What's New: Is your community-based marketing effective?

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Are you approaching community-based marketing in the most effective way?

• Here's how to make connections in niche communities, identify users who would be a good fit for your product or service, and make them aware of your company in a way that adds value.
• Zapier acquired Makerpad just over a year ago. Below, Ben Tossell shares 12 thoughts on selling a company!
• After 3 failed projects, founder Daniel Gibbons paused his indie hacking journey to focus on learning new skills and building a safety net before trying again. Below, he shares how slowing down and learning a new language has brought him closer to his goals.

Want to share something with over 90,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

📝 Your Guide to Community-Based Marketing

from the Founder Flubs newsletter by Kevin Conti

This is a free version of the Software Ideas Marketing Guide on community outreach. Community outreach, or community-based marketing, is a manual marketing approach that consists of three main parts:

1. Making connections on social media sites or niche-based communities,
2. Identifying users who would be a good fit for your product or service, and
3. Making them aware of your company in a way that adds value.

While this process sounds self-apparent, it's common for inexperienced marketers to approach this channel in an entirely wrong way. Let's dive in!

The basics

Community outreach is an excellent channel to explore early during both the idea validation process, and the early stages of a startup where you are still looking to acquire customers manually.

It works well as an early-stage marketing channel for several reasons:

1. Communities are filled with early adopters who are willing to try a product that's rough around the edges in exchange for access to cutting-edge innovations in their niche.
2. Communities are where people in a niche get together, discuss, and share tools and best practices. It's a self-selected group that includes your ideal customers, making it the perfect place to be active when looking for customers.

However, community outreach is a linear channel, which means that it only scales based on the amount of time you can spend on it. Compared to an exponential growth channel like SEO, or a viral growth channel like referral programs, it doesn't have the same potential to reach thousands per day without enormous effort.

That said, there are ways to semi-automate this channel!

How to find communities to engage with

The first step to leveraging community outreach is to figure out which communities exist within your niche. Here are a few of the first places you should check out:

1. Reddit: Reddit is a collection of sub-communities called subreddits, covering practically every niche under the sun.

Let's look at some examples:

To find a Reddit community, you can simply Google the below:

site:reddit.com <your niche>

This will typically lead you to random posts on Reddit. Check the subreddit name to see if it seems like the right match.

Notice how this also introduced us to a few other subreddits that may be relevant to our fountain pen company: /r/Pen_Swap and /r/pens, both of which are great finds!

To discover additional subreddits, the easiest method is to use this free tool. Simply enter a subreddit name to get a list of others frequented by those users.

With this approach, you can quickly find all of the active subreddits for a given topic. And while Reddit is a great place to start, you'll also want to find a few non-anonymous communities as well.

2. Facebook: Facebook remains one of the most popular places to start communities, thanks to Facebook Groups. There are many groups to search through, and unlike Reddit, there are often multiple groups that focus on the exact same topic.

You won't need an external tool to find communities like we did with Reddit. Instead, just use the Facebook search bar to find communities related to your niche!

3. Independent communities: Next, you'll want to look for any online forums or communities for your niche.

These communities often consist of the biggest enthusiasts of a given niche. These aren't people who want to passively see some stuff related to their niche while they scroll Facebook or Reddit. They're the people who love the topic enough to consistently go to a separate community exclusively dedicated to the topic!

There's no magic formula for finding these communities. Instead, you'll discover them naturally, as people link to them in the Facebook and Reddit groups that you've already identified. That, plus whatever a generic Google search returns for <niche> forum and <niche> community.

4. Other: While Reddit, Facebook, and independent communities are typically enough to get started with community outreach, there are plenty of other places to look for communities as well.

Slack groups and Discord channels are becoming increasingly popular ways to start an independent community that we haven't covered here.

To start, you should only engage with one or two communities and add more over time, if you'd like.

How to do community outreach

The next step is to identify users who would be a good fit, and make them aware of your company or product in a value-adding way.

So, how do you identify good fit users? By the questions they ask and the comments they make!

Going back to this example, we can see here that the user who wrote the post is looking for a note-taking app. If we were in the note-taking software market, this would be a fantastic opportunity to share our product with this user, and everyone who clicks on this link!

However, you usually won't find posts where your company fits perfectly. In those instances, you'll want to look for posts where you can squeeze in a mention to your product while still providing value to the original poster.

