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131 Comments

How would you grow this?

Growth is often the hardest part of indie hacking and where we often get stuck. Sometimes getting ideas from other perspectives can be the key to helping you move forward.

So this post is about that, helping the community see the way through the growth.

Here's what you need to do:

  • Post a link to a project and provide a few words of what you have been doing to grow your product. It would be helpful to include the challenges you've had and what has or hasn't worked.
  • Because this community is about giving back too, please comment on someone else's post with growth support and ideas.

Over to you!

  1. 4

    Over at Plum Mail we have been thinking about the difference between vanity growth and meaningful growth. Particularly because it's such an early stage, we've focussed on engaging specific individuals and building features we know they want, are desperate for and will pay for.

    I guess later on we'll want to think about growth in a broader sense, hopefully we'll be able to that via referral. You hear a lot about the big launch on Product Hunt or Hacker News (all good) but referrals have to be one of the most powerful and genuine ways to grow a product. One challenge we came up against was, despite making significant changes to our product, Product Hunt would not let us relaunch 4 months later (the min is 6 months).

    That's what led us to start thinking less macro and more micro.

    Does anyone have experience of supercharging growth with either organic or encouraged referrals?

    1. 5

      Are you adding a "Sent with Plum Mail" footer for certain users (free plan?). That has been a leading referral growth factor for products in this space.

    2. 2

      Hey Richard.
      I’ve used referral a few times to grow SaaS style businesses. I usually follow this sort of approach, starting with your existing customer base (because these are your best growth lever - they already know you):

      1. Get reviews, field objections with an email review. A classic ‘how would you rate us?’ mail is a great way to push fans to Capterra / Trustpilot etc (not direct referral I guess, but v powerful) and identify / follow up less happy customers. We literally use star ratings in the mail that triage respondents to different places depending on their response.

      2. Record responses, segment and follow up. I do this in HubSpot / Customer.io / Acrivecamapign or via Segment.io. For instance, 4 or 5 star customers should be followed up later with a ‘refer us / invite a friend’ email nurture cycle. I tend not to offer big discounts, but go for Kudos instead. Logic being if they’re delighted with you, they’ll only need a little nudge to advocate.

      3. Timing... I’ve found to be crucial to get customers to do this. What’s the point at which your customer is most delighted with the Plum Mail experience? Do you track the behaviour? I usually do this via segment.io, once I’ve uncovered with user interviews. For instance, it could be after sending their first mail, clearing 5 items from their to-do list or logging in for the 5th time as an active user. I’ll use this as a trigger for mail - could also be used with in-app modals etc. This setup is really powerful as a foundation and can be used to attribute referrals and identify super advocates.

      Following this, I’d move onto newer customer and cold referral, but they’ll have much lower rates of success. I’ve used it as a sign up incentive before ‘refer 5 friends to get you first month free’ etc at checkout but you’ve got to be mindful of the quality of customer you’ll get from that - churn will be much higher as they’re less committed.

      Hope that helps!
      @jar4d

    3. 1

      Hi Richard, I think organic growth is definitely the most ideal form of growth (and the hardest to do). It takes the right person to discover your product, and then through word of mouth, start telling others within a specific niche about it. Incidentally, can your product solve this problem for me? I routinely send emails to multiple people in support of upcoming board meetings; I identify deadlines in these emails for when I want to receive their reports in support of the meeting, which then get distributed by me as part of a "board package". I invariably need to follow-up by email with these people. The recipients of these emails aren't the sorts of people who will create Trello accounts or some other kind of collaboration tool. They're often lawyers, bankers, accountants, etc. It would therefore be really efficient for me if an email tool did the following: (a) I set a deadline date within the tool for when I need a response to email (option: a response with an actual attachment); (b) if no response that meets these requirements, the tool automatically sends a follow-up email, or it prompts me to send a follow-up email; (c) If I assign a "group" to an email (e.g. Meeting on [Date] for [Company]), the tool downloads all attachments for that group into one folder. If you could build that, the sort of market that would buy your tool would be corporate secretaries that do work for multiple clients. Knowledge of your tool would then spread through word of mouth in the corporate secretary community. Would be happy to discuss further with you offline if interested.

      1. 1

        Hi Kenneth, thanks for this. Very interested to discuss with you, certainly. I have dropped you an email using Plum Mail. Best, Richard

    4. 1

      There are a couple of SEO tricks I'm trying out - first skyscraper - https://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique and second the infographic hack. Re the second, you find a keyword to rank on and see if it has a featured snippet. If it does with no image, you can 'hijack' the high-ranking of the snippet and add a useful infographic to be featured with the snippet. Once the searcher clicks through the infographic, they will get to your site. Now I've had problems finding 'ins' for this, e.g. relevant keywords with a featured snippet with no image, but it can really work if you get it right. I will keep trying and keep you posted !

    5. 1

      TLDR: Your referral loop mainly depends on the reason why someone should care enough to risk the possibility of his peers saying "I don't care about that".
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Referrals only ever work if the referrer gets any of these benefits

      • more money
      • better social status
      • alignment with deep beliefs (e.g. Hey by Basecamp)

      Organic and encouraged referrals won't come because you implemented some neat trick like "PS: I Love You" hack from Hotmail.

      Organic and encouraged referrals will come if you can answer this question honestly:

      "Why should I endanger losing my face for a company?"

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

    6. 1

      I think referrals are seriously underrated, especially in the B2B space. Superhuman grew in a very similar way, I heard about it from about 3 different people before ever seeing it online.

      Just had a quick look at your website - the only thing I'd recommend whilst not as strong as a referral from a friend or colleague, would be to add a detailed testimonial / case study from one of your early stage clients / customers that highlights the benefit they've received / or problem you've solved for them.

      1. 1

        Hey Harry. Excellent point, thank you. Our landing page is evolving. I give myself half a day a week to improve it. If I didn't do that I'd work on it continously for the next 18 months! I'll draw out some genuine user feedback and make a section for that.

        There is a missing possessive apostrophe on your getdelighted website. customers should be customer's .

        Best, R

  2. 2

    https://www.ojolie.com
    Ojolie eCards provides artistic, animated ecards (yearly membership) to help users to connect with their friends and family. We have loyal following but can't grow. All traffic is from renewal, referral from sent cards, and organic SEO. Can't get positive ROI from adwords. Don't know how to social network marketing effectively. Will look into getting help.

    1. 2

      During these times, I feel like your product is a great way to share some love and joy between friends a family. The one thing that stuck out to me personally was not having an option to buy a single send off.
      Even though the subscription price isn't high, I can imagine people wanting to send a quality, digital card for a one time payment. And then that would eventually convert when the recipient of the card shows appreciation for the card they received.

      1. 1

        It is a balancing act. 40% of paid signup is in December. If 1 card price is 1/3 of the yearly membership and all December sending is through 1 card, we need 3 times the signup to get even. And since it is 1 card sending, the users won't be sending our cards throughout the year, reducing the chance to "market" to more recipients.

