I stopped trying to promote my app. Now every deal can promote it.

This reframe is exactly right and I'm applying the same logic to AliasFleet right now.

The product creates a natural share moment — when someone disables an alias because a company sold their data, that's a story worth telling. "I just found out which service leaked my email" is inherently shareable. I haven't built the share mechanic around that moment yet but this post is making me think I should prioritize it.

The hardest part for a solo founder is resisting the urge to promote the product and instead asking what behavior the product is already creating that could spread naturally.

nice post

I love the idea of building promotional opportunities into customers' interactions with a product! For my live performance request tracking system, I recently added an after-show email that lists all of the requests a band received in the show, includes relevant stats (18 requests! average time to play requests: 13 minutes, etc.), and a social-media-ready graphic that includes the band name, the top 5 requests from the night, and the URL for my system in small print in the corner. Hoping the win-win of giving bands more easy, pre-made content and my system more exposure will help us both over time.

Also planning a Spotify-style end-of-year wrap: "You had 529 requests this year! Brown Eyed Girl was your most popular request! You added 17 new songs to your repertoire!" etc, with a sharable link.

Eager and interested to hear what other steps others have taken along these lines.

This reframing is underrated. I've been figuring out where to share my own app and kept running into the same issue — a lot of the obvious 'promotion' venues are just competitors' feeds, saturated with the exact same pitch, so unless the audience is already looking for something like it you're mostly adding noise. Turning the deal into a shareable unit that rides existing conversations instead of competing for attention in a brand new one is a much cleaner distribution loop than paying to get in front of a colder audience. Curious whether the share-link version is converting better than the original placements, or if it's too early to tell.

That's a great way to think about it. It's easy to get excited when people share your product, but the real question is whether those shares create more active users who then go on to share it themselves. Measuring that loop early can save a lot of time and help you focus on what actually drives sustainable growth instead of chasing vanity metrics.

This is a great example of building distribution into the product itself.

I think many founders make the mistake of trying to push the product into existing communities instead of asking: “what natural behavior already exists that can spread the product?”

Your approach works because sharing a useful deal provides value first. The user is not promoting DiscountHub — they are simply helping someone find a better price.

A lot of successful products grow this way: the product creates something valuable that naturally travels between users.

Curious to see how the share links perform over time. The biggest insight will probably come from measuring how many new users each shared deal brings.

The number that will tell you whether you built a loop or a feature: shares per active user multiplied by the rate at which share recipients become sharers themselves. If that product is low you have a nice referral mechanic, which is still worth having, but it changes where you spend your next 90 days. Instrument the share links from day one so the data answers it instead of your gut.

Actually sounds useful. It's a nice workaround for referrals and creating network effects. I'd check it out

The reframe from "how do I promote my app" to "how does every piece of content inside my app promote itself" is one of those shifts that sounds obvious after you hear it but almost nobody starts there.

You're essentially turning your users' natural behavior (sharing a good deal) into your distribution engine. That's way more durable than any promotion campaign because it compounds — every share is a new entry point that didn't require you to do anything.

I'm thinking about this exact problem with Ridgewell, an options coaching tool I just launched. Right now I'm the one doing all the distribution — posting on X, writing here. But the natural shareable moment in my product is a scanner result. When Ridgewell tells you a setup qualifies or tells you to sit out, that's actually a screenshot worth sharing.

Haven't built that yet but your post just made it feel more urgent. A share button on every analysis result with a clean preview card could do more than any ad I run.

Good timing on this one. Following to see how the growth loop develops.

"Love this insight — 'distribution through content, not platform promotion.' I'm building a tool for freelancers and realized the same thing: people don't share tools, they share results. Your shareable deal links are basically 'results as distribution.' Smart move!"

DiscountHub looks really useful — I'm tired of fake discounts and promo codes that don't work. Smart move turning the web version into a full product while waiting for Google Play approval. That's a great pivot.

Just checked out discounthub.uz — clean design and the deals actually feel current. Will you be adding more filters (by country, category, etc.) or partner offers for indie makers?

Wishing you smooth sailing with the Android launch and continued growth!

Good idea... the biggest problem for any business is customers; without them, no one survives. A tool that solves this problem simply and without wasting much time will be a HUGE SUCCESS!

Yes, and it's basically why I stopped trying to get people to visit my product's homepage directly. I'm building a free media kit generator for creators, and early on I kept pushing "come try my tool" everywhere. What actually got shared was when I put out standalone pieces of value instead, like a breakdown of what brands actually check for in a media kit, or typical sponsorship rate ranges by follower count. People passed those around because the content itself was useful on its own, not because they cared about my tool. The tool just rode along with it.

Your share-link idea is the same principle turned into a product feature: the deal is the actual unit of value, the platform is just the container it travels in. Feels like the right instinct, especially since, as you said, discounts are already something people forward to friends. You're removing friction from an existing habit instead of creating a new one.

This is great

I think you're onto something. People rarely share a platform, but they do share something that's immediately useful. A good deal gives them a reason to send the link without feeling like they're promoting anything.

I've seen a similar pattern with AI products. Founders often spend a lot of energy trying to get attention for the product itself, when a useful page, comparison, or piece of content ends up bringing in far more people over time.

Curious to see how much traffic those shared deal links generate after they've been out in the wild for a few weeks.

Yes, and the shift you're describing is the same one I made this week, from a different angle.

I built a tool that scores landing pages, and my instinct was to promote the tool. Nobody cared. What actually moved was writing about the specific mistakes I kept seeing on other people's pages. The insight travels, the product tags along.

That's essentially what you've built with share links: the deal is the insight, and it carries the platform with it.

One thing I'd push you on though — the loop only closes if the person who receives the shared deal has a reason to stay. Right now your flow ends at "they continue to the merchant." That's a great outcome for the deal, but a dead end for DiscountHub. The recipient got what they came for and left.

Worth thinking about what they see on that deal page besides the offer. A related deal? A "3 more like this in [category]"? Something that turns a one-shot visit into a reason to come back. Otherwise you've built a very good referral mechanism for the merchant, not for you.

The unfair advantage in your idea is that discounts are already shared — you're removing friction from behavior that exists. That's much better odds than creating a new habit.

nice idea.