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15 Comments

How do you find the best distribution channel for your product? And how to keep the ball rolling?

Hey there, Marcel here.

Yeah, I'm new in the indie hacking game, so I'm still figuring out some of the basics.

One thing I hear over and over again is that you should early on find the best distribution channel for your product.

I've shared Dev Resources on a few places already, and the one place that it resonated well so far was on r/learnprogramming.

Does that mean I found the distribution channel for my project? And if so, how do I keep the ball rolling over there?

Any insight is much appreciated! 🙏

  1. 3

    Here's something that's worked really well for us at https://startpack.io

    1. Anytime a customer comes to your site (via live chat) OR schedules a call OR someone reaches out to you via another channel, ask them: "By the way, how did you hear about us? It's always helpful for me to find out how we had the pleasure of meeting today 😄"

    2. Based on what they say, try to find the exact link they found. Ie if someone says "Quora" I ask them to share the exact quora article. If someone says "YouTube" I ask them to share the exact YouTube post. If someone says "Twitter" I ask them to share the exact Tweet they saw.

    3. Keep track of the above answers, and specifically note what topics the above content was about. What I do is keep a mental tally or where folks are coming from and each time, I hear of a source I "double down" and try to create another piece of content like that or I try to re-create the moment / timing which led to this customer finding us.

    In your case it seems like r/learnprogrammingis resonating so I'd find out where these subreddit members hang out! Are they also on Twitter? Is there a dischord channel? Or if it's just this subreddit I'd start DMing people on Reddit! Gotta #dothingswhichdon'tscale at first 😄

    1. 1

      Amazing answer, thank you!

      I've been collecting this kind of data through my analytics, which in fact is quite good, as I can even see the tweet that led to a visit. I'm talking about Simple Analytics, by the way.

      And I think you're right, it feels that now, at the early stage, it is necessary to do this kind of individual reaching out, which definitely doesn't scale, but is important to collect feedback and double down on what works.

      1. 2

        Of course! Best of luck :)

        It's definitely a mix of science and art (emphasis art) at the early stages so gotta keep adding both to the equation!

  2. 2

    I don't want it to look spammy and annoying, but maybe I should make it stand out a bit more.

  3. 2

    Hey,
    Site does not render or request times out on Brave mobile.

    1. 1

      Thank you for letting me know.

      I just tried on Android 11 and it worked fine. What's your OS, please?

  4. 2

    I think to determine if you've found the best it would help to try a couple more and compare.

    You could go broad and try different channels like ads, SEO etc. but I think for you and this project it makes the most sense to stay with strategies that are close to what you're offering as in generate content and post it in the right communities.

    It might just be that you will find that medium or sharing it in slack communities or the like will convert better to paid users (you won't know without trying :)) and ofc generating content will help you with SEO in the long run by default.

    I think for you some sort of newsletter as that will be an easier conversion than to a paid user and if people like your content there they might recommend it to others, you can also directly embed sharing CTAs ofc into your newsletter or other content.

    Just an idea :p

    1. 1

      Thanks for the answer, Stefan.

      Yep, you're right there, I should explore more other communities and other means of distribution. Had not thought of Slack (or Discord), but this might be a good idea.

      There are 200+ newsletter subscribers already, and I'm excited to start sending the issues out. I'll start it's production probably this week, and hopefully, this will be another way to measure what works best.

      SEO also seems an interesting route to go to, though I guess for the time being I'll focus on adding a few more features on the site, as creating content is very time-consuming.

      1. 1

        Ah yes I didn't see that newsletter prompt as it's quite hidden it needs to jump in my face I am too used to that 😁

        You're right SEO will be super powerful but it really is a long term game so for now I'd concentrate on the faster channels while building that up as an ongoing side project of the business

        1. 1

          Second time in the last days I get the feedback that the newsletter box is too hidden.
          I don't want it to look spammy and annoying, but maybe I should make it stand out a bit more.
          Thanks for letting me know.

          1. 1

            Think it could stand out a bit more with for example more colorful CTA.

            There's definitely a spectrum there between easy to miss and annoyingly in your face but right now I think it's easy to miss 😁

            1. 1

              Got it, will adjust it. Thanks, man!

  5. 2

    You found a small distribution channel here as well, because to be honest I find your dev resources extremely useful. :D

    Can't help though, good luck!

    1. 1

      That's great to hear, I really appreciate your comment. :)

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