    2. 2

      You, my friend, have a fantastic problem! :)

      I quickly glanced through your website and couldn't find a link to sign up as an affiliate. You should start that right away and put it in every order confirmation page. "Like us? Refer a friend and earn 10% of their order"

      Don't burn money on getting paid traffic. You're on the right end of the spectrum. Stay there! Nothing is more juicier than SEO driving growth for a product with great customer satisfaction.

      1. 1

        What do you mean by affiliate? We will look into adding a referral discount in the next site update. Thanks.

        I definitely agree that SEO is more important.

        In our next update, I will be adding better support for more and better sharing (social & chat apps) and add format and content with personalization feature that entices more sharing through social media.

  3. 2

    Enter Network is the community for early-stage entrepreneurs from all over Europe.

    What I've done so far to grow:

    • Regularly use Meetup.com to share our events (we get some interest from this)
    • Social channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) — doesn't seem to help much
    • Blog articles / SEO — try to set up a blog post every 2 weeks. I think this is a good start, but we really need some more time there.

    Some other plans/ideas I have:

    • Direct outreach (on LinkedIn and/or Twitter)
    • Actively engaging/posting in other relevant places where people could find us (Reddit, LinkedIn, here on IH)
    • Referral system (this is something I have to set up; e.g. invite a new member and a month off)
    • Paid ads on Twitter, Reddit or Facebook
    • Launch on ProductHunt

    I find it quite difficult to determine what works best. How do you approach this?

    1. 1

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy:
      First I want to talk about two mechanics that you are working with (maybe you are already aware - but if not then here we go)

      • Every network is only as good as it's people: If have no high-stake people that are part of your network, it will be hard to convince someone to commit his/her time to this.
      • There is already a community for everything: Just because a group is not labeled "for early-stage entrepreneurs" does not mean people don't talk about it there.

      Let me explain. I am part of 16 Slack channels, in 10 of them there is either a channel for it or it has become part of the culture to post it (e.g. in General). Those conversations are already happening.

      So why should I add +1 Slack channel to even further increase my information overload besides already getting bombarded on LinkedIn, Slack, YouTube, Email, WhatsApp, Zoom?

      So that for me is the first question you need to address on your page.

      Now to the "fun" part.

      Channels:
      Read up on how Trafficthinktank grew their exclusive Slack community. It is literally a playbook for any subscription community. https://technical.ly/philly/2019/01/11/6-lessons-on-growing-digital-audience-from-the-team-behind-traffic-think-tank/

      How to determine what works best:

      I assume you are doing this on your own? You know what works best if it becomes a flywheel. Meaning that figuratively speaking you don't put in 1€ and get 1€ back. But you get put in 1€ and get 1,05€, 1,10€ and so on. AND most importantly. If you stop your efforts, it does not go back to 0.

      So in your case, this means people refer to your community or discover your community (inbound).

      PS: If you like my answer and want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 1

        Hey Christoph, appreciate the write-up!

        You make some good points. I indeed need to look more at referrals and inbound ways to grow the community, that's on point.

        I don't fully agree with you on the 'high-stake people' bit — of course, it helps if you have well-known people joining your network. However, the value of our community is more the fact that people are super supportive and that we offer a range of other services (in that sense, it isn't simply 1 more Slack channel on top of your other 16 — it's a Slack channel, committed community, weekly meetups with experts, access to mentors, and much more).

        But I do agree that it could be even more convincing, so I'll work on that! And thanks also for sharing that playbook, that's super useful. Cheers man, thanks again!

        1. 2

          I can see what you mean. The community surely is the selling point.

          While writing my comment I thought of using the authority bias which unconsciously influences the decision of a visitor.

          You can read more here if you are interested: https://www.influenceatwork.com/principles-of-persuasion/

          Great to hear that it was helpful 👊

  4. 2

    purplecookiecompany.com

    Posting 2x daily on Instagram, 4x per week atleast on Tiktok and trying out influencer, google ads(which havent converted anything). We did ~200 in our first month with less than $100 in ad spend and are currently at breakeven.

    1. 1

      Direct to consumer route.

      TLDR: Work on brand and harvest UGC (user-generated content).
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Brand: Describe why someone should buy from your online store compared to a convenience store where they get the instant gratification

      Brand: What is your angle? Social impact? Made by grandmas? Only organic ingredients?

      Brand: What is the deal with purple?

      Community/UGC: You need some form of incentivation for people to care about your cookies. Invite people to a baking contest. Challenge them to try and recreate your cookies. Whatever it is - put the word SOCIAL into social media.

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

    2. 1

      You need to go to local coffee shops, fast food restaurants, convenience stores, farmers' markets and get them to sell them directly at a POS. Bring samples.

    3. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

  5. 2

    www.tutors.gg

    Online group tutoring, interactive courses and monthly learning subscription box.

    Currently offering free trials for each subject once per week

    Typeform -> Calendly -> ActiveCampaign

    Planning on adding affiliate system

    1. 1

      Instagram is the first thing that comes to my mind. I would choose a specific subject and create a theme page on IG. Provide free value and try to drive signups for a webinar.

    2. 1

      TLDR: Put yourself in the customer's shoes. Parents don't care about group tutoring. They care about making sure their children can keep up with the curriculum.
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy: Instead of explaining what your product does (company-centric), explain what it does for the parent visiting (user-centric) based on what they care about.

      "Support your child's learning at home with the best-in-class school tutors"

      • Who are the topic specialists? Are they teachers? What gives them the credibility to be considered "good enough" for the child?
      • What are some of the results parents are getting (e.g. their children finally understood a specific subject they did not understand before)

      Channels: I would try to get in touch with schools since they can be the best amplifier for it (have trust + the right audience).

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

  6. 2

    https://thedailycoding.com

    I've been posting on reddit, posting on twitter and building an audience that may interest my newsletter, and blogging.

    So far I've managed to get 700+ subscribers.

    1. 1

      TLDR: Don't bury the lead on your site. Lead with it. Tapping into newsletters of others can be your best source of highly engaged readers.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy: When visiting the page I don't feel addressed. You say it in the FAQ section but I feel like you should already do it in the headline e.g. "From Junior Developer to Computer Science Wizzard in 14 hours" (maybe you have a rough estimate on it). Or in emails so "From Junior Developer to Computer Science Wizzard in 8 emails."

      You are understating the value that you have.

      Reading your newsletter for 8 weeks to become proficient in computer science via actual tasks

      vs.

      the alternative, paying 15$ for fake discounted courses on Udemy that are 2hour each and bombard you with useless background info (I am exaggerating, there are some great courses on Udemy).

      Channels: When you build a newsletter, there is no better way to reach people than being in other newsletters. Think "who has my audience?" Sure those can be competitors or way too expensive. But I bet there are also some websites, maybe smaller blogs, that talk about similar topics (getting into coding, getting a job in IT, etc.).

