Day 3 of marketing with zero audience. Here's what's actually working (and what isn't).
I launched Fenly - a Chrome extension for AI-powered translation that works inline on any website - and now I'm in the part nobody prepares you for: getting anyone to notice.
No email list. No Twitter following. No budget for ads.
Here's what I'm doing and what I'm seeing after 3 days:
What's working:
- Reddit comments in r/languagelearning and r/digitalnomad genuine answers to real questions, no pitching. Profile clicks are real.
- LinkedIn "build in public" posts - small engagement but consistent.
- Indie Hackers comments - best conversations, slowest growth.
What's not working:
- Any comment where I pitch the product directly. Instant ignore or downvote.
- Posting in broad subreddits without established karma. Got blocked.
- Expecting results in days. This is clearly a weeks/months game.
Honest numbers:
- CWS installs: still single digits
- Daily time spent on marketing: ~2 hours
- Comments written per day: 10-15 across platforms
The uncomfortable truth: building the product took mass effort, but distribution is harder. At least with code, you get error messages. With marketing, you just get silence.
Anyone else grinding through this phase? What moved the needle for you?
Trending on Indie Hackers
grinding through this exact phase too. ~2 weeks in, planner saas, similar single-digit signup pattern.
the thing that's moved the needle most isn't even content i've made, it's a single substantive comment from a stranger on a reddit post i wrote yesterday. asked one tight question, got back a full 6-part playbook from someone who built in social media for 10 years. that one reply has reshaped my entire next 2 weeks more than 20 hours of solo grinding did.
not a strategy you can plan for, but it makes me think early-stage marketing leverage comes from the quality of the question you ask publicly more than from reach. genuine narrow questions surface experts who'd never reply to a generic "thoughts?" post.
what subreddits have been working for you outside r/languagelearning and r/digitalnomad? curious which niches are actually replying for cold-start saas.
this is super real.
one thing I’ve seen though at this stage its often not distribution that breaks things but what happens after people try it. Even with small traffic if users don’t hit a clear oh this is actually useful moment fast enough, they wont come back or share it. Curious what the first experience looks like right now after install?
Good question. After install and a quick google sign in, there are three core modes:
Select and translate - highlight text on any page, get an instant popup translation
Type and translate - type in your language inside any input field on any website, it auto-translates your text before sending
Chat and feeds translation - translate messages directly inside Discord, Slack, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Reddit, Upwork, and Gmail. Free users get a translate button on each message, paid users get full auto-translate
On the free plan you also get the Normal translation style. Slang and Business styles with adjustable intensity unlock on Pro.
The fastest "aha moment" is probably the Type and translate - you start typing in your native language inside a discord chat and the translated text just appears. But honestly, I haven't set up tracking on time-to-first-translation yet, so I'm guessing where the real drop-off is.
This is encouraging because it shows that starting with no audience doesn’t mean starting with no options.
I’m learning that early marketing is really about finding where people are already talking about the problem you solve and joining those conversations in a useful way.
That framing - "finding where people are already talking about the problem" - is exactly what clicked for me on day 2. Before that I was posting into the void hoping someone would care. Much better to join existing conversations.
I'm almost at the same stage as you
Landing page online, zero visits, social media accounts created, contributing to the community, slowly gaining reputation without directly selling my product
At least taking time to read posts on IndieHackers before trying anything is giving me valuable knowledge, thanks for sharing your experience!
Same here - the lurking phase taught me more than any marketing guide. You start noticing what gets traction and what gets ignored, and it saves you from making the same mistakes. Drop your landing page if you want, happy to take a look.
nobullshithappiness.com
It's still a bit empty and super early, more content is in preparation! I'll write a proper post on IndieHackers when this project will be in a more presentable state
You're actually doing the right things.
The part that’s hard to see early on is that distribution isn’t just about getting attention, it’s about what happens right after.
A lot of products get a few clicks, maybe even installs, but the real drop happens silently after the first use.
Everything feels like it “worked” from the outside, but the user doesn’t come back.
That’s usually not a traffic problem, it’s a feedback problem.
If you don’t know what someone experiences in the first few minutes, it’s really hard to improve retention.
From what you’re describing, you’re already past the “visibility” phase and into the “what actually happens after” phase.
That’s where most of the real work is.
The feedback problem is real. Right now I have almost no data on what happens after install because the volume is too low. Once I get past ~50 active users I'm planning to add a simple in-extension feedback prompt after the first 3 translations. Until then it's mostly guesswork, which is uncomfortable but honest.
What stands out is that by the time you try to collect feedback, the moment is already gone.
The user has already moved on, so you get a filtered or incomplete answer.
Catching it right when something breaks or feels off seems more reliable, even if it’s just a quick signal instead of a full explanation.