First paying customer! 😍 🔥 🚀
Hi folks!
I just got my first paying customer! 😍 🔥 🚀
One month ago, I started to write a guide to help new engineering managers to success in this difficult career change. I've been there and I'm now mentoring engineering managers for a few years now. Lot of common questions are coming up during mentoring sessions and I wanted to gather all I learned in a guide: The Engineering Manager's Survival Guide.
I started to work on it without making it public, because I was not sure to manage to finish it, or I was afraid it will not be a success.
It was a very bad strategy, and even if the guide is still in progress, I decided to make it public now:
- it motivates me a lot more to work on it, as I committed publically, I'm now 100% sure I will finish it ! 💪
- I can engage and develop the audience, discussing each aspect, using my thoughts and contents to create some awareness on Twitter 💬
- I benefit from these discussions to better understand the potential reader's expectations, to refine the content, and to make it better 🎯
I published this guide on Gumroad by using the pre-order mode: https://gum.co/the-engineering-managers-survival-guide
And it happened! I got my very first pre-order! 🎉
I wanted to first share this news with you my dear indie hackers. Our community is an invaluable support in our respective journey. ❤
If I had one advice to share from this experience: make your work public, talk about it, as soon as possible. 💡
I feel full of energy, I'll now get back to writing some more chapters! 📝 🔥 🚀
Cheers,
Hey folks,
I just published a second post to share my learnings and what happened during the 24h following the launch. From 0 to 6 paying customers ! 🔥
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/6-paying-customers-in-24h-learnings-19f032f5f8
Thank you for all your kind messages and your support 🙏
Congrats man! I'm sure more will come after this!
Thank you! Just received one more, 6 pre-orders, 90$ in 24h! 🔥🚀
Congrats man! I am sure more will come after this!
Congrats!! Sounds like you're on the right track
Thank you Marty! 🙏
Congrats! Super motivating to keep going and getting more customers!
Thank you 👍
Congrats! When do you expect the book to be done? Did you set a time limit for yourself?
Thank you! I want to share a first version in one month, on August 19th. It will not be fully finished but I want to enjoy a couple of months of feedback and discussions with the first readers who pre-ordered to improve it, and refine some aspects before to do a big launch. 🔄
Congrats! So your first customer came from Twitter?
Thank you! Yes, the 6 first customers are coming from Twitter. I have ~1300 followers, and a good part of them could be interested by this content (developers or tech leaders).
So you're feeling energized after all this? :)
Yeah, much energy 🔥🔥🔥
Congratulations!
Thank you!
Congrats @nidup
I also started writing a book in public. I was surprised when people start pre-ordering it. I think writing in public is a great decision
Cool! Looked at it, it's a great topic to cover, lot of people struggle with productivity, time management and work - life balance. One chapter of my book is about how to manage your time when moving to engineering manager position. Writing public is a good move, wish you all the best! 📝
(Looked also at Moufette, it's a great product idea, when I'm not indie hacking, I'm product leader of my company, deliverying an open source product).
Thanks!
did you think about giving free samples and collect emails?
i think it's a great way to build an email list and grow your audience
I thought about it, for now, I'm polishing the 2 first chapters. I may try to give a sample for free. I think it may also help to preview the kind of content that the reader can expect. Did you try to offer samples?
yes, its on the landing page
https://jamalx31.com/tldr
and instead of sending pdf I send google doc link and ask people to leave comments and edits
I love the idea of the link to the Google Doc to engage and collect feedback 🤩
Do you see people downloading the samples then preordering or do you see a large diff between download and preorder?
Do you consider downloading samples as a step of your conversion funnel?
Do you plan to reach people who download once you'll publish?
I have 24 people who requested the sample. 2 or them pre-order as well. while the other 7 pre-ordered without getting the sample.
So far I only send 1 email to those who requested the sample. I'm planning to send them more free chapters and then I will see how that will work with the conversion.
And yes, I'm working on growing my email list to use it later once the book is ready
Crystal clear, thank you for openly sharing your strategy, tactics and metrics, I trully appreciate it 🙏
Good point to nurture a list of readers that may be interested (as they download the sample). 📄
Congrats
By the way, the goal of this book is to help engineers to make successful transition to engineering management. Looks like it's pretty aligned with your project Career Move 😉
Yes, it is aligned with my product. I am also working on a book to help engineers make smart career moves.
Would you mind catching up over a Zoom call?
Also, let me know if you would be interested in promoting it on Career Move
Cool. No problem for a zoom call. Can we use Twitter private message to schedule it?
Cool. I have followed you on Twitter
Followed you too 👍
Thank you!
You should print it out and frame it!
Great idea, I will! 😊
Well done. Congrats and keep working hard.
Thank you Luiz 🙏
Congrats!!!
Thank you Mateo 🙏
Congrats, the first is always a huge milestone. Now the next few thousands can come! Keep it up this way!
Thank you! I reached 6 pre-order, keep going! 🚀
Congratulations and best of luck with the further sale!
Thank you 🙏
Congrats man! Super exciting milestone
Thank you! 🙏
That's awesome congrats! I'll have to bookmark this, might grab a copy
When I tried bookmarking just the survival guide, the bookmark title was just your name. Had to change it to the name of the guide so I wasn't confused later
Good catch, thank you! I changed the link, it's https://gum.co/the-engineering-managers-survival-guide (the other one is a link to my gumroad profile) 👍
I'd love to have your feedback and discuss together if you grab a copy 💬
Congrats! How much did you promote your book before reaching the first pre-order?
No promotion, I disclose my project yesterday with a tweet (I have 1300 followers), then a second tweet yesterday to announce the first pre-order. 😁
Congrats dude, keep the ball rolling
Thank you, I will! ⚽
I could not get my second customer in Halloween: Horror Well.
I wish you a better momentum for you :)
Arf, I wish you all the best to get the second one, keep going! 💪
Congrats, I know the feeling 🎉
Thank you ! 🚀
Congratulations on your achievement!
Thank you ! 🙏
And I received 4 more pre-orders yesterday! 🔥
Making it public soon was definitely a good move!
I'll write a new post later on to share metrics, and a few tips on the launch and post-launch 📈
Thank you for your support 🙏
Congrats and hope many more will come!
Thank you! I got 4 new pre-orders! 🚀
Congratulations! 🎉
Thank you 🙏
Congrats!
Thank you Rosie! 🙏
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Thank you! Yes!! It's a great first confirmation that I may have an audience for this book, on the 6 pre-orders, I already met only 2 of them. Most important is when it reached customers that are not friends or family. Looking forward to see if I can maintain that traction. I'll share a post today to explain the launch process I had.