Alta Bits
Short essays on building tech products and companies.
I find tons of great insights in various software and tech podcasts. Over time I collected lots of quotes and notes from episodes I listened to, and I finally decided to revisit and compile them into short essays.
This milestone is a direct aftermath of my my first Reddit post milestone posted over two months ago.
I shared this essay on Reddit, and it received a warm welcome and netted over 250 upvotes.
Two days later, a Reddit user sent me a DM whether I'd be interested in a guest appearance in his podcast. For an avid podcast listener like me, loud "yes!" was a no-brainer.
The episode aired last week, where I had a pleasure to discuss my company, inspirations, routines, and bits of advice.
Besides undoubtful fun and satisfaction, It also gave me an outlet to spread the word about my company.
I like to call it an "aptitude for serendipity" as Max Stoiber named it in his evergreen notes.
Let this be a reminder that you should always put yourself out there.
Show what you got.
Share your work, thoughts, content, anything you create.
Even if you think it's not good enough yet, that's ok. Someone will find value in it.
It is all in the very spirit of Learn in Public, and Build in Public.
In my case, all the best deals I closed started with
- replying to a tweet
- writing a cold email
- publishing a blog post
Put yourself out there. The downside is minimal. The upside is unlimited.
Yesterday I published the 6th issue of Alta Bits.
It gained about 23 new subs, which helped me exceed my milestone of 200 subs (201 now)!
I distributed the issue first on Reddit, then sent the newsletter, and finally, I posted it on Twitter.
Here is a breakdown of the steps I took:
I created two posts on Reddit around noon CET (3 am PST). The one posted in r/entrepreneur never made it to the top of the subreddit. In contrast, the one submitted to r/EntrepreneurRideAlong has been eagerly upvoted and become a top post of the day.
Three hours later, I sent the newsletter via Substack and score pretty decent open and click rates. Here is a screenshot of stats 18 hours later
Around 5 pm CET, I posted the essay on Twitter (decided to go for a single tweet instead of a thread this time) and tagged people mentioned in the issue - Andrew Wilkinson, Sam Parr, and Shaan Puri.
Luckily, Sam retweeted it right away, which brought decent traffic to my substack blog. Here is a bunch of stats to date:
So here we are, 201 subs! I hope my short strategy case study will help some you spread the word about your projects!
You can check the essay here:
https://altabits.substack.com/p/you-want-a-business-to-be-like-new
Following up on my previous milestone about Reddit validation, I published a new issue of Alta Bits yesterday.
The real milestone here is open rate within the first 12h - 42%, which is my new record (it used to be around 38%).
You can read it here:
https://altabits.substack.com/p/vision-and-mission-statements
TL;DR
Having mission and vision statemets from day one is great, but you shouldn't try too hard to figure them out. These things are almost never final.
Resharing content on Reddit is a common technique to gain extra traction and subscribers.
Yesterday I did the opposite - I wrote an "MVP" of my essay and posted it to Reddit first to see if it gains some interest.
My decision was to try a slightly provoking title
"Don't bother too much with mission and vision statements early on."
I was lucky enough to make it to the top of r/entrepreneur subreddit with 170 points and 50 comments.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/fftj1s/dont_bother_too_much_with_mission_and_vision/
It didn't result in direct conversion metrics, such as subscribers or visits.
Not only did I validate the topic, but I also received lots of feedback and different opinions, which makes for great research for the upcoming article on
https://altabits.substack.com
I have never been a Reddit user before and wanted to give it a shot as many fellow bloggers/newsletter geeks suggest it as a great channel for visitors' acquisition. On the flip side, I was just curious about the result, will they roast me or the welcome will be slightly warmer?
I worked hard to get my 10 comments karma in r/entrepreneur subreddit and be allowed to submit my first post. My goal was to post my content in a way users find it worthwhile and helpful.
Having in mind that direct promotion is not an option- here is what I did:
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Took this article https://altabits.substack.com/p/2-pick-the-right-market and copy-pasted its content with minor tweaks (deleted mentions of my previous articles)
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Came up with a new title as "Pick the right market" sounds too vague. I went for "A piece of advice that helped me stop worrying that my business idea already exists."
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Added the following closing section for authenticity "This piece of advice changed my approach to new business ideas completely. I used to be like "Ohh, something similar already exists" and ditched the idea right away. Now, I don't get discouraged so quickly - I think of the market size and what I could do better than competitors to claim at least a chunk of the right market."
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Held my breath and clicked submit
Luckily, the first comment submitted under my post (and eventually most upvoted one) referred to the concept I described in my other essay, so I shared a link in my reply. I thought this is not going to be seen as direct promotion, and I was right. No one complained and got a few upvotes on that comment.
It was Friday around 2 PM CET. Until 6 PM the post received around 20 upvotes, then from 7PM - 11PM likes started flowing in (over 200). Finished with 268 points.
It resulted in circa 350 new views and 14 new subscribers to Alta Bits!
Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/f09b6s/a_piece_of_advice_that_helped_me_stop_worrying/
I woke up to receive an email notification that the 100th subscriber has joined my Alta Bits mailing list.
That's an excellent supercharger, especially given it's Thursday, and the new issue will be released today!
A few facts:
- The previous issue was sent two weeks ago to 68 subscribers, and up to date has scored a 51% open rate.
- I haven't been doing any advertising since then, just the post on LinkedIn, thread on Twitter, and a milestone on Indiehackers.
- No Reddit, HN, or crossposting on a different medium.
Let's see how it goes today in a couple of hours, I will keep you posted once I get some fresh stats after sending Issue #3!
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Update: The new issue has just arrived!
https://altabits.substack.com/p/3-you-can-launch-with-less-than-you
Yesterday I sent my first newsletter to 68 email recipients.
Here is a bunch of stats after 18 hours:
- Open rate: 46%
- Unsubscribed: 1
I imported almost 80% of the email list from my other Mailchimp account. If only 20% opted in for Alta Bits, I think only one unsub given the open rate is surprising, I expected at least around 5-10 people unsubscribing :)
What do you think of these stats?
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Update after 24 hours:
- Open rate: 47%
- Unsubscribed: 2
- Click rate: 3%
Today I published my second essay, "Pick the right market".
Apparently, my subscribers found it useful as showed some love upvoting the issue. Thus, I got featured on the 5th place in the top posts section on the Substack landing page! 馃帀
Screenshot
https://i.imgur.com/R0RroMt.png
The issue is available here
https://altabits.substack.com/p/2-pick-the-right-market
Got 20th subscriber to https://altabits.substack.com !
I know it's nothing fancy about 20 subscribers, but this was actually my threshold to start working on another essay! Also, this is my first serious newsletter, so it tastes sweet 鉁岋笍
The feedback is quite good so far, but I have also received a few ideas on how to tweak the content angle to make it more actionable 馃敤
So far, I shared the newsletter with a few friends and people I met online. I have also submitted it to Hacker News and got one subscriber right away. Other than that, no promotion at all.
The feedback is enthusiastic, and I can't wait to publish another article on market size considerations. Before I will do so, I set my goal to have 20 subscribers on the list before I do so. Just three more and I'm good to go 鉁岋笍