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How we got our first 100 users

Abstracto idea, an App to discover abstract minimalistic wallpapers, came from me, a low code enthusiastic, and Pedro Gil, a talented designer.

To give you a sense of why we started building Abstracto as a side project let me give you a quick background story.

Pedro has been deploying Wallpapers for mobile in his instagram page for the last years. He has built a considerable following base with over 11K followers and each time he deploys a wallpapers he gets lots of messages asking for the link to download.

We figured that we could initially capitalize on his audience and this natural demand and build an App where he could have all of his "wallpaper portfolio" among other wallpapers specially curated. We decided to keep it as a free app, donation based.

In the first weeks we wanted to receive feedback and didn't want to do a big users push, so we just posted on his Instagram account (53% of traffic), hacker news (18%) and in a couple of wallpapers sub-reddits (11%).

This gave us a steady flow of users, and now we have reached our first 100 users. It's not a lot, but a beginning 🚀

  1. 2

    This is really cool and up my alley! I definitely think there's something to be said about leveraging Instagram for its audience there.

    I wonder if there are other wallpaper accounts who are looking for a platform with similar features? I have seen other "Wallpaper" accounts but not sure what they use.

    1. 1

      Most of accounts share a Google drive with images or something like that. In the near future we want to be a platform for other creators as well

  2. 2

    Keep putting in efforts consistently @mra! I know how hard it gets because I went through the same thing with ruttl.com recently. It was tough to reach out to people, but the excitement of the process is endless!

    1. 1

      Hey Harsh, awesome site you got on there. I've signed up for access.

      If its any help, I run Growthunt, a curated database of marketing strategies by other founders.

      Cheers

      1. 1

        Glad to hear that @yunsn!
        Make sure to follow ruttl here to stay tuned for the official launch thats happening really soon!

      2. 1

        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    2. 1

      Thanks for your feedback. Cool product and nice site!

      1. 1

        Thank you so much!

  3. 1

    This is amazing, kudos for building and launching Abstracto in such a short period of time! One piece of advice - instead of keeping it as a free app, don't hesitate to start trying out different monetization strategies on your current audience/users. With One Word Domains I was hesitant to roll out premium features until I had around 400 users, but the reception was great even then! So I'd recommend you to monetize early and iterate based on the feedback you get from your users - good luck! :D

    1. 1

      We had various discussions regarding the monetization model, and decided to go with this model in the beginning to do not delay the launch. Myself I am apologist of monetization since day one. So we will most definitively test out different models since we do not have a real clue of which would work better. Thanks for your feedback

      1. 1

        Gotcha, that makes sense - I felt the same way in the beginning too, but to make a sustainable business, monetization is key. Good luck figuring out the model that works for you! Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter at any time if you'd like to bounce ideas! :)

        1. 1

          Thanks for your feedback! Following you on Twtt

  4. 1

    Instagram for sure could provide a nice channel for a product like yours ! I think you could grow even more if you persist into that way!

    Just a little question , have you though about scalability? I mean all those wallpapers are hand designed so I guess it takes some time to create them ,do you have a fixed schedule to upload new content ? Or will you focus more on the quality of the wallpapers.

    Hope my question was clear :)

    1. 2

      In the beginning we are focusing on quality. It takes some time to create each wallpaper and we can't do it so regurarly. But in the future we would probabbly bring some creators and share part of the monetization

      1. 1

        clear, it makes sense!! thank you! good luck :)

        1. 1

          Thanks! Thank you for your feedback!

  5. 1

    Feedback on our landing page and app are very welcomed:
    https://abstracto.app
    https://download.abstracto.app

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