8 months later and 3 paying users

Premise: All 3 paying users signed up within the last 2 weeks.

I started MinChat (an SDK and API to build chat messaging functionality in minutes) a couple of months back without talking to any users or trying to validate the market, I was deep in just writing code month in month out and adding features on months on end without doing any marketing.

Eventually, I lost steam on the project because although people were signing up no one was upgrading to paying users.... until recently!

What Did I Do Differently?

1. I started talking to users

Coming from a purely technical background, interacting with users has always been an extreme challenge. After months of building the MinChat product without talking to users and finding out what users exactly needed, I hit a brick wall of frustration as to why no one was subscribing to Minchat.

I then decided 2 months ago to start reaching out to as many people as I could and collecting feedback as to what features they would need from a chat SDK. I had a collection of tonnes of feedback, all of which I would not have gotten if I did not start talking to users. And so I started implementing features that people actually wanted and not features that I assumed they needed.

2. I invested in SEO early on

I took a shot at SEO efforts at the beginning of MinChat by Optimizing on-page SEO, setting up a blog and writing keyword-targeting articles on it, building backlinks by submitting to startup directories, and many other tiny SEO efforts.

Saw zero results for months, until recently when the SEO efforts have started paying off and I get slow consistent traffic from Google search which is currently my largest source of traffic.

3. I open-sourced the MinChat React UI package

I open-sourced the MinChat React UI package to create a lead magnet by offering something for free to the general public that would eventually be a lead funnel to attract users to possibly visit the MinChat landing page and possibly convert.

Traffic from the open-source react UI package is currently the second largest source of traffic.

What Didn't Work?

I understand that every SaaS is different and what works for one SaaS might not work for another. Due to how niche MinChat is what has worked most has been inbound marketing strategies, strategies that require visitors to have strong intent such as SEO and creating lead magnets.

The following is a quick list of a few marketing strategies that I have tried and did not lead to any honorable conversions:

• Email Cold Outreach
• Twitter & Linkedin Cold Outreach
• Facebook & Linkedin Ads
• Writing Twitter threads
• Product Hunt (2 bummed launches)

Next Steps: Doubling Down on What Works

I want to focus on what has proven to already work which is SEO, creating free tools as lead magnets, and talking to users. I'm going to continue writing articles on the MinChat blog, building backlinks, and continuing to iterate the product based solely on feedback from active users and not my assumptions. I try as often as possible to get an interaction going with as many people as possible so that I can get feedback on MinChat.

Hopefully, in the next few months, I will be back here writing my next Indie Hackers post on how I reached $5,000 MRR.