How I got 1 million users in 4 months

On June 8th, I released the first version of my product. The product is called WinFindr. It is a free, lightweight data searching app for Windows.

Within these four months, the app has had over 1 million users.

These are the key points on how I believe I achieved that.

Firstly, it’s what I like to call the FSD model: Free, Simple and Different.

I believe that being different is important. Most people are not interested in trying out something new if they already have a solution that works for them. Even if the current solution isn’t that good. If they try something different, it needs to be clearly different in some way for them to switch.

So, I studied all the existing programs of the niche and listed what they did well, and what they lacked. Then I added the key features that they all had, but also I added features which were lacking from the other products. Both based on my own needs, but also using methods such as keyword research.

For example, when I looked for the keyword “search inside PDF files” I noticed that my keyword tool also listed keywords about “proximity search inside PDF files”. I had no idea what “proximity search” even was, nor had I ever thought I needed one.

Proximity search means you can define that all your search terms, say, “cute” and “cat” are found within 10 words of each other from the source material. This way, the content you will find is more likely to be related to those search terms. So, I naturally added support for that, too.

Being free is also important. Many people are willing to pay for things if they think they need it. But asking for money right off the bat can be difficult, and it also limits how much free press you get. For example, anyone who reviews software, is much more likely to review a free app than a commercial one.

That being said, since the original release, I have introduced a paid Pro version of the app as well. What can I say, I also like to eat. It’s very hard to make enough money to eat by just making free things.

To let people know about the app, I posted it to Reddit a couple of times (to /r/SideProject and /r/Software) and I did two press releases and paid for their distribution. I think the price to pay for one press release distribution was about $50.

I also posted it to key software related websites, such as AlternativeTo.net, as well as more traditional ones such as Download.com.

With these kinds of websites, I believe in quality and not in quantity. I have no interest in having my product featured in some low-effort website that also hosts malware and scam products. For example, there are services which say they can post your product to 500+ websites. I wouldn’t touch them, because there are no 500+ high quality websites listing high quality products.

Speaking of websites, I also posted it to a few product launch related websites, including ProductHunt and Indie Hacker. And to some developer portfolio type websites such as devle.io, fullstack.network and to more generic showcase type websites such as linktr.ee.

Another marketing tactic I used was that I searched for articles and blog posts about similar programs and then contacted the author of those articles, suggesting that they could have a look at my app with some key talking points that might be interesting. Again, focusing on quality and not quantity. Not spamming people, but contacting people with relevant information. This produced quite a few websites writing about my app as well.

I believe in stories. I believe that people like to read interesting stories, and interact with real people instead of AI and robots. That’s why, on my product’s website, I show my face and tell you exactly who I am and why I built this.

I get it, it’s scary to put yourself out there and I know, if you tell your story and show who you are, there are those who will attack you.

But that’s the thing, the worst thing when you have built something is that nothing happens. Just crickets chirping.

Now, I don’t mean that getting a negative response from people would be a good thing by itself, nor do I really think that “there is no such thing as bad press” - That’s not what I mean.

What I mean is that when you make a quality product and you put it - and yourself - out there, not with arrogance and ego but with enough boldness for people to take notice, you will probably receive many kinds of feedback. If you want to climb a mountain, you cannot be scared of the uphill - there will be some!

But if you have built a quality product, and you have given it your best, sometimes it’s good enough. Usually not, but sometimes.

And that is perhaps my biggest point: Quality.

Every day I see people posting what they call a MVP and to me, the product seems low effort and low quality.

And that's fine. That’s one way of doing things. Release early, validate your ideas, and all that good stuff. I get it.

But that's not me.

I understand what the M in MVP means. But instead of the M, I focus on the V. Viable. The first version I released wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, but it was already viable. By that I mean that the product was already usable. There were already actual problems it was solving for people. And this was also evident from the user feedback that I got.

“This seems good, but can you also make it do this …” - which is exactly the kind of feedback you want. When users tell you what they want, your life is a lot easier!

When you build things, you should be prepared to work hard for it. That sounds obvious, but people often don't realize how much work a viable product takes.

For example, I worked on this product for months, doing 12 hour work days, usually six days a week. After each day, I walked 10 000 steps just to keep myself (somewhat) sane.

Because I don't build things just for fun or to see how it goes. I’m obsessed and driven to build the best things I possibly can. Sometimes when that happens, I build something that people like. It seems that was the case here, because over one million people already tried the app.

When I talk about quality, it’s important to highlight that I don’t mean to imply that me or my products would be somehow perfect. Of course not! Every software has bugs, and every product has its faults. But what I mean is that the concept of quality is present in everything I do. For example, if I work on a feature, I always try to see how I can measure how well it works and then I try to make it better. If every day I can make my product better even by the slightest amount, over time, the quality will only increase!

I believe that if you make a quality product that stands out from the competition, users might eventually find it. You will need to work hard and put your product and probably yourself out there, and usually it doesn’t pan out - but sometimes it does.

This is my product and my story: https://winfindr.com