      Any day in my life I would take a highly engaged audience of 10 people over a super dispersed audience of 10.000.

      Additional research: Here is a link to an article of a person who started from 0 connections and grew his list to 19.000
      https://marketingexamples.com/content/sharing

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

    2. 1

      Great. What if you could create Youtube videos where you show to to build simple products from Scratch?

    3. 1

      700+ is pretty impressive!

      Could you also use StackExchange or Github or perhaps other communities/groups focussed on coding to promote your newsletter?

      Or alternatively, cross-promotion with other coding newsletters could also be a good avenue to pursue.

    4. 1

      Community work like in /r/learnprogramming but also Facebook groups is probably a safe bet here. How active are you in those excluding posting your own content? People remember and if you can become a trusted source, it will be easier to get traffic funneled to your site.

      1. 1

        Thanks! Which Facebook group would you suggest?

  7. 1

    Well, this makes me think about the stuff I did for my project https://www.invoicera.com/. I actually focused on the brand reputation on social media and monitored the reviews and ratings.

    It's always polite to interact with your audience, even if they criticize you, listen to them, understand the issue and respond positively!

  8. 1

    Please help to launch and grow my Indiehackers group about MEMES so we could have more fun here:
    https://www.indiehackers.com/group/memes

    help

    As we know laughter is the best medicine and now that we have COVID-19 and the whole world is a sh*t-show, we certainly need some medicine... or vaccine... or microchips... or some non-code solution.

  9. 1

    We just crossed 100k users on Devfolio, all organic. The platform is the community of builders from across the globe. Some of the basic things we did -

    • Focused on the pain points of builders & build tools around the same
    • Focused on giving back while helping/mentoring the builders
  10. 1

    Over at BirdSend (https://birdsend.co), for proactive actions, we've so far only relied on cold email outreach to get our first initial set of customers.

    We started doing it around 2 years ago, and is still doing it till this day because it works. Things also started getting easier once you've found your first set of customers. It gets easier as you get more customers and get more good reviews from them. It's like a snowball effect -- as you get more traction and momentum, people start trying you out.

    We now get more customers from referrals (even without affiliate commissions) than from cold emailing.

    A few key points that allow us to enjoy this:

    1/ You must have a great product that caters to the right audience
    2/ You must provide great customer service

    You can't have one without the other. Both MUST be present.

    If you only have a great product but your customer service sucks, people aren't going to stay very long. If you have great customer service but your product sucks, people are going to try you out but cancel their subscription before their trial runs out.

    What hasn't worked for us is initially we tried to do a podcast and blogging to increase awareness. They take too much work and time, and see very little results. Not saying they don't work, but for a project in the very initial stages with no customers yet, I don't think it's a good idea to put your resources into actions that require a ton of work upfront (unless you're investor-backed and have a lot of money to spend). I'd rather put my time and energy on more "direct" avenues that bring in users.

  11. 1

    Hello Friends,

    We are building urban.studio, an All-in-Platform for coaches (Yoga, Meditation, Dance, Music, Fitness etc.) to host their LIVE classes at ease.

    We are in the Beta phase with over 50 active Beta testers, helping us with feedbacks.

    Currently, we are working on different growth channels to get in more customers to he platform, but as we all know it is never enough.

    So, how would you grow this?

    Happy to give demo/access to the platform to understand things better. Hit me up ✌️

  12. 1

    Tappy👈
    We launched our beta product about a month ago, and we have got 11K unique visitors. The signup conversion rate is about 6%. The acquisition channels are Betalist, Reddit, LinkedIn etc. It has been quite a challenge since our product is a team communication tool, which means every team member has to sign up and download the app to get its value(spontaneous meetings with one click from any workflow). We reached out to our users from each funnel (signup, download, invitation, full activation) to find out what went wrong and hope to bring adjacent users to the next depth. But we have not heard anything from them at all. Our current target market is growing tech teams who need spontaneous meetings at the right time to bring everyone on the same page. We are looking for more lead generation. Please share your thoughts on our products Tappy.
    Thank you.

  13. 1

    I've been in first user acquisition mode for www.peji.link, It's a platform to get a mobile website.

    Things I've been doing:

    • Testing FB ads (few $'s) on core messaging and value proposition
    • Posting on local classifieds to target I.T iliterate small business people offering free design of websites
    • Joining local buy/sell groups, there are alot of people selling in this group and offering to legitimize their business with a free webpage on the platform designed by peji
  14. 1

    Hi :) My project is https://www.openswit.ch

    I tried to grow it by linking it directly to Nintendo Switch groups and directly on Twitter. It's hard to find community I have to post it to, apart from social media and reddit I don't really know where I can find my users. I'm trying to grow on SEO, and I saw 10% of the users come from that source.
    Posting directly on twitter to people is time consuming and since we are not making any gain on the product and I don't plan to make it soon, it's hard without spending on marketing.

    What should I do to grow my product? I thought of making a blog to post news around NintendoSwitch, but it's really time consuming and I need to write new features.

    1. 2

      Just a random idea, it provides pretty good value to current Switch gamers, what other publication (online/offline), blogs would they follow? You could pitch to some writers there. It sounds like a pretty good piece of content for the writer so they can do their job, and you get exposure. Basically Gamers get to save money just by using this one tool? Awesome.

      1. 1

        That's a really good advice thanks :) I was thinking also about discord community, they are gaining a lot of traction around gaming

  15. 1

    https://justredirect.io

    Justredirect is a URL redirection service that allows for creating and managing redirection rules through a modern, fully-managed redirection engine with built-in HTTPS, missing redirection detection and powerful analytics.

    So far, I have only tried direct approaches on Linkedin. Looking a cheap aquistion path. We are targeting marketers and SEOs. Thank you

  16. 1

    Hypnos

    We just launched our kickstarter for Hypnos, but we've floundered a bit on the initial launch of it. We've reached out to our beta testers and email lists with a few conversions, but not nearly as many as we'd wish.
    Now we're focusing on getting awareness.

    • We've made a social media schedule and are starting to execute on it.
    • We're looking for journalists/bloggers that could help us by writing an article.
    • We're staggering any posts of platforms that are varied so that we can give them room to run and to promote individually.

    Essentially, what I think we're looking for is for one of the approaches to become a spark that catalyzes further conversions.

    Is anyone familiar with promoting software on kickstarter?

  17. 1

    Not launched yet, but I'm building Lotus - a Mac app for managing GitHub notifications in a calmer way. I want to do to GH notifications what HEY did to email. Put developers back in control of their notification inbox and hopefully reduce maintainer burnout.

    I'm building this thing in the open and sending a newsletter about my progress every Sunday. I've been doing this consistently for the past few months, but I have only 50 subscribers so far. I'm struggling with marketing and not quite sure where to start, I would appreciate any advice!

