What I learned from my first viral post

Well, that escalated quickly…

I had my first viral post (nearing 1M views and tripling my followers in 48 hours), about living, traveling, and working abroad as digital nomads (or ”slomads”) with my wife and two boys.

It reinforced several good lessons:

1. You never know what people will respond to. And it’s debatable if laboring over something increases its chances of success. I wrote that post in 10 minutes. I’ve spent much more time on posts that nobody cared about. I also spent years on a SaaS that went nowhere and later achieved major success with one I spent 4 weeks on before launching it.

2. Sometimes we overlook what makes us unique. I’m part of a huge crowd of people who are bootstrapping businesses. I’m part of a smaller crowd that’s had a life-changing success bootstrapping a SaaS. And I’m part of an even smaller crowd that has done that and is nomading with a family. Nomading hasn’t been something I talk about much online, but it clearly strikes a chord and is my unique differentiator. This is what we strive for in products and brands. Sometimes it’s right in front of our face and we just look past it.

3. And building on the above, it makes total sense that nomading resonates with the bootstrapper community. After all, many people are striving to make a living with their own products so that they have the freedom to live how and where they want. For many of us, nomading represents the ideal version of that lifestyle. In marketing messaging, we’re often told to sell the outcome, not the product, and that’s exactly what my viral post did.

4. Sometimes our biggest breaks come from unplanned events. The key is to remain aware of what our environment is telling us. In this case, I’m being told that my audience is interested in living with a sense of freedom, and on their own terms. And being a creator is the path they’re choosing to get there. Similarly, in my last business, I had people starting to ask me if they could resell my product. Initially, I turned it down, then eventually I realized that was potentially a perfect path to reach scale without hiring. Keeping that open awareness changed the course of my business in a big way.

Sometimes we overcomplicate things or try so hard that we miss what’s obvious.

Experiment. Remain open to surprises. Look at what’s right in front of you.

Here's the post I'm referring to.

I also share what I've learned on this journey from $0-$58k MRR and an exit, in The SaaS Bootstrapper, subscribe if you're into that kinda thing.