Finding the correct marketing/code balance
Hi all 👋
I've been working on a project for some months now. It started as a side project while I was working full time and, during the last 3 months I've worked on it almost full time. It called theLifeBoard and the main goal is to help people focus on what they want to achieve and track their progress towards their goals and creating new habits.
We have a pretty usable version already which we've been using and I started sharing it with some friends and early access users a few weeks ago. Up until now, the time I spent on this project has been 90% coding and maybe 10% sharing it and tasks that you could consider marketing.
I know sometimes people like to just create a landing page and spend most of the time sharing it and validating the idea before starting to code. In my case, this project is something I wanted to build for myself just because I needed it and because I wanted to learn how to do it, so getting more people to use it is just a plus but I really think it could be useful for some people.
I think it's time for me to focus on marketing now or, at least do it 50/50. I'm curious about how do you usually spend the time on your project.
How much time do you spend on marketing and how much on code?
Do you validate the idea first or go straight to code?
Oh and if you have any marketing tips, I'd really appreciate it.
If you want to check our product, feel free to check the product page here or visit our website.
Thanks
See ya!
I think this is where many of us who have a development background really struggle. I know I do. I can usually build pretty much anything, but when it comes to marketing thats where it all goes down hill.
I don't think it helps matters when an awful lot of the marketing resources are either aimed at established startups, or are extremely expensive in the eyes of a small 1-2 person project being bootstrapped (for example ahrefs - its totally out of the price range for a lot of small sidehustles).
There's a lot of good resources out there, but certainly nothing I'd say is the 'go-to' resource.
With ServerAuth.com we took the approach of releasing an MVP as a completely free product. We let it run for ~6 months, having made a couple of posts on developer sites.
On the back of that we had enough intestest that it gave us confidence that people wanted the product, so we spent the next 6 months going all-in on 'version 2', bringing new features, a subscription system and a ui overhaul.
Within a week of going from a free-only to offering a free and paid plan we got our first paying customer.
We're now making that transition from being 90% development and 10% marketing to 90% marketing and 10% development - it's a tough change in mentality but one that's needed.
So far our focus has been content marketing, and improving our search rankings. Our next step is probably going to need to be paid advertising.
One thing that has become clear - we should have started marketing a lot earlier. It's easy to see that now, so if you can make that switch earlier then I'd say do it.
Great story! And agreed that most advice is geared towards established businesses, although I think it's starting to change a little :)
I like the ahrefs example. When I think about good advice I read, it's usually like 10 posts that all say "pay $x for this product, it won't break your budget and it will be essential!" The product is already pretty expensive, and when all 10 suggested different products, you'd be paying hundreds a month before you even know if your idea is good!
On the plus side, making a product free is a form of marketing. Removing the cost burden for others to accomplish something attracts users. But, of course, that product still needs to be promoted/marketed as well :-P
Thanks for sharing your journey. I love coding and solving problems so moving to marketing is not going to be as fun (I guess...) I'll let you know how it goes 😆
Best of luck out there!
You got that right!
https://www.indiehackers.com/article/why-running-a-business-is-80-marketing-and-only-20-product-57f748a821
And the advice we all hate to hear: You should probably start with sales (direct outreach), not marketing.
https://genius.com/Jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-focus-on-sales-not-marketing-annotated
Wow, I love that concept of starting with sales. I didn't think about that, but now it seems so obvious!
A lot of people (Courtland included) are really hammering that point home right now.
The general advice seems to be: find/connect with audience, talk to them about their problems, develop product, reach out to existing audience :)
Thanks for sharing these articles. Super useful content to start 🖖