Dead-simple Marketing Roadmap for first-time Founders

"Tweet and send an email to your subscribers" - what subscribers? First time founders do not have subscribers, and getting subscribers takes months

Your advices are terribly overstated.

It's like saying:
-You want get to the NBA?
-Shoot 3's like Steph Curry.

You're welcome!

"Build the thing if you get enough sales"

Sales of what? 😆

Nice I like this! One of the things that’s also helped me as a founder for marketing is having niche brand ambassadors! They can definitely be useful for user acquisition.

Nice sharing ! Really insipired

Hey! Thanks for the great article! would love to see these kind of articles more!
one I really want to know: "what are the essential features that every micro-saas app should have?" like email automations ( welcome email etc ), feedback channels and ... .

Some questions:

"Tweet and send an email to your subscribers"

• what if I don't have any subscribers or twitter followers? where to get early birds?

"Create an early bird landing page with a lifetime deal offer"

• how can I know I will be capable to support LTDs? I don't know how much cost my app will have and my estimation could be wrong. getting LTDs sounds scary at least at first. how can I make sure that my LTDs doesn't going to unbalance everything?

Thanks!

Would you do any ideation before pre-launch or is that something you can do after "Define one specific audience segment you target" ?

I thought you were about to share something like the 1 page marketing plan, by Allan Dib 😉

You two are my go-to resource for solopreneur marketing tips. Thanks for all that you do!

My biggest advice would be: stop romanticizing the Launch if your app doesn't depends on store's rankings to get views.

Launch is important if you are an app on a store like Google Play or Steam that would get more traffic if you are in top spots, but otherwise launch day is just another day. That doesn't define your success and honestly nobody cares.

Care about getting little progress and sales every day as long as your Cost of Acquisition is lower than your Revenue.

Love this so much, thank you!

Loved it. very straight forward, thanks for sharing!

Very simplified roadmap but it was the goal I believe.

Still useful for 1st time founders like me, thanks Dan.

Dan, your roadmap is truly remarkable! It not only demystifies marketing but also emphasizes the significance of focused action and constant learning. A valuable resource for beginners and a timely reminder for seasoned marketers. Thank you for generously sharing this gem!

An insightful read! This article brilliantly simplifies the complex world of startup marketing. A must-read for every first-time founder. Kudos to the author!

This was such a great read!

Thanks for sharing. Would be great to have a few actual examples too.

Well Written, Would love to see once try Executing!

One-click solutions work for apps, but not for specialized technical solutions that take months to develop.

I'd love to see this list backed with a real story. Definitely worth giving a read, though.

Well, it works well for apps and one-click solutions but doesn't work for specialized technical solutions, which require months to get something demonstrable.

Nice list, some points will take a longer time to execute for sure. It's not as straightforward as you say to "create a freebie" and tons of people will subscribe to the mailing list, if that would be so, all of us would be having thousands of people on our mailing lists though.

Pre-launch: Define target audience, highlight value proposition, create prototype, build early bird landing page.

Launch: Tease launch, collect waitlist emails, beta-test with early buyers, create simple landing page, seek feedback, offer special launch deal, share product video, multi-platform release, drive sales.

Post-launch: Enhance landing page, adjust pricing, run marketing experiments, employ user acquisition tactics, gather user feedback, balance marketing and development, achieve revenue milestone, decide on growth path.

Getting started with marketing involves understanding your target audience, developing a strategy, and implementing various marketing tactics to reach and engage your audience. Here are some steps to help you get started:

Define Your Goals: Determine what you want to achieve through marketing. Common goals include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales. Clearly define your objectives to guide your marketing efforts.

Understand Your Target Audience: Conduct market research to gain insights into your target audience. Identify their demographics, preferences, needs, and behaviors. This information will help you tailor your marketing messages and select appropriate channels.

Develop a Marketing Strategy: Create a comprehensive marketing strategy that outlines your overall approach. Determine your key messaging, positioning, value proposition, and competitive advantage. Set a budget, allocate resources, and define metrics to measure success.

Build Your Brand: Establish a strong and cohesive brand identity that resonates with your target audience. Develop your brand elements such as your logo, tagline, colors, and tone of voice. Consistently apply these elements across all marketing channels.