    1. 2

      I am sure you're developer still figuring out growth. Been there and done that! :)

      If I were you, I would put a landing page even before I complete building so people can subscribe for early access with copy similar to:

      Get the pain out of your Git notifications. Save your time by controlling your Github notifications.

      Be super direct! It helps.

      Reach out to really engaged Github repositories, maybe even opensource communities. Get some developers to use the product for free and see if you can get them to give you testimonials. You need developers who actively contribute to public repos, so your claims will seem valid.

      Document your thoughts on how you started your growth journey, so other developers become your evangelists.

      1. 1

        I am sure you're developer still figuring out growth. Been there and done that! :)

        Haha, you are right about that!

        If I were you, I would put a landing page even before I complete building so people can subscribe for early access

        Do you think it's ok to subscribe them to a "building in the open" newsletter? I would prefer not to have a separate newsletter for just notifying folks when it's out. They'll most likely forget what they even subscribed to.

        Reach out to really engaged Github repositories, maybe even opensource communities. Get some developers to use the product for free and see if you can get them to give you testimonials. You need developers who actively contribute to public repos, so your claims will seem valid.

        Awesome advice, I'm going to do exactly that after the holidays when everyone is back coding :)

        Thank you a lot for all this advice! Words of encouragement like yours really help, I appreciate your support!

        1. 1

          Sure @vadimdemedes use the signup form for a build-in-public newsletter or whatever can keep them engaged. Good luck!

  18. 1

    https://pluckd.co

    We help create communities inside companies. Or rather: we help companies to creater healthier cultures. It's a very tricky positioning: a sucky culture is a problem that affects many, but is owned by very few... and I don't really know where my audience (i.e. my buyer persona) hangs out.

    • First users were part of my direct network. I basically pitched the few startup owners I knew and offered a killer, if not symbolic, beta pricing.
    • In order to know where my audience is, I launched 3 identical social adds on LinkedIn, Facebook and Reddit. I though my audience was on LinkedIn, but the CTR was only 0.65% (with a 3,48€ CPC). Facebook, however, had a CTR of 1,02% (with the lowest CPC, 0.85€). Reddit had the worst CTR (0,09%) but, surprisingly, the biggest audience.

    I was thinking about starting a blog to educate customers and LinkedIn outreach... but with the results I'm getting from the ads, it appears that my audience is not on LinkedIn.

    I would love to get some virality or referral, but as we are B2B, I couldn't figure out how to do that.

    1. 1

      @Brauhaus Do you have success stories from your early users? Write blog posts and success stories. Reach out to other businesses and send them these stories.

      I feel the landing page copy is pretty vague. Are you selling it to me as an employee? Or as an employer? From your message here, it seems like you sell to business owners. I would rewrite the copy to something like this:
      "Help your employees grow by connecting them with star performers within your team. You hired someone because they are really good at something! Help them motivate others in the team."
      Or something similar to those lines, with a customer testimonial.

      Overall, the first step would be to change the current website to something much much more simpler and direct, in really big font!

      1. 1

        Thank you for your comment!

        Sadly, I have no success stories yet. My current customers, most of them were originally part of my direct network, are mostly small companies that don't really have the engagement issues we try to solve yet.

        In larger companies, this positioning is very tricky: the engagement problem is more prevalent but either invisible or lacking someone who's responsible for it (which was something I discovered on my user interviews when I assumed my user were HR departments).

        Right now, we're selling to you as an employee, in the hopes of achieving some sort of button-up adoption that would lead us to product-led growth. We have a justification page for employers/managers, but it does need some more work.

        I'm not a fan of the idea of focusing on star performers. It's not really the point of the product as there would be too many new uncertainties. Will they be willing to use their time to teach others? Would that distract them and eventually make them stop being star performers? What were the criteria that led them to be seen as "star performers" in the first place? Was It only motivation? In fact, many "top performers" are actually not motivated at all: and this always comes as a surprise to their employees when they inevitably leave.

        A good explanation of the product's value can be seen in this live feedback we got from the Pioneer tournament. What do you think of the term "internal Reddit" or "Reddit for companies"?

        https://youtu.be/d4ritpPkWZ0?t=879

        The problem now is how to communicate that value for bigger companies in order to have a more compelling proof of concept?

  19. 1

    www.plazasource.com - Started email drip campaign to targeted account list with ideas for a low cost tech stack on sales enablement. Think of it as a starters package must-havs. Response rate up 4%.

    1. 1

      I'm super curious about how people get these kinds of lists.

      1. 1

        Depends on your product. For us, since we are selling B2B, and Account-based marketing is the best strategy to use.

        Think more of fishing with a spear, instead of a net.

        Utilize your time and resources on specific, targeted, and best accounts.

  20. 1

    Hey everyone,

    We've been working on Tutorpass (https://www.tutorpass.io/) for the last couple of months. We've been doing the following to date:

    • Posting on subreddits
    • Posting on Facebook groups
    • Buying cheap Facebook ads ($10) - nothing came from that; and
    • Replying to people on tweets who might be potential customers, with little success

    Since we started pushing on December 1st, we have about 34 sign-ups. Our goal is to hit 1,000 sign-ups by the end of the year. It's seems a bit unlikely with the approach that we are taking, so we'd love any advice on any growth hacks that a pretty early stage start-up like ourselves could use.

    Thanks,

    Tutorpass Team

    1. 1

      More power to you! Fellow edtech founder here. Would be great to chat with you @tutorpass team.

    2. 1

      1000 signups is a pretty ballsy goal!

      Honestly, your path right now is a numbers game. Automate your Twitter replies, expending way more on Facebook and ads, in general, is how I think one would play that game.

      Another option is to play the compound game. This means transforming every new customer into a potential salesman. The growth then compounds. To do that, you have to build some virality into your product. I don't see how I could do it for my product, but Tutorpass sure could! Just offer incentives for those 34 signups to invite their friends!

      Another option worth checking out: affiliate programs. The benefit here is that they only grow as you do, unlike ads.

  21. 1

    https://brutalhr.com

    Online course for learning how to hire like a pro. Oriented to HR managers and people who spend time hiring in their day to day job

    1. 2

      Hey, would you consider re-creating this book as a course on our platform - https://www.tutorpass.io/? If so, please sign-up and we'll make sure you're first on the list when the platform launches.

  22. 1

    I've been building Hours.zone and I'm actually preparing for a soft launch here, Reddit, and a couple other places. I've mainly been focusing on product, but my main strategy at the moment is just through word of mouth and viral looping through the core functionality, since Hours.zone is a social productivity app.

  23. 1

    I have recently launched markitsimpl.com which is a simple bookmark manager. I want to get the word out to mainly desktop users as the site is optimized and works best on a desktop. With a marketing budget of $0, it is hard to come up with ways to try and target specifically desktop users because most of the free marketing options like social media is mainly used on a mobile device. Any tips here would be greatly appreciated!