Here, you can see that the product being mentioned, a React template, isn't exactly what the user was asking for. However, Ixartz did a good job of providing a valuable answer (it's the most upvoted comment on this particular post), and included a mention to their product because it's relevant: They like Stripe enough that they use it for that product!

Even if an original poster wasn't looking for your product, you can still create value by writing the most valuable reply in the post. Then, link your product in a way that makes sense.

Remember that caring is the most critical and overlooked aspect of community outreach. Not caring about the people that make up the community is 99% of the reason why people fail in their outreach.

Always double-check your post before submitting it, and ask yourself: Is this comment truly helpful to the person I'm writing to? How would I feel if I received this comment in their shoes?

If you genuinely care about helping those you respond to, all of the technical tips and tricks we've talked about will fall in line automatically!

Do you engage in community-based marketing? Why or why not?

Discuss this story, or subscribe to the Founder Flubs newsletter for more.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

🪙 Stripe is getting friendly with crypto again.

📱 Instagram has launched an educational portal for aspiring creators.

📕 Book lovers on TikTok are changing the publishing industry.

🏙 One in five people are considering OnlyFans to afford to live in NYC.

💰 Rihanna's Savage X Fenty has weighed its IPO at a $3B valuation.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

💭 Ben Tossell's Thoughts on Selling a Company

by Ben Tossell

Zapier acquired Makerpad just over a year ago. Below, I'm sharing 12 thoughts on selling a company!

1. The outcome

It's impossible to not think about it, so just get it out of the way. Make a shortlist of your big wants, but don't keep staring at it!

Mine were:

• Dream car.
• Wedding abroad with friends and family.
• Buy a house together.
• Full body health assessment.

2. The number

Don’t say your number first.

Plot out some scenarios and valuations. Consult with advisors on this if you can.

Understand that their offer may be outside of your range. Practice not visibly reacting when a number is dropped. Seriously, practice your response ahead of time!

3. Significance

This is likely the most important thing to happen in your working life. It’s not the same level for the acquiring company.

Just know that, and set your expectations accordingly.

4. Time

You’re in a rush. We all are.

The acquiring company isn't in the same rush as you are, so lean into external factors that provide a deadline.

For me, the potential UK Capital Gains Increase on March 3, 2021 gave us a deadline.

5. Valuation ranges wildly

Here are a few easy frameworks to use to determine valuation:

• 3x-5x your revenue for a SaaS company.
• The worth of existing and new customers to the acquiring company.
• See what public tech valuations are for similar companies.
• Look at funding announcements for similar companies.

6. Types of acquisition

Team + tech = Acqui-hire. Valuations are lower.

Team + tech + traction = Sweet spot. Higher valuations.

7. Your deal is not different

After researching other acquisitions, I naively thought that ours would be much simpler.

However, the truth is that most deals have the same experiences. Be prepared.

8. Emotions

It will be stressful. I don’t deal with stress very well.

Get the bad stuff out with someone who isn't connected to your personal or business life, like a therapist.

9. Don’t stop working

Acquisitions are all-consuming. They take every bit of energy from your brain. Let work distract you. You need to keep the business growing.

You don’t want a revised offer, or for the deal to fall through last minute.

10. Get a good lawyer

They are expensive, but worth it.

You won’t even begin to imagine all of the things that you will need them for. They have done this countless times; you haven't.

11. Curveballs happen

Deals fall through, and an offer can change. Remember why you're doing this. If the number changes, does it still meet the goals that you had before you started the process?

Try to prepare for some curveball scenarios.

12. Your company is your baby

You may love your company, but this is a business deal. Make sure that your baby is happy, but leave your ego out of it!

I hired my best friend who advises companies through acquisitions, and he explained everything like I was five years old. He mediated the whole deal.

If you want to read more about my deal, check it out in TechCrunch!

Did you experience any curveballs in your acquisition? Share below!

Discuss this story.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week

👂 Share your value proposition in one sentence. Posted by Brandon Strellis.

🧐 How do you stay motivated as a founder? Posted by James Marks.

👋 How I escaped my day job. Posted by Michael Forrest.

💻 Does programming language matter? Posted by Dan Pastori.

✍ Your best note-taking tool. Posted by Darko.

