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Last week I launched my side project...What happened?

Hello 👋

On the 24th of July, I launched my first side project. It is completely free so I did not spend any money on ads. I guess it was a nice experiment to see what results I can get by simply posting online about it.

Before Launch

Before launch (while developing it) I created a simple landing page where people can sign up for my mailing list to get notified when I launch. My app is made to help developers save time. So I decided to DM some developers on Twitter. That was actually a great idea because I got to speak with some people about my project before it was even working. The key is to not spam people and be very respectful when you message them. Like us, they are busy people so just start a conversation and if they are interested ask for their feedback. I found out that people were willing to give feedback and help.

The numeric results I got from that is that around 50-60% of people answer when you DM them in a friendly manner and start a conversation. Almost all of them took out of their time to give feedback and around 20% were interested enough to join my mailing list.

I managed to get 15 people on the mailing list. I know it is a small number but I am actually satisfied with that. If I tried harder that number would be bigger 😀

After Launch

For the launch, I decided to post on Reddit, ProductHunt, Indiehackers, HN, and of course the email list subscribers.

For 1 week I got 114 unique users and 78 used the app (which brings great satisfaction even if the numbers are relatively small).

  • Something interesting is that I got 36 upvotes on ProductHunt but registered only 17 people (of course they can be using extensions to block the analytics).
  • I don't know exactly how much from IH but I would guess around 20 people from that post.
  • My tweet about it got 150 impressions and only 1 engagement.
  • HackerNews - I don't think anyone even clicked on my post here.
  • Email List - 3 clicks and a few unsubscriptions 😀
  • Reddit - I got around 10 people from here.

I found out that getting organic traffic is extremely difficult. I think I got only 2 clicks from google search (1 of them is me).

One could say that this is an absolute and utter failure, but I would argue that it is an absolute win (what a reference lol). The people I got to meet and the things I got to learn are invaluable and would definitely help me in the future 👍

Something that helped me is keeping low expectations. I was ready to not get any traffic even after launch. I also knew that even if I get traffic it will most likely die out after a few days. This helped me not to feel demotivated no matter the outcome.

Final Thoughts

Finally, I want to thank @csallen, @8bit, @rosiesherry, @tabansi, @BraydenTW, and everyone else in the IndieHackers community that helped me and pushed me to finally get out of my shell and start DOING instead of passively watching. The experience I got from this journey until now and the journey to come is really invaluable.

That got a little bit longer and cheesier than I expected but if you want you can check out iconsizer here 👉iconsizer.com.

I've set up donations using BMC and Brave tips if you want to support me 😉👍

  1. 2

    Wow how did I miss this?! I have bee AWOL recently, really happy for you man! What are next steps for you?

    1. 1

      Thanks for helping me with it 👍
      I am currently in university, so I guess finding a job and continue building cool (and hopefully some of them proffitable) projects 😁

  2. 1

    Hey @Bojidarist,

    Thanks for the great post. I'm glad to follow your journey, and I'll try the product the next time I add icons to my website.

    Bojidar, are you still working on promoting Iconsizer and attracting more users? I haven't seen you post any more about it.

    1. 1

      Thanks!

      My laptop broke. That is why I am not posting recently. Also I will not abandon Iconsizer but I will move on to doing some new stuff in the meantime.

      1. 1

        Cool. Good luck. Looking forward to seeing what's next.

  3. 1

    Thanks for sharing this!

    I'm about to launch BassDrum soon, and this provided some really good insight into what I can expect :)

    1. 1

      How did your launch go?

      1. 1

        Hi @Bojidarist!

        Thanks for asking 🙂 I kinda skimped on the launch prep because I was too eager to get it out. I think I spent something like 15 minutes on the website copy 😅

        But quick stats of launch day (launched just before midnight yesterday):

        • 168 users on the website
        • 74 room events (create or join) for the chrome extension
        • 11 upvotes on ProductHunt
        • No issues reported

        I think a majority — if not all — of these were friends. Considering I didn't push anyone to upvote / install, it made me very happy to see that some friends even created profiles on PH just to upvote BassDrum. They also shared it with their other friends on their own. They made an otherwise underwhelming launch a happy memory!

        I want to add chat features, and possibly another platform like Netflix, and re-launch as BassDrum v2. I'm also going to write a blog post like yours here, recording my lessons.

        1. 2

          Nice job! It's all about the journey 😀 Good luck ;)

  4. 1

    Congrats on the launch!!

    Let's feature it on my newsletter is for developers and digital designers.

    Is free to do so and the newsletter too, you will get a lot of visibility (1200 subscribers). Next Tuesday

    Is it ok?

    .

    1. 1

      I see some traffic coming from your newsletter. Thanks a lot :)

      1. 1

        Superb.

        Iconsizer is third most clicked !

    2. 1

      Sure! I hope it will be useful to someone :)

  5. 1

    You’re welcome!

    Wish you well on your journey :)

  6. 1

    :)

    this is why we're here! glad you've executed! this is just the start! we're here for you!

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