  24. 1

    http://wishpy.com/

    Started with sharing it to friends. Mostly to test if everything works and won't collapse. Posted it couple of times on IndieHackers (although the audience here is not my target so without much of the effect). Did journal on my local country Twitter. Created https://twitter.com/heywishpy with intention to share awesome gift ideas.

    I hope for viral effect (hard, I know 😅) due to mechanism implemented within the app (the more of your friends have the app, the more gift ideas you can see).

    I want to do couple of more tweaks to the app and then I will post on other channels too. Seems like TikTok or Instagram would have the perfect audience.

  25. 1

    http://billisfun.com
    Bill is a Slack bot that helps to learn more about your team.

    Tried:
    Cold emails - got a few customers but it's incredibly hard.
    Currently focusing on SEO

    1. 2

      @4th_roommate The first thing would be to re-prioritise the landing page text. No one cares whether the emoji is called Bill! :)

      "Fun icebreaker games on Slack to help team building.
      Improve your team bonding in 5 minutes."

      This would be great copy! You have lot of real estate on the right side for the hero section. Probably have some Example questions as cards listed there.

      I would go a bit easy on the color too!

      What companies are using your product? Be a maniac and find out why they use your product. Build landing pages for each of those use cases and reach out to medium sized companies through Linked In. Don't try to chase the big fish. Rarely will you succeed.

      Yes, building something from the ground up is incredibly difficult! Hang in there!

    2. 2

      Maybe try to reach to software houses? They have a big initiative to take well care of their employees. I'd start with reaching out to HR Teams through LinkedIn.

      1. 1

        I've tried to reach out to HR. Founders were interested more when HR.
        But once the company is too big it's hard to get to the founder.

        What do you mean by software house thought?

        Thanks

        1. 1

          Software Houses, companies such as X-Team, Netguru etc.

    3. 1

      TLDR: Have a chunky value proposition and cooperate with websites that review products like yours.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy: I am missing the pain on the page. Slack is already connected so why would I need to add another layer (potential complication) to that? Maybe you can run a survey or already have the numbers on how this feeling of isolation is a productivity killer.

      A great concept that I like to use with my mentees is called Promised Land. Maybe it helps you with getting more clarity on your page.

      Channel 1: App directory. Just like an eCommerce product will flourish on the Shopify store, or an app on the App Store, so will your Slack app in the Slack app store.

      Social & Fun is the perfect category for your product.

      Plus it also gives you an opportunity to reach out to blogs that review Slack apps. This leads me to...

      Channel 2: Get in touch with websites that write about topics such as "staying connected during remote work" or "fun ways to stay connected while working remotely" and try to get features.

      This does not mean an email saying "Hey I saw you wrote about xy, I have recently build a tool that helps with that." Why should someone care about you and risk losing the trust of his audience?

      Instead: Build a baseline of trust first

      To not leave you hanging with my non-practical tip, here is a guy that explains outreach this much better than I can

      PS: If you like my answer and want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 1

        Thank you so much.
        Where can I learn more about what you're doing?

        1. 1

          Any time, best if you connect with me via LinkedIn :)

  26. 1

    I've been chatting to an entrepreneur recently, and he has a great set of cards to help people with mental health challenges. It prompts them to do positive things to improve their mood etc.

    https://www.thisdayiam.com/

    I think his personal story, which is fairly interesting, should be a lot more central to the sales pitch, and I think the site needs some work in general.

    I also wonder whether targeting the partners of the intended recipient might be a good demographic to market to, as well. Often the people who need this support the most are those that are least likely to go looking for it.

  27. 1

    colofon.io
    Writing app for novel, non-fiction and screenplay.

    The problem is acquiring new users is pretty slow and users don't come back on a regular basis.

    I tried:

    • Posting often on instagram => nothing
    • Product Hunt launch => no bad but people don't come back
    • Weekly and Monthly email with your wordcount/progress => I have a 20% open rate & 1% click on link to go back to app
    • Twitter => I have good conversion if I post with my personal account responding to people talking about writing. But it takes a huge amount of time.
    • Google ads => bleuh
    1. 1

      TLDR: You can only beat what people are using right now if you are either 10x better or radically different. Explain that. Chrome extensions, publications about novel writing and becoming part of the writing community yourself could be great channels for you.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      What tools do writers use to put their words on paper? I'd guess Google Docs/Word (at least the techy-ones that you also want to address).

      Copy: You need to address the elephant in the room and show why Colofon is a much better alternative to writing in the tools your audience is used to use (Word or Google Docs,...). The best way to do this is to pinpoint the issues writers face when using these.

      Example

      Channel 1: Creating a Chrome extension. Not super hands-on, I know but think about where your audience is. Writing in Google Docs. Maybe one part of your product can be built into a stand-alone product that helps people in Google Docs + gets them curious about what else there is that can help them write -> Colofon.

      Channel 2: Blogs that talk about getting started as a writer are the ideal place for you to be at. If you can colab with a creator and get featured in their post/YouTube video/podcast you address your ideal audience.

      Channel 3: Become a Medium/Reddit contributor (e.g. https://medium.com/writers-on-writing but there are many others) and share your tips and knowledge on improving the writing process. And the best part is that you use screenshots of your product in your answers. By doing that you get people to think "Hey, what is he using? If he can write a chapter in 10 hours, maybe I can also do that with this tool)"

      PS: If you like my answer and want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

  28. 1

    Workout App for Trainers/Influencers: https://fitness-platform.vercel.app/

    The Idea is creating Apps with the brand of the Influencer where he can create workouts wich users can follow interactively in the app.

    Hardest part is finding influencers/trainers that are willing collaborate with me. I have send some emails to Instagramers/YouTubers but I hardly hear back from them. How can I establish contact with potential collaborators?

  29. 1

    glowism.com

    What worked:
    Engage in different communities on Reddit, FB and other skincare influencers' own communities and this is the only way to bring paid customers so far

    Sort of worked:
    Create good content and free tools and post around different communities. Posts all get high upvotes and likes and we do see spikes in traffic, but only a couple paid customers so far.

    What didn't:
    Paid advertising. Tried FB ads, Google ads and Reddit ads, CPC is FB >>Reddit>Google. However no conversions.
    Running an Instagram account doesn't seem to even generate traffic to website.

    Currently testing: influencer marketing.

  30. 1

    https://project49476.com/

    Open-source YouTube alternative, with freedom of speech values.

    1. 2

      TLDR: Identify where your core audience hangs out, jump on a call with 10 of them to pitch them your idea, let them describe the value they would see in your alternative.
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Identify where your core audience hangs out: Quora, Reddit, and obv. YouTube are a great source for that. If someone clearly shows the pain they have with YouTube (ideally related to freedom of speech) hone into the conversation and try to have a conversation with that person.

      Let them describe the value they see in your product: There is no better copy than one of your ideal customers. Condense what they are saying to formulate your value proposition.

