Attracting users can be tough, especially if you don't have an audience: - **These tips can help you find, connect with, and land users** when you are still trying to build up your audience. Hint: Don't underestimate the power of social listening. -
Attracting users can be tough, especially if you don't have an audience:
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These tips can help you find, connect with, and land users when you are still trying to build up your audience. Hint: Don't underestimate the power of social listening.
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How do you cope with failure? Founders weigh in below on dealing with the emotional and mental effects of having to sunset a project.
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Founder Shreetej Sonkamble got his first sale 3 days after launching by leveraging the power of Indie Hackers! Here's how he landed his first user for SaaS Agreements, an AI privacy policy generator, and how he differentiates his product from free alternatives.
Want to share something with nearly 75,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
🧲 Attracting Users Without an Existing Audience
by Benjamin Boman
For Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., it seems like you need to have an audience already.
How do I get users from social media if I don't have an existing audience? I would really like to learn from others here about what techniques have worked!
Follow the conversation
Anže recommends social listening:
I try to follow conversations on social media about the topic of the product that I'm building. I try to answer questions and be genuinely helpful, without trying to push my product at all.
Example: I have a site that helps people find other developers on Mastodon, so I try to find people asking for cool accounts to follow. I reply with links to accounts that might be interesting to them. I don't mention my product right away. If more conversation follows, there might be an opportunity for me to pitch my project more naturally, and get better engagement from it.
Spend a few bucks
Savan recommends purchasing ad space within, or at the end of, a tweet (when relevant):
Obviously, it will depend on what you're providing and the target audience, but generally speaking, there is so much untapped potential for SaaS products to be marketed within threads.
It's worth sending DMs to people on Twitter who cover your industry and appeal to your end user. Just pitch it to them and let them know that you're solving their audience's pain. Provide them with a unique affiliate link that'll benefit their users with an extended trial or whatever your offer is, and ask for their rate.
Pro tip: They will only see the first few words of your DM. Make it punchy and not scammy, as everyone's DMs are flooded with bots.
If their email is publicly available, email them the same proposition.
Influencer influence
Ali shares a list of tips to try:
I have learned a few lessons from my experience building an audience of 70K Twitter followers over the last 20 months.
First of all, having an audience is really powerful, and worth all the time and effort that you need to acquire it. It is not only going to be a great lead-acquiring channel, but also a great place to test all your products and features.
Having said that, try these tips:
- DM influencers in your niche market, asking for their help. You will be surprised at how many of them are willing to help, without expecting anything in return, especially if you are friendly.
- Use Twitter's paid promotions. It is cheap compared to influencer marketing rates.
- Use social listening tools to get notifications for tweets that mention certain keywords related to your product, then authentically engage with those people and promote your product. Avoid using bot responses!
- Follow all influencers in your niche, and engage with their audiences. Avoid direct promotions. Just write a clear bio on your page with a link to your product. People who find you interesting and knowledgeable will open your bio and click on the link. Also, the influencer may notice your valuable engagement and retweet your comments, giving you greater exposure.
- Use Zapier to post the content across all platforms, increasing your funnel's top surface area.
- Ask each new user to share with others who might be interested.
- Content is king! You have to keep posting good content to attract new potential users.
Hashtag city
Kirill Sokol advises founders not to underestimate the reach of hashtags:
Getting users from social media without an existing audience can be difficult, but it's not impossible. We at Skinive have found these three ways to be effective:
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Use hashtags: Hashtags are a great way to attract new users to your content. Include hashtags relevant to your niche in your posts.
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Interact with other users: Interacting with other users is a great way to get attention. Comment on other people's posts, share their content, and give likes. This will help you build relationships with other users, and increase your visibility.
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Collaborate: Collaborating with other users will help you reach a wider audience. Look for other users in your niche who have a similar target audience, and collaborate with them on projects or content. However, remember that you need a strong, unique offer that will appeal to those audiences.
How did you attract users without an existing audience? Let's chat below!
Discuss this story.
📰 In the News
from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko
👋 60% of US Twitter users have taken a break from the platform in the past year.
🚫 Montana is the first US state to ban TikTok.
🪜 Breaking down the ladder of product awareness.
📲 Facebook consumption behaviors are changing.
👜 Here's how luxury giant LVHM built a recession-proof empire.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
😔 Coping With Failure as a Founder
by Mei
It's so common for products, projects, or ideas to not work out. I speak to builders every day who have decided to sunset their products.
How do you decide when to walk away? How do you process things emotionally and mentally?
Failing can be hard for a lot of people, and I'd like to know how other founders cope with it!
Embrace it
Shadi Elwan says that failure is a learning mechanism:
I use failure to evolve mentally and physically. As the saying goes: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
So, I consider failure to be a core part of the success process. Without failure, you won't know what success is. Without failure, you won't be able to accumulate your knowledge and wisdom. Consider failure as a mentor; it's a light that illuminates the road to help you head in the right direction.
Embrace failure as an essential part of life to make us better and stronger, and if you are tired, try to take a short break to let out the steam. Reorganize your thoughts and feelings, then start again. You'll be better equipped, due to experience!
Just remember that it is just a temporary roadblock to test you, helping you adapt and learn quickly.
Stand behind your decisions
Marcos Eich says that every situation is unique:
No one has the context or understanding of your situation more than you. Remember not to outsource your decisions. Make your own decisions and stand firm in them.
That being said, I would give up on something when I feel that it isn't working anymore. It also depends on how big your project is. If it is a side project with little to no consequence, then it's easier to hang it up. If it is a big startup idea, you have to be willing to put in the time. Remember that results don't come overnight!
Take good care
Daria Matusik says that the decision to walk away is very personal, and depends on many factors:
Some people quit with the first struggle, while others push through the worst.
I sunset my first venture after I failed again and again, trying to figure out a sustainable business model. It reached the point where I could see only two paths to continue, but neither of them aligned with what I was willing to do at that moment. So, I quit.
The journey is an emotional rollercoaster. You need to deal, not only with failure, but also with rejection, risk, finances, your own self-esteem, lack of time, and the list goes on. It is very challenging to handle all of this. Building things from scratch requires a lot of inner strength and resistance. However, in the process, founders often forget to take proper care of themselves. Don't make that mistake!
How do you cope with failure? Share your experience below!
Discuss this story.
🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week
🛠 If you don't build in public, you're wasting your time. Posted by Carlos Orozco.
🚔 How health tech outsourcing almost sent me to jail. Posted by Ilya Pavlov.
💡 Finding new SaaS ideas. Posted by Q. Foster.
🤔 I suck at design. Now what? Posted by Jayjen Lee.
🤖 Generating your whole app with GPT. Posted by Mihovil Ilakovac.
🛣 How have you gained traction? Posted by InfluenceLabs.
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.
💰 Shreetej Sonkamble Got His First Sale
by Shreetej Sonkamble
Hi, founders! I'm Shreetej Sonkamble, and I made my first sale for SaaS Agreements this week!
I trained GPT-3 on 100+ privacy policies and terms of service for SaaS startups. Here's how my tool works:
- You pay $49 one time for lifetime access and free modifications anytime in the future.
- AI generates GDPR-based privacy policies based on your input. For example, it could be data that you'll collect from your users.
- You receive the privacy policy by email in under four hours.
Why four hours? Well, the agreement has to be verified manually before putting it up on your website. So, I'll read and verify the privacy policy manually, then email it to you.
I created the prototype on Whiteboard, built the MVP with Bubble, connected it to Stripe, and launched, all within two days. The policy is generated with Python on the backend. Turns out that having a coding background actually helps you build apps faster with no-code tools!
PS: My first sale came from Indie Hackers.
AMA!
How did you come up with the idea?
I worked on many side projects in past, and they all failed. This was mainly because I was solving a problem not related to me, or to people that had it.
In my previous startups, I came across many policy generators. None of them were really affordable for early-stage startups, which are trying to save costs and be GDPR compliant at same time. I'm from India, so it's literally super expensive for me to spend $200 just on a privacy policy.
Understanding these difficulties is what led me to build the MVP!
How many privacy policies do you get for the cost?
You get only one privacy policy per website, but you can make changes in the future. This is a big key, because you will need to make changes at some point. When you do, three changes are free anytime in the future.
For the pro plan, you get one privacy policy and one terms of service agreement for one website, and on that plan, you can make five changes anytime in the future.
How did you get your first sale?
By searching Indie Hackers!
I visited the website of every product on Indie Hackers, then contacted those that didn't have a privacy policy page.
How do you differentiate from products offering free policies?
Free resources are just templates, and they probably won't cover your product. Some SaaS apps use cookies, while others don't. Free templates probably won't help you with that.
Also, your policy should be GDPR compliant, which is the case with SaaS Agreements. It's GDPR compliant, and custom made for your SaaS app.
How did you train GPT?
I had some privacy policies from my previous startups, bought some templates online, and took some from different SaaS websites.
DM me on Twitter to get a 50% discount in exchange for a testimonial!
Discuss this story.
🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick
by Tweetmaster Flex
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Benjamin Boman, Darko, Mei, and Shreetej Sonkamble for contributing posts. —Channing
