How to get first users for your product?
I unfortunately choose the path of first building the product and then finding users / customers. What techniques / ways have you guys used to get those first 10 - 15 users for your product? I am trying cold email and i am also actively participating in communities where my potential customers / users might be.
It would be helpful if you could share your experience.
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Hi Rahul,
Can you tell more about your product and who you are reaching out to? That will help with a more personalized suggestion.
Also, later this week, I will be publishing a link here that curates the "first 100 users" story of more than 100 startups. I hope that will be useful to you. I can PM you the link when it is ready; if you are interested.
Sign me up!
About the product, i am trying to market smurly and get initial users for it. It might look like a link shortener and in some regards it is. The USP is Context URLS which are dynamic memorable short URLS. I am trying to market it to content creators, specifically YouTubers. The value addition that I propose is making their content easily accessible.
A classic use case is youtuber's can create a context URL which points to their latest video and keep updating it as you post new videos.
Another use case is merch or affiliate marketing. A context URL can be generated which then points to your actual affiliate link.
Eg.
www.amazon.com/very-long-and-very-difficult-to-remember-url can be converted to
smurly.io/yourname/amazon
Hi Rahul, the link I mentioned earlier is ready. The IH link is here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-100-startups-got-their-first-users-b6c8f9c8a8
Rahul, did you talk to any people who have this problem first to find out how they're already solving it?
I'd be amazed if people who do this often don't have text snippets already set up on TextExpander or something. I know that I have snippets for links I frequently use.
Also, if I can give you one bit of feedback: I think the language you're using here is super confusing. Saying
is so much more complicated than:
Just a thought
Thanks. Sure, I will PM you when the content is ready.
So as for Smurly, here are a couple of things I will try out:
They may or may not need it. But if you do it to 10 people, there are at least a couple who may retweet or like your message. That is an ad from an influencer to others who may use your tool.
Hey I might be interested too !
Hi @domoon - as promised, here is the link: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-100-startups-got-their-first-users-b6c8f9c8a8
Sure, domoon. I will PM you when it is ready.
My product ClipDish is an iPhone app. A couple of weeks ago I changed my home screen wallpaper to include the app logo and a QR code that goes to the app store. So, whenever I'm out and talking about the app (which is a little harder with COVID) I can have someone quickly scan the QR code and download the app.
This is clever! I might have to do the same 😏
@rcoold if you're an expert in your area. Go where you can help people, give them value so you build the synergy and common trust. You'll get to know your market and with your growth, the ones which find your services useful will stick with you.
Depending on your app, you could try creating integrations with services like Wordpress or Shopify to get traction with their users.
Yes, i am thinking of making a chrome extension.
@rcoold Hey
First, I think it depends on the industry and use case. In my scenario, I leverage my personal LinkedIn the most. Secondly, like you, I'm also participating in several communities.
Currently growing this little side project, keen to exchange ideas!
In my view, you should first select at least 30 to 40 potential customers who are around you and explain your product and handpick them manually.
Manually introducing your product to potential customers will help you understand the hurdles and improvements you could make in your application for a better user experience.
Have you done anything like this to promote your product?
We at berlocks have been helping out startups to find their first few customers this way.
@rcoold I run www.tractionmate.com and work with developers and early startup founders to build early traction. I just wanted to share with you one specific strategy that I have found useful in building an audience before or even after the product is built. For example in this project - https://www.the3patios.com, the product is being built and we started inviting people to sign up from Feb itself with an offer that the first (or top) 50 active users using the product actively (once launched) would get free lifetime access. We ended up having a way bigger audiences who signed up on our pre-launch offer and that gave us some opportunity to have some conversation with them too.
Another idea to build an audience (before or after the product launch) is not to pitch your product to them but build an email list using lead magnets and a few other tactics. I run https://www.listbuildify.com that just offers that for client businesses.
I hope this would give some ideas for you to explore.
I just wrote another post on this exact topic - you may find it useful:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-get-your-first-25-saas-customers-654510bdc2
Just read the blog post. Some of the things you listed are new and definitely i would try. I already had plans to implement this
but one thing that worries me is if i do it way too much, rather than helping, it might hurt the growth. How much did you tweet about it?
Btw love bannerbear, and thanks for the insights.
whenever I had something I genuinely wanted to share.
If it's coming from a genuine place, there's no issue. If you're just spamming your feed, then you'll run into problems.
FB groups have been the best bet for us. There's literally a FB group for everything so look around and find the right FB groups for your product. Then search the FB groups for questions or problems that your product could solve. This has worked wonders for us. It is slow, but it works nearly everytime.
Any suggestion on how to do it without being spammy?
Be honest about what you built, why you built it, and hope for the best. On my first post I was called a scammer, but I also got a half dozen new users at the same time. Best to develop a thick skin, take the good with the bad, and keep moving.
Thanks.
Will give it a shot. Thanks!
Good self awareness, haha. :)
Check this out:
How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users
Which product is it? Smurly or Sheddit?
Smurly. Will checkout the post. Thanks!
Got it. So I actually stared at your page for 5 minutes yesterday and had no idea what Smurly does. I stared at it for 2 more minutes and still have no idea what it does. 😣
I just read your comment above. Now I get it! It's an interesting idea. I think you should explain it the way you did in your comment. Who is it for and why is it different.
Also @hubbion's idea to actually go do it for people is awesome. Would definitely go and try to do it for hundreds of people on Twitter to test your hypothesis about Amazon/YouTube people and so on.
A little bit of feedback from me:
Going to a YouTube channel can be a high frequency task. It would be strange for me to go to it through a shortcut like this since I could have YouTube notify me when new content is posted. I wouldn't check YouTube 20 times to see no content.
Any content that is infrequently updated I would rather have it be pushed to me than go to it. So "remember" doesn't seem like a value prop for that sort of content.
Making the link more custom to fit the offer makes sense.
e.g.: Converting some horrible Amazon link to it
or converting a long Docs string makes sense.
But that's exactly what bit.ly does so it doesn't feel different.
I mean, your differentiator could be that smurly links are not taken yet or that more "common" words are still available. Perhaps you could highlight that at first and if you can get some users iterate more with them to learn from them how to differentiate further.
Yes, i agree. I have to look for a different use case to market it. I might look into writing shopify integration because I think context urls might add some value.
I didn't see that being a advantage. Thanks for pointing it out!
One use case that i am thinking about rn is URLS which are printed on something. They are static and can never be changed.
Btw really appreciate your detailed analysis! It has helped me a lot! :)
I do the same as you Rahul. For the past few weeks I've been doing lots of cold-emailing and Reddit searches to find my first users.
Just remember that it will be easier as it goes on. Once more people know, they'll (hopefully) help with some of the work by telling others about your product.
Cool! Cold emails FTW!
This gives me some hope :)
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