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I built the MVP... now what?

I recently made Not a Diary (www.notadiary.io) an SMS based journaling software that sends you journal entries in the form of text messages straight to your phone everyday. I really love the idea and made it to help combat the growing mental health crisis in the youth around the world.

But, after creating the first version and launching on Gumroad I have been struggling to get users. What are some tips to getting my first set of users? What channels should I be reaching out on? What groups of people should I be trying to go after?

Any and all help is appreciated!

  1. 7

    Hi Sam,
    We bundled our first steps to get users in this checklist, hope it helps! https://blog.tally.so/product-hunt-launch/

    1. 1

      This is incredibly thorough! 👏 Thanks for sharing!

  2. 3

    I wonder if you can go to different Facebook Groups and post a question along the lines of: What's your longest journaling streak? Contact the people with the shortest answers saying you can help them triple it (test between offering it for free and sending to your Gumroad).

    You can then take those results and make posts along the lines of: "How I helped 4 people of this group double their journaling streak".

    Just an idea.

    1. 1

      Love this idea! Going to try this out really appreciate it.

  3. 2

    Harry Dry had a great article about content marketing on his site. https://marketingexamples.com/content/sharing

    The TLDR is basically finding communities where you can share valuable content related to your product.

    1. 1

      Totally agree! Thanks for the link it is really helpful.

  4. 2

    Go big on this one.

    Start contacting influencers that teach mindfulness, journaling and discipline.

    James Clear is the obvious big fish - but offer these leaders a white labeled version of your product. Just make sure it says "powered by Notadiary.com"

    1. 1

      Great Idea! I have started to reach out to influencers in the space and slowly I am getting more and more positive responses. James Clear is on the list and hopefully one day I can work with him on this project.

  5. 1

    I don't have more ideas than the folks in this thread, but I will say lightly that this might have been something you thought about before you built it :)

    Probably the most important factor to business success is the market and how to reach it — otherwise you risk building something no one wants or knows about! But I understand the impulse to build first, and I've done that before myself. Either way, good luck!

  6. 1

    Try to understand the process of sharing ideas

  7. 1

    Hey, this looks like an awesome product.

    A few things:

    • Even after reading your product description I'm still not 100% clear on it. Do I get texts of the journal entries I write or do I get texts from you reminding me to journal/quotes?

    • Launching is great (congrats!). But it's definitely just the beginning. You need marketing and distribution channels. This is an awesome idea and you seem pretty tuned in so i'd say start building in public.

    • Have you launched on Product Hunt? Definetely give that a go as this is something the PH community will love. I'm just about to hit post on an IH's article outlining my experience getting to #2 on PH - might be helpful.

    • Talk to your users! Did they like the product? Any pain points? improvements? Iterate and develop off the back of this. Of course share it in public too.

    Good luck! I'll be following along :)

    1. 2

      Really appreciate the advice! I will take a look at all this and definitely keep you updated on my progress.

      1. 1

        Looking forward to it!

  8. 1

    Sounds like you need to start documenting your approach for marketing this app. Start building out your marketing strategy (high level) and plan (specific tasks) of how you want to get your app into the hands of users.

    Do you know exactly who your target audience is and what they need? Draw up a persona.

    How do you stand up against the competition? Think about your strengths and how they relate to what your target audience needs.

    What are your marketing goals? ex. Users, page visits, trials, mrr, etc...

    Marketing is all about driving results. So start thinking about tasks that will achieve those goals.

    What acquisition channels are you going to use and how are you going to measure their effectiveness.

    This is a good start. Most Indiehackers fail at marketing. However, it doesn't have to be that difficult. Think about these things and keep it organized somewhere.

    1. 1

      These are great questions! Really appreciate you writing this. I will definitely document these questions and start answering them to figure out the best path forward.

  9. 1

    I don't have any advice since I just released Coparrot today (https://coparrot.dev) but I know how you feel! I've reached out to some friends and released to Product Hunt but still no paid users.

    My next plan is to try direct sales by giving demo to devs in company and try to sell it to them. Let's see. 🤞

  10. 1

    Definitely participate in some relevant subreddits! Maybe something like r/mentalhealth. These are communities who are already interested in the topic. This doesn't mean self-promoting continuously, but participating in it genuinely. You'll find opportunities to introduce Not a Diary organically.

    Hope you find it helpful!

    1. 1

      Really appreciate this tip! I have looked into some of these subreddits and will start to try and start a good conversation and be helpful in there before organically bringing up Not a Diary.

    1. 1

      Awesome, thank you for the links!

  11. 1

    Some places to get new users:

    • relevant subreddits - related to mental health or journaling.
    • Facebook groups ^

    In terms of getting an audience, it's hard to take people and funnel them into a product. It is often better to build a product around people. What exactly made you want to build this product? Why not use x, y, z products. What about SMS was useful for you?

    You have one customer (you). You need to find people who have similar needs to you. Though you may find as you look for people similar to you there are too few / not enough. You may then need to pivot your product to fit a larger problem/need.

    1. 1

      Really appreciate this! Yeah it is extremely hard to get people to use a new product. I will try talking into the appropriate subreddits and Facebook groups.

  12. 1

    The SMS seems unnecessarily niche. I'd expect you would get far more interest if this could be done through browser notifications or push notifications.

    Second, while you refine your offer and features, I heavily recommend you build an audience. Get on social media, follow other journaling type services and see what they post, reply with your own spin or advice and get VERY BUSY building an audience. Go to where others are -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Quora. Believe me, I've been trying to build something profitable for the last five years! You are dead in the water without an audience. THAT is the key, not your software.

    1. 1

      Agreed! Building an audience is vital to a startups success. But, building one can most of the time be harder than building the actual product. Will continue to try and build an audience on a variety of social channels.

      1. 2

        Definitely, for developers building the product is the easy part. I've found it an excruciating grind to build an audience. Wish I'd started a lot sooner (day 1).

  13. 1

    I have been writing some good profitable Micro SaaS Ideas in my newsletter every week. Having written so much of content with a lot of analysis, I could see that this could benefit writers who are not tech savvy. One best place would be to look for writers in Ship30in30Days or writers on Twitter for the hashtag Ship30in30

    But let me remind you that it could be challenging to get users for something like this.

    1. 2

      Thanks for the tip! I will take a look at this and see what I can do.

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