      Create an enemy: People love a good underdog/David vs. Goliath story. Picture the problem that exists and show how YouTube is increasingly working against freedom of speech (e.g. with screenshots of PR articles, Tweets or blogposts on your website).

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 2

        Thanks Christoph, followed you on LinkedIn.

    2. 1

      That's a tough one because I can't experience the product.

      I would try to focus on a specific niche for your Videos. I assume the website provides videos like youtube and try to win their trust with your content.

      Then find where your crowd hangs and try to get spread your message without being too pushy.

      Stay winning ⚡️

    3. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

      1. 1

        I think you can figure it out with a little research :)

  31. 1

    https://getstorejobs.com/map job aggregator for low-mid skill jobs to help people finding jobs, haven't done growth, marketing part yet, I would love to get feedback and advise on what can I do next to promote my side project. launched recently

    1. 2

      TLDR: Google Search will be one of the deciding factors for your growth. Next to that it is about finding out what competitors are AND aren't doing yet.
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      When a person is looking for low-mid skill jobs, where does he go first?

      1. Job search is, as the name says, search. Winning the Google game is going to be crucial.

      I would recommend working on a search-engine-friendly URL structure and using auto-generated pages by combining different filters for your main keywords (e.g. driver helper jobs).

      You can also take a look at how to get exposure in Google for Jobs since this will do a lot of the heavy lifting of ranking for you: https://jobs.google.com/about/

      1. Groups are another way to tap into a community that is looking for jobs. Try to find Facebook groups, maybe local forums or Subreddits where your audience hangs out.

      2. The other way is to look at what your competition is not doing yet. Is nobody running a YouTube channel on that topic yet? Or maybe a podcast? Then do that.

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 1

        Thanks a lot Christoph!

  32. 1

    hatchedwith.com

    So far just some reddit posts and facebook group posts. Going to try reaching out to connections on linkedin next week and running some reddit ads as well. I raised the price from when I first tested the idea (had a few customers pre pay) so I'm not sure if the price is too high or if I just won't convert any customers until I drive quite a bit more traffic to the page.

    1. 1

      TLDR: Try to be more clear who it is for. Write the headline only you can write and answer all the objections a visitor has. Upwork can be a great source for highly-interested users.
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy: When visiting the page I am not 100% sure who it is for.

      I'd figure for companies that are selling software solutions (e.g. CRM, app analytics etc.). I would try to be more clear on that. Ideally in an H1 format so people immediately read that e.g. "Get an always up-to-date email lists of well-funded startups."

      Conversion: If you want to sell through your page you first have to win the trust game. Why should I spend 30$ a month when I still have objections.

      • Do you have any guarantees?
      • Why should I spend 30$ a month when I might already have a Crunchbase subscription/Fund subscription/hire someone from Upwork to do it?

      Channels: I would consider creating a profile on Upwork and applying to opportunities of companies that are looking for scraping lists. Your best bet that they are in the market for it.

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 2

        This is great feedback! Thanks! I guess this is something I never really thought about when writing the copy, but it's such a great insight. Thinking about all the objection my customers might make and convincing them otherwise.

        In my head I had already decided if anyone wants there money back at any point I would issue a refund immediately. This definitely seems like something I should tell people and call out right on that page.

        Thanks for taking the time to check it out and write a very helpful reply!

  33. 1

    https://web.tapereal.com

    Like many of you here, I've also posted on Reddit, IH, Twitter, Product Hunt, and HackerNews with varying degrees of success.

    They're good for getting the word out and raising some initial awareness or attracting early adopters... but let's not confuse posting to these platforms with "growth."

    For growth, it's kind of like commercial fishing in the ocean...

    You need to cast a net...

    Catch as many fish as you can in that net...

    But then you need to keep casting that net in other parts of the ocean to catch more fish...

    We live in an age where everything is instant, and with growth, we tend to expect the same... instant results.

    Based on my experience and what I've learned to date, I'm realizing that growth is never immediate...

    It's a "long-term" game and requires A LOT of patience, perseverance, and market penetration.

    1. PATIENCE - accept the fact that your growth journey will take time...

    2. PERSEVERANCE - don't give up so easily and continue to push forward...

    3. PENETRATION - sustained and continuous tactics to penetrate as many areas of your market as possible...

    For #3... this means putting your brand in front of your defined audience WHEREVER THEY MAY BE... and this translates into a variety of "growth" tactics...

    For example:

    POSTING ON SOCIAL / USING #HASHTAGS:
    FB, Instgram, Twitter, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube
    (I know, the list is exhausting! Hire a virtual assistant or your nephew if you need help).

    CONTRIBUTING TO COMMUNITIES:
    PH, IH, HN, SubReddits, and any other communities where your audience may be.

    PAID ADS:
    Google/Bing/Yahoo search ads, social media ads, or targeted ads on website where you audience may be. You don't need a large budget, so something is better than nothing!

    REFERRALS:
    Getting your project/startup listed in directories, comparison sites, review sites, getting influencers/bloggers to write about you, or getting featured by press.

    ORGANIC:
    Content marketing and SEO, SEO, SEO. But be realistic about your content writing goals. If you can set aside 2 hrs per week for ONE well-crafted blog post over 52 weeks, it will pay off dramatically in the long-term.

    EMAIL:
    This is something I personally need to do more of, but I know many folks who leverage email for continuously "nurturing" their growth.

    NETWORKING & REFERRALS:
    Do things the hard way. Reach out to people individually, share your journey openly, and just chip away at it one person/user/customer at a time.

    THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX:
    The above channels are great, but you also need to think outside of the box and find more creative ways to reach or engage with your audience.

    This last one is easier said than done. It's truly dependent on your own creativity, and sometimes you need some luck (i.e. being in the right place at the right time).

    It could be building in public, a viral idea for TikTok, a tweet that goes nuts, or a trend that you piggyback on to gain exposure.

    In the end, I strongly believe you need to follow the 3 Ps above in order to activate growth.

    It's like a child, and children don't grow overnight...

    Well, sometimes they have growth spurts...

    But those spurts are basically like you getting featured on BetaList for one day lol...

    REAL growth happens when you look back after a year and see how far you've journeyed and grown...

    REAL growth happens after continuous and sustained tactics that help you gradually acquire market share...

    REAL growth is a never ending process of KAIZEN... Japanese for constant and never-ending improvement...

    1. 2

      This is a great list to start with. I would ad that once you find a few avenues that work double down on them!

      It may not be facebook ads that work for your product, but maybe you find early success with reddit ads. So dump more money into reddit ads and maybe only use facebook for retargeting.

      1. 1

        Yes, you're right! Doubling-down is the way to go!

        Early on, we noticed that Organic search traffic had the highest conversion rate, so we've been focusing a little more on blogging, content, and SEO.

        But keep in mind that sometimes it's not 100% clear... maybe people are seeing our social media posts but only "searching" for our product after the fact.

