⚡ IL - Early days: try things that don't scale, how to beat big competitors, 180 link building strategies

• Use Edit this website extension that allows you to edit webpages so you can see effects in realtime. Best for non-technical people.
• Have you tried Quora ads? They are very cheap. And lead gen forms are now available for all advertisers.
• Streak is the best CRM for Gmail. It offers powerful email tools entirely inside Gmail. It can be used to track sales, partnerships, support, hiring, deal flow, and much more. It has 700K active users.

Even unicorns started by doing things that don't scale. AirBnb. Tinder and all other big guys did similar.

Mick's tool is in DJ niche. Last week, he met a guy who was in band. He was serving him there. But instead of consuming his time, he handover this card to him so he can check in leisure time.

Here is the next-level marketing. ClickToTweet this image. 👇

1. Build an email list before you launch. (Hint: Read my previous newsletter where I shared how someone got 500 subscribers for his SaaS before launch)
2. Post on relevant subreddits + BetaList
3. Post on Hacker News
4. Post on IndieHackers
5. Launch on Product Hunt
6. Follow up with early potential customers (i.e. those who have provided emails early on to help validate the idea)
7. Cold Emailing potential leads
8. (Sometimes) Experiment with ads

Always be in "launch-mode" -> launch a new product, new feature, new blog, a new newsletter, etc. You can also relaunch on PH by saying "IndieLetters v1.1"

It is very likely that every startup competes with a large behemoth. That's a reality that all of us have to come to terms with.

The bigger company is always going to have greater resources than you. So, competing on features is not a smart battle. 

Here are some other battlefields to compete & get the industry share:

• Niche it

Instead of targeting the entire market, have a narrower focus. This allows you to give a more tailored solution albeit to a smaller audience.

• Use customer service as a weapon to beat big competitors

Many companies suck at customer service. So leverage the customer service for marketing as well as having loyal customers. 

And I can't stop myself from sharing NameCheap, which provides excellent customer service. And it's the reason I have never purchased any domain from any other registrar.

• Humanizing the product

Have you ever heard about ConvertKit? They still help each new user to get on-board. And in this way, ConvertKit has grown to $1.6 million MRR.

• Make your startup more loveable

Start supporting any NGO, such as Onepercentfortheplanet or Onetreeplanted. And add it in the footer. This way you will make your startup more loveable.

Welcome mats are popups that display immediately upon entering a site. Some visitors still may not like it, but the benefits could outweigh the costs.

The hard truth is that 70% of your website visitors won't come back. Get their attention right away by throwing a popup with a strong call to action when they land on your site.

You can display targeted offers, showcase new products, highlight your best content, invite them to join your email list, and so on. Just make sure that you're adding value.

Caution: There's a Google interstitial penalty if you use them on mobile.

There are three ways of getting feedback on your app:

• Watching how people use your app

Watching how people use your app will give you tons of insights into how you can improve the usability of your app.

You will get small insights that are likely too small to be worth submitting a feedback form for but when you fix a bunch of these small niggles you will greatly improve your product.

The free tier of Hotjar will easily be enough for most indies to get started.

• Talking to your customers

Talking to customers will give you insights that you would not able to understand just from watching them use your app.

You can get feedback by sending personalized but automated emails asking for feedback.

Remember, for every customer suggestion there are likely another 10 with the same issue that haven't bothered to give the feedback.

• Share a roadmap to trigger Cunningham's Law?

As per Cunningham's Law if the customer has a different idea of what they would benefit more from; they would be more likely to correct me than if I was to simply ask for their advice.

Here's the email you can experiment with:

""

Hi,

I'm wondering if you could give me some advice, recently I've been focusing on increasing the value that Absentia provides.

Here are the features I'm thinking of focusing on next to improve Indie Letters:

• Feature 1...
• Feature 2...
• Feature 3...

Do you have any thoughts on these features yourself, would they be useful to yourself? Or any other advice on how to improve our offering?

We pride ourselves on being fast to act on our customer's feedback. Being a small company, we cherish any advice we can get from our customers.

Any feedback, good or bad would help greatly in focusing our efforts on what matters to our customers.

All the best,
""

Nee your help!

As you know I am planning to launch a podcast, I have grabbed bCast lifetime deal earlier. Today, I saw that you can only remove their branding from podcast player if you have stacked 3 bCast lifetime codes. 
So I need 2 other bCast codes. Can anyone of you buy me a bCast code as a gift or as a loan? I will return the money as soon as I get sponsors. (I will open sponsorships this month.)
P.S I will feature his product in the newsletter too.

2020-08-17 / Increase interest in your special offers with in-app messaging, why are your paid conversions low?

2020-08-21 / Use GIF & memes for free brand exposure, reach a new audience by purchasing an old Chrome extension

2020-08-24 / You don't need a million followers to make an impact, get in your customers' head with these 3 questions

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