🗞 What's New: Irresistible headlines to describe your product

Many businesses fail because they can't communicate their value:

• What is your users' dream outcome? Use words like "get," "decrease," and "increase" to help them understand how your product can get them there.
• Visual flow charts can be a shortform content strategy. Draw users in with shortform, then offer more value through longform to convert.
• 20K users and $32K MRR. Wilson Wilson started building Senja while recovering from surgery, then focused on SEO and product-led growth.

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by Arunima

Having a great product doesn’t matter if you can't clearly communicate its value to your audience, and get them to take action. Here's how!

Create an offer so good they can’t say no

Consider this example:

Title first draft: How to lose weight!

You understand that this product guides you on how to lose weight.

Title v2: How to lose weight to get the bikini body you want!

This makes the outcome more real, because now you’re imagining yourself in a great bikini.

v3: How to lose weight to get the bikini body you want even, if you are 100 lbs overweight!

This addresses the objection that you’re too heavy to try it.

v4: How to lose weight to get the bikini body you want in the next two months, even if you are 100 lbs overweight!

This is now helping people imagine reaching their dream within the next two months.

Final title: How to lose weight to get the bikini body you want in the next two months, even if you are 100 lbs overweight, without sacrificing pizza!

Okay, I don’t know about you, but I’d definitely click this. This sentence just screams value. It makes me feel like this product has some secret value that I don't know about, and I want to learn it.

So, what happened with each sentence that I wrote?

• First, I added the simple "how to."
• Then, I added the dream outcome.
• Next, I added the objection.
• Then, I decreased the time delay.
• Finally, I decreased the amount of effort and sacrifice I am asking for from the user.

That's how I gradually increased the value of the offer. To achieve this, I followed the equation of value:

How to write seductive headlines

1. Show how your product is the one:

2. Components of value equation:

Convert the value equation into words.

Dream outcome:

• "Get.."
• "Increase..."
• "Decrease..."

Perceived likelihood of achievement:

• "[Benefit]"
• "Join X number of people people who have successfully..."
• "Even if you [insert common objection]..."

Time delay:

• "In just..."
• "Immediate access to..."
• "Start seeing results in..."

Effort or sacrifice:

• "Without..."
• "No more [pain point]..."
• "Reduce..."

Once you've written some things about your product using these value equation words as a starting point, you will have several enticing headlines!

Discuss this story.

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Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

by Cameron Scully

Over the past few weeks, I've been diving deep into the world of automation. I've been experimenting with GoHighLevel, the controversial CRM, by learning from various Skools.

If you're unfamiliar, Skools are community groups, similar to Facebook Groups. However, they offer more advanced features, like the ability to gate certain content for paid subscribers.

Here's what I've learned!

A shortform content strategy

I came across Hamza Baig on Instagram. His content immediately grabbed my attention because of his raw, unique style. He uses a flow chart designer tool (i.e. LucidChart) to visually explain how to sell automation services to local "boring" businesses.

His use of colorful flow charts and clear, copy-pasted headings drew me in, and kept me clicking on his videos.

Community engagement

Hamza's ideas were interesting enough to make me join his community to learn more about automation. I navigated through his resources and videos, and his approach was informative and engaging.

Hamza's content and community convinced me to invest $97 per month to try out his version of GoHighLevel with his paid resources. His content strategy of sticking to one niche (automating "boring" businesses), along with his visually appealing flow charts, enticed me to join his community.

This funnel example can be very helpful for indie hackers. Engaging shortform content can lead potential users to your long(er)form, in-depth resources. By providing that value, you can turn them into paid users!

Discuss this story, or subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.

by Rob Hope

Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips!

Reassure your visitors during the checkout process.

Nerves may be strained. Settle them with one of these small reminders, strategically positioned near the checkout form:

⭐️ The average customer star rating.

🍏 A small stack of well-known client logos.

💳 A payment-related FAQ.

💬 A short, comforting testimonial.

Also, try to include anything that adds transparency to the experience. This can alleviate any lingering doubts.

Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.

by James Fleischmann

At just 20 years old, Wilson Wilson has hit $32K MRR from his product, Senja, a tool that makes collecting and sharing video and text testimonials easy. While building Senja, Wilson also grew his online following from zero to 20K.

Beginnings

I earned my first dollar online when I was 12 years old.

After learning that anyone could build an app and earn a living if they knew how to code, I begged my dad for a laptop. Once I had it, I built and released a dozen crappy apps using mostly borrowed code from StackOverflow. I monetized them through display ads.

That was my first taste of indie hacking, and I quickly learned that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

When I was 17, I tore my ACL. I had to undergo a surgery that left me mostly immobile for six weeks. I started looking for people who had done what I wanted to do, and I stumbled upon Indie Hackers. Reading through the founder stories showed me that my goal of starting a business was completely achievable.

The right idea

After considering several ideas, I ultimately settled on building a testimonial collection tool since there weren't that many players in the space at the time. Most of the existing tools were ugly and clunky, and I knew I could do much better.

On January 2, 2022, I got to work, with the goal of launching in 30 days. I was still recovering from my surgery, so I had unlimited time. I also had a few thousand dollars saved up, and had nearly zero expenses (I was living with my parents).

That product is now Senja! We use a freemium model: Anyone can sign up and get their first 15 text or video testimonials for free, and create unlimited Walls of Love. To collect unlimited testimonials, remove Senja branding, and unlock other features, our customers pay a monthly or annual fee.

We currently have 20K users and $32K MRR. As for our tech stack, we're using Sveltekit, TailwindCSS for styling, Postgres + Hasura, Mux for video storage and delivery, and Cloudflare as our CDN.

Keys to building a successful SaaS

Here's what helped Senja succeed:

1. The experiences I got from working freelance jobs helped me improve my technical skills. I wouldn't have been able to build as quickly if I hadn't spent all that time working for other people.

2. Sharing my work on X was essential.

3. Collaborating with the right cofounder helped a lot. My cofounder had lots of experience, and helped me shift my mindset from being a builder to being a founder.

4. Consistency was critical. It took six months to land our first recurring payment, but we showed up virtually every day.

The disadvantages of nationality

I'm from the beautiful city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. I wish this wasn't the reality, but my biggest disadvantage is definitely being Nigerian.

There are tons of things that other makers take for granted that just don't exist here:

• Popular tools and services, like Stripe, PayPal, Wise, etc. don't support Nigerians.

• I'm constantly put on the high-risk list for everything (even shopping!).

• Our passport is one of the least powerful in the world, and getting a visa is very difficult. Meetups and conferences are largely off the table, and I've never met my cofounder in person.

• A stable internet connection is rare, and there are multiple power cuts throughout the day.

• Co-working spaces are nonexistent in most cities.

As the business grew, and we had more money to spend, I started looking for workarounds to my problems:

• I used Paddle (which supports Nigerian solo founders) and Payoneer to receive payouts.

• I got a power station to deal with power outages so I could have internet and lights, even when the power went out.

• I got a 5G router and a Starlink so I wouldn't lose days to bad internet.

• I built an office.

The growth

These days, 45% of our traffic comes from SEO, and 30% is product-led growth. In other words, the product itself drives user acquisition, retention, and expansion.

Senja has the most generous free tier of any testimonial tool on the market. Our free users are our best promoters!

People buy from people. Slapping a testimonial section on your landing page isn't enough. Testimonials really shine when you use them at every stage of your marketing funnel, especially where objections are raised.

Discuss this story.

by Threadmaster Flex

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Arunima, Darko, Cameron Scully, Rob Hope, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing