Passed 50 users!

Thank you everyone at Indie Hackers for your feedback and support over the last several months. You’ve played a large part in my milestone of reaching 50 users!

To many this is insignificant, but for me its quite rewarding that 50 people found my creation (that started as a personal tool for myself) valuable enough to sign up!

I actually passed 50 users a few months ago, but am just now finding the time for this update… More on that in a few lines.

What worked:

• Posting on IH and some other programming forums I’m a part of. It has been important to keep the threads updated when I ship new features. Every time I do this I get a surge in traffic and signups.
• Offering a free premium account to the first 25 users. These filled up really fast. I think one of the best things I did is personally email the first 25 people that signed up and tell them I’d upgraded them to a premium account for free, forever. I asked in return that they provide me with some feedback and share the tool with their friends. I’d say about 50% gave me great feedback and shared on social media.
• Implementing user feedback, then posting about it was very effective. Sometimes I sent personal messages to those that requested the feature.

What didn’t work:

• Initial users pointed out that it wasn’t clear I even offered a premium account. In trying to make the signup as frictionless as possible I took it too far and didn’t display enough that I had a premium offering. This has been remedied but still needs work.
• Inconsistent timeline shipping features is my biggest holdup right now. I have a very busy personal and professional life, making time is always difficult for me.
• I have yet to have a user convert to premium. Firstly, I need to have more compelling features for my premium offering. I also think I need a landing or about page demonstrating some of the pro features.

What I’m going to do next

• Interact with my users more, and get more feedback. I’m going to identify those that are using the product the most and try to develop my relationship with them so I can better suit their needs.
• Ship features, and post about them. I’ve set a goal to push at least one minor update/fix each week and one major feature each month. I’ve got a long list to get through!
• Improve user conversion from free to premium. I need to do more research on this as most of my other ventures have not included a free offering so this is new to me.

Thanks again everyone! As always, feedback is welcome.