💳 Which payment processor do you use? Posted by Mark.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

⏸ Why Daniel Gibbons Paused His Indie Hacking Journey

by Daniel Gibbons

Hi indie hackers! I'm Daniel Gibbons, and I love indie hacking, but I have paused my journey to focus on other things in my life.

You see a lot of amazing success stories about indie hacking, along with a few scary failure stories. I'm hoping that my "average guy" story helps round out the picture a little, and helps other founders overcome survivorship bias. Rather than feeling like I've somehow given up on the dream, this decision has been a painless and positive one. Here's why!

The projects

First, a lightening quick rundown of my projects, none of which got more than ten users (hi Mom!).

1. Zenkettle: A Zettelkasten style note-taking app. I decided to make a note-taking app (how cliché). It was based on the now popular Zettelkasten style of note-taking, where you can form a rich network of ideas and connected concepts.

I told myself that it was to learn new programming techniques, but in the back of my head, I dreamed about making it big and having tons of paying users. I did zero customer validation, zero market analysis, and never even released the app.

However, I did learn that I can create something cool on my own, and that I don't hate the process.

2. BjjGymFinder: Find Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) gyms in your country. When going on holiday, I found it difficult to locate BJJ gyms. Their websites are often missing pricing, outdated, and not written in English. My aggregator site kept all the basic data (timetable, cost, contact details) in one easy place, and was easy to search by city and country.

This time, I wanted to actually ship something. I still had no business model, but at least I was scratching my own itch and keeping the scope small. I started by adding all of the gyms in London and Poznań (I was going to Poland at the time).

It barely got traffic. It hit about 20 organic views and 100 impressions. This was likely because it was built bang in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdowns, and flights were banned to almost every country. I decided to pull the plug and try something else.

3. Sell by Weight: A zero waste store plugin. Getting slightly smarter, I picked a market and a niche! Zero waste stores, driven online at the start of COVID-19, had pretty bad websites. I decided to build a plugin that could solve a real pain point for them.

It took me five hours to build out an MVP, which translated to two weeks of real time on my busy schedule. Then, I contacted store owners to pitch the idea and ask for feedback. I got tons of feedback, but nobody was interested in paying for it.

Turns out, most zero waste stores actually liked having 50 gram increments, since it lets them prepackage batches of ingredients for delivery without weighing them on request!

Another valuable lesson about validation, another discontinued project.

Deciding to pause

In my own mind, none of these unsuccessful products were big failures in the grand scheme of things. During each one, I learned something new, and got a little closer to creating a solo project that generated income.

So why did I decide to stop? Two reasons:

1. A new life project: When I first started indie hacking, I also started learning Polish. My wife and her family are Polish, and I wanted to be able to communicate with them in their native language.

The method that I found, comprehensible input, requires you to consume a lot of content in the language (three hours a day minimum), and let your brain's language learning mechanisms do the bulk of the work. I decided to keep at it until reaching fluency.

2. I found ways to get what I wanted from indie hacking out of my day job. I wanted to become an indie hacker to:

• Earn more money.
• Become location independent.
• Become financially independent (work less).

In order to fulfill those goals while learning Polish, I was lucky enough to find a remote job with a higher salary. I also learned about the financial independence movement, and started saving more aggressively. When I do start working on solo projects again, I'll do it knowing that a big chunk of money required for my ideal lifestyle has already been saved.

As the first employee in a bootstrapped SaaS business, I have had the privilege of helping us grow from zero customers to hitting over $3K MRR in the last eight months. Needless to say, I'm also taking notes about what works and what does not.

Where I am now

I feel that I'm still on the same journey, but I've slowed down due to shifting priorities. I could buckle down and grind, but I have decided that's not for me. I like my life now, and I want to use my time to take advantage of different opportunities that contribute towards my overall happiness.

I have time for my hobbies, I'm valued at work, and I'm growing my income. I'm also building skills and a safety net that'll make my journey easier when I choose to go back to full-time indie hacking. I'm also over 2K hours into learning Polish, and I'd not trade the conversations that I've had with my new grandparents for the world!

This is not a success story or a failure story. In terms of survivorship, I'm one of those planes that did not make it back. I've not been shot down, though. I just disappeared into the sunset.

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Kevin Conti, Priyanka Vazirani, Ben Tossell, and Daniel Gibbons for contributing posts. —Channing