How We Hit 0 to 950+ Downloads in 5 Weeks, No Marketing Expenses ($0)
We launched our MVP called "Truebase: ChatGPT Email Generator," a free Chrome extension that generates personalized emails based on a business prospect's LinkedIn profile page.
If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, here is the link (it's free to use): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/truebase/ahlmkaafohhhbocahhjlcgofddbhcaef
Product Hunt Launch Story
We launched it on March 29th on Product Hunt. It was our first launch, and at that time, we had limited knowledge about the platform. We planned for only 3 - 4 days and launched our Chrome extension. We also shared the launch on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.
Our extension made it to the 12th product of the day, and we received demo sign-ups for our main product, Truebase.io, an AI-powered sales prospecting tool. Additionally, we gained around 180 -190 downloads for our Chrome extension from this PH launch.
After the product hunt launch we focused on increasing awareness about our extension in online communities, which significantly helped us reach our target audience.
Here are some of the best communities where we promoted our extension. You can also promote your extension in these communities to reach your target audience effectively.
The active participation of our target audience in these communities helped us to increase awareness of our extension, which ultimately led to an increase in downloads.
On Slack (ensure you post in the appropriate channel within these Slack groups):
- Belkins B2B Sales & Marketing Pros (This is one of my favorite slack group, and their admins are very supportive, including @vivek.)
- Revgenius
- RevOps Co-op
- Product school
On LinkedIn (you can simply search relevant communities in which your target audience is present using the LinkedIn search bar):
- Product Hunt 🔥 Upvote & Promotion (Admin: Suraj S)
- wildtools.ai
- Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT, Midjourney, Chatbots, and AI Tools
- ChatGPT Network
Reddit Communities:
- r/chrome_extensions
- r/ProductivityApps
- r/buildinpublic
- r/indiehackers
Please ensure that you do not post the same content in multiple subreddits, as Reddit moderations are highly stringent. If they discover such duplication, they will promptly cease displaying your post to users.
Now, turning to directories, they worked like magic and greatly helped in increasing installations for our Chrome extension. Since our extension is ChatGPT based, we promoted it on AI tool submission directories and I also emailed several directory administrators. In my opinion, the open directories performed exceptionally well for us.
Here are few directories that helped greatly:
- Chatgptdemo: https://chatgptdemo.com/product/chatgpt-linkedin-email-generator/
- Toolscout: https://toolscout.ai/
- Foundr: https://foundr.ai/
If you want me to share more directories with you, please comment below. I am happy to share them with you in the form of a document.
And if you are on LinkedIn, please check out our Truebase extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/truebase/ahlmkaafohhhbocahhjlcgofddbhcaef. It is completely free and will help you save time researching and writing personalized emails to your business prospects, which can increase your email response rate and help you sell more.
I'm curious to learn more about your strategies for growing a Chrome extension.
I want to integrate into any project, SaaS, and backend. I code in JavaScript and Python, using Node.js, Nest.js, and Django. For databases, I work with ORM, Prisma, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. If any startup is interested, I am happy to work for free. We can discuss to gauge my level and review the projects I have worked on. I am at an intermediate level.
contact me X(twitter) : bakiria919
Whats the trick here? Because most communities delete a self promote post?
I'm curious too. I started using reddit in 2022 and I still cannot find a proper way to post there. They deleted my post all the time
Most of communities you have to wait min ~15/days/login and visit their profile. And post like Roast my Product xD!
Besides showing off the product, what type of content can I post on reddit? I've joined several groups where I thought our potential customers could join but I cannot post about their painpoints and solutions there. Any rec?
@tradao004, I have also experienced this issue before when I was not very familiar with the Reddit platform. I made the mistake of posting the same content in multiple subreddits, which led to the Reddit moderators blocking my posts from being displayed in all groups. This had a long-lasting effect on my profile. As a result, whenever I tried to post something new, it wouldn't show up for anyone, and the same applied to my comments on other posts.