Build an Online Presence: Create a professional website that showcases your products, services, and brand. Optimize your website for search engines (SEO) to improve its visibility. Establish a presence on social media platforms that are relevant to your audience.

Content Marketing: Develop a content strategy to provide valuable and relevant content to your audience. Create blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, and other content formats that educate, entertain, or solve problems for your target audience. Share your content through various channels to attract and engage your audience.

Email Marketing: Build an email list and develop an email marketing strategy. Create personalized and targeted email campaigns to nurture leads, build relationships, and drive conversions. Use email marketing platforms to manage your subscriber lists and track performance.

Social Media Marketing: Leverage social media platforms to reach and engage your target audience. Identify the platforms most popular with your audience and create compelling social media content. Use paid advertising options to increase your reach and target specific demographics.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Consider using paid search advertising (e.g., Google Ads) to appear prominently in search engine results for relevant keywords. Set up campaigns, select keywords, create compelling ad copy, and monitor performance to optimize your campaigns.

Analytics and Optimization: Continuously monitor and analyze your marketing efforts. Use tools like Google Analytics to track website traffic, user behavior, and conversions. Make data-driven decisions and optimize your marketing campaigns based on the insights gained.

Set goals: Define what you want to achieve through marketing.

Know your audience: Understand your ideal customers.

Create a plan: Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Build your brand: Establish a strong brand identity.

Create engaging content: Produce valuable and relevant content.

Choose marketing channels: Select appropriate channels.

Implement and monitor: Execute your plan and track performance.

Engage with your audience: Interact and build relationships.

Learn and improve: Stay updated and refine your strategies.

Use digital marketing tools: Adopt tools for efficiency.

Optimize for search engines: Improve website visibility through SEO.

How product managers choose good ideas if they go astray when gathering user requirements

Get the word out to everyone in your network who could benefit from your app. Offer valuable content to related communities, and introduce your concept to gain preliminary feedback. Conduct a few paid advertising trials to establish a foundation for your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

Post-launch marketing is indeed a critical phase where many founders face challenges. It's common to feel excited about the pre-launch stage, but maintaining momentum and user engagement after launch is equally important.

I loved the idea of planning the next 60 days. This timeframe allows you to strategically distribute your products across various channels, ensuring maximum visibility and reaching your target audience effectively.

By proactively thinking about distribution strategies, you can counter the gradual decrease in traffic and enhance user retention.

In the Pre-Launch stage, it would be a good idea to build a network with like-minded founders. This can be done on the social media profile of your choice but I would personally prefer either LinkedIn or Twitter.

This would help you learn from their experiences & if you are able to build genuine connections, they would help you spread the word during the Launch time.

So for both marketing & personal growth, it's a win-win situation.

This is a really good roadmap for people who are stuck on finding a simple path forward.

Curious to hear what you'd recommend in a scenario where there is no Twitter audience or email list given most Indies seem to be in that situation.

Personally I would say the best approach is DMing 200-500 over the course of a week or a few days to get either early users or validation.

Here's what that DM might look like:

You: "Hey (name) saw you're building a (category) product. It looks awesome. How's the project going?"

Them: "Oh hey it's going good/bad... blah blah"

You: "Oh that's interesting to hear. What's your biggest challenge right now?"

Them: "(Challenge)"

You: "Oh nice have you tried (suggestions)"

Them: "Yes/No"

You: "cool man. Well I'm working on (product). I would really love to get your feedback on it. Can I give you a long trial?"

You can just go for the jugular on the first message but you'll lower your response rate by doing that. Also, I have found people are much more open if you start, even with just a couple of messages, about them instead of your thing.

The key is sending as many of those outreach messages as possible. Holding the actual conversations, even though each one would be unique, takes way less time than just sending a bunch of them.

Nice list. I would emphasize that even before pre-launch you need to build an audience, or pay to access one. Building an MVP and sending it to Twitter, Reddit, email lists, etc is great but you need people to be there to listen.

I think and underrated tactic is joining communities related to your product and the problem you solve. Go there, become an expert and offer your expertise, help people solve their problems. Don't overtly promote your product but make connections with people that will pay you too solve their problems and they'll become long-term customers and get that strong LTV.