MegaMaker - Where are these signups coming from?

Every day in Transistor's #marketing channel in Slack, we track our new trial signups:

Like most SaaS companies, our growth relies on new people finding us every day.

Whenever I see these numbers, I ask myself: "Where are these signups coming from?"

There's this idea in marketing that we'll be able to find a magical channel that brings in thousands of customers.

But, when I look at where these signups come from, there's never one dominant source. Here's what we saw in August:

Search (40%):

• Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo
• AI chat tools recommending us

Word of mouth (35%):

• Customer referrals
• Industry partner mentions
• Integration partner referrals

Content & community (25%):

• Blog posts (both ours and others')
• Email newsletters
• Podcast listeners
• Apple Podcasts Partners page

While organic search is our biggest single channel, what's striking is how many signups come from small, consistent efforts:

• One email to an industry partner led to 10-15 weekly signups
• Years of Reddit Q&As now influence AI recommendations
• Building relationships in dev communities (Laravel, Rails) brought loyal customers
• Our "build in public" podcast still brings weekly signups

Each of these wins started as a simple daily task: sending that partner email, recording a podcast episode, attending Laracon, or answering questions on Reddit.

The myth is that you need to find one magical marketing channel. The reality is that sustainable growth comes from many small, consistent efforts.

Our job (as founders, makers, marketers, and bootstrappers) is to wake up every day and do something that pushes the ball forward.

That's it.

As I was finishing writing this, I thought: "Justin, a lot of the channels you mentioned play to your strengths (content, community, SEO). I wonder if readers are finding success with other channels you aren't doing yet.

I'm curious: what's your "marketing sweet spot" when it comes to channels?

Cheers,
Justin Jackson
Follow me on Bluesky: @mijustin.bsky.social​

PS: Transistor is doing a Black Friday sale. 40% off 4 months of podcast hosting!

PPS: Bluesky - wow. I got a bunch of (mostly positive) replies to my last newsletter about Bluesky (and many of you signed up!). I also received several questions like: "Is it really better than Twitter?" I made a video for those folks here:

​

​In the video, I share several of my favorite apps for Bluesky: a Tweetdeck clone, analytics apps, and a Nuzzel-like link aggregator.