What marketing channels do you use as a solo founder?
Some channels can be a pain in the a* to use as a solo founder (adWords, etc.) and usually you need a team of people to do it.
What marketing channel do you use/have worked for you as a solo founder?
Love these solo-founder posts. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of input as I'm trying to figure this out as well.
However, my first B2B SaaS platform saw most of its growth through SEO - particularly because I was able to publish an article on a very well-known blog in the industry. The blog had much better SEO than our website and drove tons of traffic our way.
I also saw initial growth with Facebook ads and personal demos. We only ran those ads for a few months, but the demos continued to be a huge benefit in converting customers.
Me too, I just love solo founder discussions.
A lot of advice out there is geared towards teams, be they bootstrapped or funded.
Solo founders should really compare notes more often with one another.
Good question.
Solo founders have very little resources compared to teams, so they have to be very smart about conserving their time and energy.
I find that solo founders almost always need to have some sort of baked-in virality in their product in order to market their product sustainably, preferably something where you get more traffic the more your users use your product. Think Gumroad, YouTube, Jotform, etc. etc.
When Gumroad sellers promote their landing pages, they're not just promoting their product -- they're also promoting Gumroad itself.
When YouTube makers promote their videos, they're not just promoting their videos -- they're also promoting YouTube itself.
Ditto with Jotform, Twitter, Linktree, and countless more.
I'm also working hard to bring this to Zlappo, because I find that the lack of a personalized front-facing asset that my users want to share is basically leaving a lot of free traffic on the table.
My product is a tweet scheduler, and while there's some baked-in virality (tweets posted from Zlappo have "Zlappo.com" as their tweet source label), it isn't enough.
I'm already working on "engineering as marketing" ideas that I'll unveil to my users very soon, things that benefit them more the more they share it (at the same time, it also benefits me -- it's a win-win situation).
In my opinion, that's what's needed to succeed in marketing as a solo founder. You need to somehow leverage your existing users to bring you more traffic, be it through some form of baked-in virality or a well-incentivized referral program. You need to focus on the product and hopefully, once you've set up these systems for your marketing, you can adopt a more hands-off approach that still gets you a constant stream of organic leads while still performing some active marketing from time to time.
I have done a few "engineering as marketing" free tools that were not simple nor cheap and really gave value to the free users. However, you must market the free tool, and this is where the hidden expense is. Once that free tool gets shared, the virality starts. But it will not liftoff without spending marketing dollars to bring awareness to a crowd.
Yes, absolutely.
But I feel it's a lot easier to market a free tool than to market a paid tool.
If your free tool succeeds, it lifts up your paid products as well.
Basically how all content/social sites monetize.
I never found it easier or cheaper to market a free tool, especially in the early stages of exposure. Don't be fooled that it is organic, it is not!
I never found it easier or cheaper to market a free tool, especially in the early stages of exposure. Don't be fooled that it is organic, it is not!
I guess the best approach would be to look at where your prospects hang out. For instance, founder and hacker types hang around here, on HN and Twitter.
Soccer moms and pet photographers would probably be easier to reach on FB, and accountants and sales trainers would be on LinkedIn.