        Attribution is challenging...

        For this reason, I think dabbling a little bit across ALL channels is beneficial in the long run, especially for top of the funnel "awareness". And when you come across one that performs well, as you said, double down! :)

  34. 1

    Awesome thread. I have been posting https://joyful.gifts on social media every chance I get. Twitter, FB, Reddit. Customers come, but today - I got my first mean comment from Reddit for talking too much about it.

    I would love if anybody can pass on some tips where to go next or if there is any FB groups, nice subreddit I can target.

    1. 2

      TLDR:
      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Social networks: It's just my two cents but I think you are running into the risk of a) getting people to mentally blacklist you and b) getting into a hamster wheel that depends on you constantly posting.

      Social networks don't reward you for posting links. They reward you for providing value on them.

      If people ask what gift they should be buying for their s/o on his birthday, help them with it.

      Don't: "Hey, for exactly this reason we have build joyful.gifts so you no longer have to worry about finding a perfectly fitting gift."

      Do: "It really depends on what he is into. Does he like games? Is he into sports? What is something he always wanted to do but was afraid of doing? There are many factors that come into play here. I guess that at this point, you probably have googled a lot about it but only found super boring gifts, am I right? So I was in a similar situation as you are in right now. What I ended up doing was creating a tool that actually helps you with creating a super personalized gift. And the best thing is that it is fun for you creating and fun for him getting the gift."

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.p startup news sources daily so you don't have to.

      1. 2

        Thanks for the tip man - I like it. Would totally follow you on Linkedin, but I rather be broke than use linkedin lol. I hate it with a passion.

    2. 2

      I got a similar thing on HackerNews :) At least you passed the limit, so now you know where the limit is for that particular sub. I'd make a pause there for 1-2 weeks and then continue/see the reaction.

    3. 1

      Cool idea! One suggestion... have you thought about an option or subscription for only gifting on special occasions like Birthdays, Anniversaries, Valentine's day??

      As a man, and I'm sure many men out there can relate, we tend to leave gifting to the last minute or downright forget!

      It would be helpful if there was an option for an annual subscription or special day subscription where your customer knows they'll never miss an important date.

      Gifting every month might be too much...

      One growth hack could be to partner with florists, where you get people subscribed to a yearly "flower" delivery and then send those leads to florists after taking a cut... just a thought!

      1. 1

        Maybe I need to work on my copy. You can totally customize the gifting. The pricing is per gift. (not by month)

        Want to do 1 occasion for 1 person in the whole year? Sure!

        Want to do 2 occasions for a 2 people. That works

        6 occasions for 4 people - no problem.

        I am open to suggestion where/how I can make that clearer.

        1. 1

          Yes, to be honest, the copy was not 100% clear and I misunderstood it. Maybe try a copy-writing course or watch some YouTube videos about writing website copy? Also look up Flint McLaughlin... he has a bunch of YouTube content on copy optimization which I learned a lot from.

  35. 1

    https://nocodechart.xyz/, no-code solution to create charts and export to your website.

    I posted on reddit, managed to hit #1 on wordpress and webflow subreddit which drove great traffic, but has been low since then.

    1. 1

      Is your issue traffic or converting people?

      For traffic: Create awesome unique reports, post on pages like /r/dataisbeautiful and /r/internetisbeautiful, "launch" every report publicly. Make them really share-worthy.

      For conversion: Interactive Demos!

  36. 1

    Project is https://enzymeui.com/ - vue and bootstrap components library and admin dashboard. So far I have posted this on reddit and here on IH. I still have some plans to post this on places like hacker news (although I will need to get very creative with this to get any results). I am also starting out with content marketing. So far I didn't get many visitors to my website, because I am still focusing on building the actual template product.

    1. 2

      TLDR: Be present on developer-related forums and initiate partnerships with agencies that can boost up their productivity with your library.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Forums: I'd assume you are a developer yourself, right? So who or what site do you consult if you might be stuck with the frontend development of your project? Probably Stackoverflow or Slack groups that you are part of.

      So being there when a person is asking for help on something that your product can do (you notice I am not a developer :D) is when pain and urgency are the biggest = best time to promote it.

      Partnerships: Especially in your area it can be an amazing way of generating users when you partner up with development agencies who thanks to you can reduce their workload.

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

    2. 2

      Have you listed this in leading marketplaces? At first glance I am just not seeing all that many benefits over the 1000+ other admin templates I can buy on Themeforest. If there are any, be straight to the point about what they are.

      Find your unique angle here. For example, Ghost and Tailwind templates are underserved. If you insist on bootstrap – maybe a focus on accessibility or dark modes?

  37. 1

    Pretty easy! Build your email audience. Start early, never stop. And don't wait for visitors to sign up on your website forms. Be proactive, go get them.

  38. 1

    Project:- Learningin.tech

    Learningin.tech is a stack of free resources to learn new technologies for people new in tech. so that it is easier for them to get started.

    Only been promoting on Twitter and started Instagram recently. I would love to know what you guys think can be done to grow and monetize it.

    1. 2

      I would try youtube by turning some of the guides into a visual way of learning.
      As far for monetizing, I don't know.

      1. 1

        Youtube is something I thought of as well but it would require a lot of efforts, time and consistency.

    2. 2

      Consider putting a mailing list signup at the bottom of your page where interested parties can get updates on new content. When you do start monetizing it, you'll have a way to bring qualified people to the start of your funnel / see ads / etc. I know that you have the Discord there, but even as a heavy Discord user I'd almost never join a community within a minute of landing on someone's site. But if I followed a mailing list for a while and liked what I saw, I might convert if the email prompted me

      1. 1

        Definitely, an email list. I have been procrastinating about it but I will surely add an email list optin with a convincing reason to sign up! Thank you for sharing your genuine response.

    3. 2

      I would check out and consider sharing on different channels where people are learning how to code or some of these topics. Some that I have in mind are:

      1. 1

        I didn't know freecodecamp had forums! Thank you sharing this. I will take a look.

        1. 2

          You're welcome! Good luck!

    4. 2

      Share it on Reddit! Your content is perfect for this: basically, take every section of your site, find the bigger & most relevant subreddit and create a small post about your project.
      This can definitely brings you thousands of visits, Reddit loves this kind of free concetp!

      1. 1

        Another suggestion for Reddit! I have only posted once, when I launched but you are right with the every section idea. Thank you.

  39. 1

    SpreadTheWorld: 400+ places to post your startup.

    What I did so far: posted to Reddit and IH, launch on Twitter. Will launch on PH and HN soon. But what should be the next step?

    1. 1

      TLDR: Be there when people ask the question "where to promote my startup". Offer users 15 more resources for giving you their email.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy-wise I think you did a great job. Also with showing the value of your product. One thing that came up while browsing your site for the 5th time was that you could demonstrate the value of the 29$.

