Got 2.5K active users first month of launching my social media app for founders - What I learned

2 months ago I was building a SAAS and requested feedback in various subreddits. I noticed that my posts got downvoted, deleted or I straight up got banned from the subreddit for ('self promotion'). While I was actually just looking to get some feedback 🙃

This led me to create my own social platform for founders called Huzzler (huzzler.so). The concept was simple. I was going to build a hybrid between ProductHunt and Reddit, where founders can get feedback, find co-founders, launch their products and more. The benefit of this platform is that people can discover projects via your profile and you are allowed to share what you are working on. It also is tailored for founders: there are specific categories for finding co-founders, getting feedback or posting job offers.

I created an MVP as quick as possible. I chose older technologies (PHP) to develop the app the goal was to builld something fast. Not use the latest fancy javascript framework (for those familiar with coding).

I launched my product and I new I had to be close to the user to have it grow. That's why I went to twitter and reddit. I commented on all posts of founders where I could provide value. For instance, if they ask for feedback, I check out what they are building and give them real genuine feedback. I then kindly invited them to join my platform and explained the benefits they'd get from it in a way that doesn't sound like I'm trying to sell them.

Right now, we've only launched 4 weeks ago and have 2.3K active monthly users. This may not sound like a huge number but it's really hard to achieve. It's true what they say, getting a new customer is 10x as expensive as keeping an existing one. That's why the launch phase is so hard.

What I learned is that you have to solve a REAL problem. The real problem was that there was no good place for founders to hang out, get feedback or discover each others products so I created it. Then after that, the best way is to get users it to reach out to them personally (comment / DM)

TLDR: Solve a real problem, get your first users by messaging/commenting and providing value first

Website for those interested: huzzler.so