Another thing to note is that if you create a new Reddit account and immediately start posting on the platform, it will raise red flags for the moderators, and they may delete your posts. To tackle this, the best approach would be to create a Reddit account and focus on optimizing it first. Join a few relevant subreddits and actively engage by commenting and upvoting others' posts. After a few days of building your reputation within those subreddits, you can start making your own posts. Just make sure you don't post the same content in multiple subreddits. If people appreciate your post, it will yield amazing results, even if you only post it in one subreddit.
Thanks a lot for your dedicated comment. I'll definitely improve our strategy
@Startingabusiness First, you need to ensure that you have selected the appropriate community where people reside who would be interested in seeing your product. Check the guidelines to see if they allow product promotion. If they do, proceed to share your product but make sure you have chosen the right channels, especially for Slack communities. Start by creating a post about your product, explaining the problem it solves, and then mention your product to your target audience within that post.
Hi, I enjoyed reading your post.
Do you have thoughts on how you are going to keep communicating with those users?
What are you planning next on the marketing/growth aspect?
Thank you for reading my post and your kind feedback! Currently, we are engaging with our users through email communication, and we are considering starting a newsletter to further enhance our communication channels. In terms of marketing, our next plan is to focus on increasing awareness through SEO optimization and running targeted Google ads.
Congratulations on your growth Rupal,
Which of these communities would you say drove the best engagement?
@J_PMarquez, while Reddit and Slack communities are effective in our case, directories also prove to be incredibly useful.
Hi, thanks for sharing! It's a great product you have there, Congrats!
Would you mind sharing the list of directories? That would be really helpful. Thanks
Thank you for your kind words! I appreciate your positive feedback. I am happy to share list of directories.
Thank you for this easy-to-use product and recommendations. I'll try some to those!
Thanks a lot for your feedback! I'm glad you liked our tool :)
Thank you for your great information! I've started to build some followers in Twitter and other SNS but it takes so long time. I didn't come up with these channels. It really helps!
Thank you so much for your kind words! Building a following on Twitter and other social media platforms can indeed take time and effort, but it's definitely worth it in the long run.
Thanks for sharing the experience. I'm a seasoned marketing professional and I think community engagement is one of the top acquisition channels, especially for micro SaaS.
When you have some budget to put aside, I recommend you to play around with Google Search Ads, targeting long tail keywords and start putting and effort on content marketing as soon as possible.
Thank you for your valuable insights! Also, I'd be happy to connect with you on LinkedIn to discuss this further. Here's my LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupalsaini/
That's great information
I'm glad you found value in it.
Wow firstly congrats. I'm working on a SaaS will definitely be using the tips you gave about posting to reddit !
Thank you so much! I appreciate your kind words and support. I'm glad to hear that the tips I shared helpful to you. Best of luck with your SaaS project!
Thanks @rupalsaini_truebase, this is super useful information. I've literally just finished building a small Chrome Extension as a side project over the weekend, and was looking for ideas on how to get it out there. I'll definitely be following some of these tips.
P.S The Truebase extension and product look pretty neat, nice work.
Thank you for your feedback @Tetley! I'm glad you found the information helpful! Good luck with your Chrome Extension, and I hope it gains popularity!
congratulations! How are you tracking signups from these sources?
In Short , It's a great blog and will help in my next PH launch. Can you share your Linkedin journey in details please ?
Hi there, would love to get to know more about the directories + and your business. How do we connect?
I'm available over Email :)
Cool story, thanks for sharing. I actually learned about your company in the RevGenius group so your community ideas worked 👏
I'm curious how you think about converting the chrome extension users to paying customers on truebase.io
@rupalsaini_truebase Hey, congrats on your success!
Would you be open to sharing more information on how you scrape data based on LinkedIn URLs? (I need to scrape data too, but not sure about the best way to approach it - e.g. chrome extension using JS or based on URL using server-side and VPNs).
@fraanmurillo, I have shared here how we grew the number of users for our Chrome extension. I hope you find it valuable!