      With 29$ you can't even run a Facebook campaign that gets you a reach of 4.000. And you don't even know if those people are the right people.

      But with your list, you can potentially reach 100k people (maybe you have a rough estimate on the combined audience size) . And you know those are the right people.

      Channels: Quora, Reddit, Facebook and Slack groups are a great place to "spread the wor(l)d" (bad pun, sorry). But don't rush to link to your site.

      Provide value first.

      What I mean by that is to actually answer the question, give them the list of the places that you share on your website. And then at the bottom tell them, if they want to get the full list, they find it on your page.

      Email: The offer on your email could be pimped by offering e.g. 15 more places in exchange for the email. So even if they just come for the "free stuff", you will still get their email address and have a way to build a relationship. e.g. "Last Week: 12 new places to promote your startup".

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

    2. 1

      It would be great for discovery if you could bundle this with other startup tools, requiring you to partner with other companies

      1. 2

        Yep, perhaps partner with an accelerator or VC? If they can offer this resource to their members for free (and they pay you for a license) I can imagine that would be of tremendous help to them.

      2. 1

        Hey Andre,

        Yes partnership/affiliation is really something I'm considering!

    3. 1

      I modeled my thoughts out in a spreadsheet - here's a link. Make a copy to play around with the numbers yourself!

      The TL;DR is that posting to more places in the short-term will improve your short-term user acquisition, and finding a way to improve your conversion rate will improve your long-term user growth. I use "customer convos" as a proxy for improving conversion rate here, where every actionable conversation grows your conversion rate by 1% (because it allows you to update your copy to meet your users' needs, etc). But obviously you can improve conversion rate a lot of ways!

      So, short-term find more places to post it (I feel like you might have a leg up on this ;)) and long-term find as many ways to improve your conversion rate as possible

      1. 1

        Thanks for the Gsheet! I'll definitely try this out!

    4. 1

      You list looks great, as per the demo sheet. You should get consistent and post regularly in twitter, IH, Reddit. Interacting with PH discussion threads and maybe reaching out to small businesses is something you should try?

      1. 2

        Cold emailing SMBs you mean?

        1. 1

          Yes. That and I believe most of the Indiehackers might be interested in it.

          1. 2

            I did not try it yet, i could try to get emails from PH. Thanks for the tip!

  40. 1

    Product: heygamer.co

    Actions: There is a chicken and egg problem. I am trying to build features to attract users atm. I started to make company interviews which i will post when it's ready and working on a company directory where you can. See some cool information about companies.

    Problems: I am not a native English speaker, therefore it takes a lot of time to hold interviews and format them. And i am not happy with the result. Sadly I don't have budget for a professional service.

    1. 2

      This looks really cool! I don't have anything significant, but I have a small copy improvement, given that you said that you're a non-native English speaker: your H1 should either be "Discover The Gaming Jobs That Matter" or "Discover The Gaming Job That Matters"

      A job matters and jobs matter. This is a conjugation pattern - "she runs" vs "they run"

      Anyways, I really like the design of this page! I'm a 34 year old gamer & software engineer, and if I was looking for a job in the industry, this looks like a plausibly good place to get it.

      1. 1

        Thanks for your suggestions. I will update the typo soon :)

    2. 1

      TLDR: You need to get the companies first. Free listings and multi-posting integrations will help you with that.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Sharing my two cents based on my experience of growing a job board for developers.

      Chicken and egg: You need to get the companies. Not sure how you got the ones you have so far but crawling public job boards that allow it is crucial.

      Why?

      Because people will only apply to your site if they find a job they care about.

      Competition: Not sure how it is in the US but in Austria where I live it is fierce. High CPCs, many competitors, exchangeable products.

      So how can you be smart about that?

      Free listings: Approach companies that have open positions and offer them to include their job on your platform. Free of charge. Why? Because you will unlikely deliver them, candidates, at first but you need the job to get people even interested in your board.

      Multi-posting integration: I am pretty sure job board aggregators also exist in the US. They basically post jobs from companies to various boards. If they have a lot of companies and an open API that you can connect to, you instantly have access to tons of jobs.

      PS: If you like my answer and want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 1

        Thanks for your detailed comments. Much appreciated. I am currently working on an introduction flow via cold outreach to bring more companies and job offers.

        Btw if you want to share your job board wisdom we have a Job Board group here in Indie Hackers. Feel free to check :) We are eager to learn.

    3. 1

      Two sided marketplaces are always fun! Chicken and egg indeed. Do you use any developer communities such as Dev.to or Hashnode to find potential users?

      1. 1

        I try to reach gaming related devs and other professionals but gaming is very saturated. It has its own dynamics since majority of game devs are also gamers.

        Currently focused on reddit and trying to find ways of delivering value to the community.

        I am only 1. So outreach + content creation + product development while having a full time job is struggling. If you have any ideas that I can implement easily. Feel free to share :)

  41. 1

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 2

      TLDR: Make visitors aware of the problem you are solving and how real it is for them. Provide contacts with information to get them into the problem aware stage.

      🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

      Copy: Paint the picture of the problem your audience has. You explain it here to the point but I don't find it on your page. e.g.

      H1: "90% of SaaS startups fail because they don't know what to build."
      Subtext: "Don't be one of them"

      You talk about your product and what it does way too early instead of first getting the mental buy-in of a visitor "Yes, that is something I am struggling with."'

      Just like a cybersecurity firm sees the biggest uprise in their sales when a company gets hacked, so do you get people aware of the problem when a company fails.

      Use that to your advantage. e.g. have a list of companies that failed this year/quarter/month and visualize it via an Airtable. Or better yet, if there are Tweets/Articles - use the articles as small cards on the page so people feel how real this is.

      Channels:

      You will have to do a lot of fear-based convincing because many companies do not want to admit to themselves that they face this problem "We know what our customers want."

      • Where to find them: Crunchbase, Angellist, VCs, Accelerators, Incubators
      • What to send them: Content - give before you ask. If you have 2,3 pieces of content (e.g. the ones you shared here on indie hackers) as a blog post on your website and you share them via Cold Outreach to a relevant audience, guess what happens?

      They will appreciate that you genuinely helping them based on your hook (e.g. saw you are an early-stage startup, our mission is to reduce the giant percentage of the 90% that fail every year, here are 2 articles we wrote about it that can help you avoid that, have a nice day).

      If you get them to your page and have some solid copywriting that gets them to the last full stop, you can then promote your product saying that all of these tedious tasks are simplified with your product.

      PS: If you want to stay up to date with marketing tips, check out my LinkedIn where I post 250 days a year.

      1. 2

        This is fantastic - thanks so much for the detailed reply. Already made some updates to the copy, and will take everything you've suggested onboard.

    2. 1

      I'm missing social proof here, definitely. It's a product that promises to generate a certain buzz – so does it work? Interviews and case studies could really work with getting more success on those platforms and communities you already target (+ Reddit, Facebook, HN)

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