’t to brag. It was that vision changes behavior. When a team member in Eastern Idaho understands they’re building something that could compete with a billion-dollar brand, they show up differently. What’s your equivalent story — and are you telling it to your team?
“If you can help an audience, they will pay you for that help.” — Stuart Draper
“In wrestling, you’re not winning or losing — you’re winning or learning. That’s how I think about every risk I take.” — Stuart Draper
About Stuart
Stuart Draper is the co-founder of Stukent, an Eastern Idaho-based edtech company that co-authored the bestselling digital marketing textbook in higher education and built the world’s first digital marketing simulation. He started the company after getting laid off in 2008 with under a million in seed funding and grew it to serve over 1,100 universities across 40 countries. He’s still based in Eastern Idaho and still drives to conferences — though he can afford the plane ticket now.
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The RizeX Monthly Mastermind meets every month in Eastern Idaho — an intimate gathering of local business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals committed to real growth. Every event features a speaker who’s in the trenches alongside you, plus time for meaningful conversation and connection.