58
62 Comments

How I got 200+ users in the first 24 hours

Within 24 hours of launching my new SaaS, I got 732 unique visitors, 2574 page views, and over 200 signed-up users.

This was all organic and with basically no followers.

imgur.com

This is my second time having the launch of my SaaS go viral, resulting in a ton of initial traction. This means I'm 2/2.

I have come up with a viral formula of 6 elements on how to do this, so read on:

Founder Site

1. An exciting product

This one is kinda obvious but a very important element.

You can have the best launch and marketing strategy in the world, but with a bad product, it won't matter.

In order to attract users, you must have an exciting product that solves some kind of problem or pain for the customer.

To give you something concrete, this was my thought process for this latest SaaS:

Problem:

Founders don't want to spend time creating or maintaining personal websites. Many choose to go with link in bio tools, but they are all designed for the general public, lacking founder-specific features.

Solution:

Create the world's first link in bio tool designed especially for founders. Cool URLs, up and running in 5 minutes, no/low maintenance.

I bought the domain founder.site and validated the idea through a simple waitlist landing page explaining the core features.

Viral post on X

2. A great hook

Great, now that we have an awesome product, it's time to show the world.

But wait, we have no followers and no budget for paid advertisement.

No worries, we will solve this with a viral launch post on X/Twitter.

The make or break of this post is the 'hook'. The very first line in our post that will make the user stop scrolling and get invested in our content.

Here are the two hooks of the last two launches that went viral:

1. "I did it! ๐Ÿคฏ" (Got 183k views)
2. "Itโ€™s finally here! ๐Ÿคฏ" (Got 25k views)

Yes, the hook has nothing to do with the product, and the emojis are cringy as hell. But they are effective and get the user to stop scrolling and watch the content.

3. Video showcasing the product in a few seconds

Now that we have the users' attention, it's time to get the most of it.

Attached to our post should be an image or a video. The algorithm chooses what goes viral based on the posts that users spend the most time on, hence why a video is the better option.

For my viral content, I have used a fast-paced product video demonstrating the core features of the product with zoom-ins to keep it engaging.

Comedic launch videos tend to perform really well when done well too. Here @marclou is the master.

4. Explaining the concept in one-liners

For example: "The Linktree for founders."

We all know the situation when we go to a product's landing page, scroll down, and by the bottom of the page, we still not quite understand what the hell the product does.

Something that works really well for viral content and marketing is to explain the concept in easy-to-understand one-liners.

For Founder Site, I constantly use 'The Linktree for founders'. It makes the product so easy to understand for a person that interacts with the product for the first time.

Founder Site

5. A few bullet points explaining the core features

After our one-liner, most users already get what our product is about.

We can now elaborate a bit further with a few bullet points explaining the core features our new exciting product has.

6. A great CTA

Now we have a great hook, an engaging product video, a good one-liner, and a few bullet points explaining the core features.

The user is fully committed now, so it's time to capitalize on the attention and lead them over to our landing page with a call to action (CTA).

Platforms like X or LinkedIn punish links in posts with reduced reach. A way to combat this is to leave the link in the first comment on the post and refer to that at the end of the post itself.

Involve the benefits or something about your product in the CTA. Don't just do the classic "Sign up now".

A great CTA for my latest SaaS is:

๐Ÿ”— Reserve your URL and create your Founder Site here: founder.site

Final thoughts

If you nail these 6 elements, your chances of having a viral launch are really high.

If you found any value in this post, consider following me on X. I build cool projects in public and try doing stuff that others aren't.

And if you are a founder, you will love Founder Site. Right now, it's 100% free, and the first founders to sign up will get a ton of free exposure for them and their startups.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

  1. 2

    Awesome, just signed-up. Seems like a great way to stay connected with what people are building!

    1. 1

      Awesome! How was your experience so far? Also what is your Founder Site URL? Would love to check it out

      1. 1

        It's great. Cool to look at what other people are building! My URL is founder(dot)site/nickpacione

        1. 1

          Site looking good. I'm glad you like it ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿฝ

  2. 2

    Hey Lucas, great advice. I'm one of your users now :)

    1. 1

      That's awesome. What's your Founder Site URL? I'll check it out

      1. 1

        I'm not allowed to post links here yet, but it's founder . site / Sri

  3. 2

    I like the simplicity of your product and also your marketing formula, very smart and creative.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿฝ

  4. 2

    This is actually helpful! Thanks for sharing. I'm going to be launching my app soon as well for the first time, so will definitely take these into account.

    1. 1

      Awesome, I'm glad you found it useful. What are you launching?

      1. 1

        Itโ€™s a preferred language messenger. We use LLMs to automatically translate incoming and outgoing messages into the selected languages of each participant.

        So you could have a group chat going with 10 people speaking 10 different languages and it would flow as if everyone was speaking the same language.

        1. 1

          Sounds very cool. Let me know when you launch, I've got you with an upvote ๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿฝ

          1. 1

            Thanks man! Appreciate it :)

  5. 1

    I love the advice! Especially the Twitter cringey hook. I think what's usually cringey to us often works out to grab attention. Keeping it simple is the key. Great job!

  6. 1

    Your products looks great. Do have any plans for the next project?

  7. 1

    This will help a lot, thanks!

  8. 1

    Super helpful, thank you!

  9. 1

    Congrats
    Well i dont have any twitter followers what else can i do?

  10. 1

    Great write up! Thanks for sharing and congrats on this achievement !

  11. 1

    Fantastic idea and execution to give more of a dedicated space and experience for founders. Looking forward to following the progression!

  12. 1

    Love the idea! I made a similar platform but it's for small businesses who need to request reviews from the customers. Very cool!

  13. 1

    The way how your work was making raoad is water since the mountains

  14. 1

    Saving this.

    Maybe, you can do a ProductHunt launch.

  15. 1

    Do you have a paid plan? if so how many paid subscribers did you get?

  16. 1

    You just got another user :D

    Would love to know your feedback on what I'm building (can't post links yet):

    founder .site / samad

  17. 1

    This is so useful! Will implement asap

    1. 1

      Happy you found it useful!

  18. 1

    This was pure gold

    1. 1

      Awesome, thank you!

  19. 1

    What are your thoughts on executing this when starting from scratch?

    1. 1

      This was meant for people starting from scratch. This strategy doesn't require followers.

  20. 1

    do you think this strategy is something that would work if you were just starting out on twitter? or is this option afforded to you by building your audience over time?

    1. 1

      This strategy doesn't require followers and can be done when starting out. I did this myself for my first SaaS launch a couple of months back. I had 200 followers, and the post went viral with 180k+ views

  21. 1

    Great post !

    I have one question about the dummy landing page. When you create that landing page to know how many people would be interest, do you run ads for that landing page ?

    Also for the core offering of the Product, a small suggestion to our Indie Hackers team ! I also had some difficulty in understanding how I need to contribute in order to get more access.
    My humble suggestion is to specific more clearly - what that specific access will fetch, and what exactly needs to be done to get that access :)

    Thanks !

    1. 1

      You can run ads to get traffic faster and validate the idea. You can also do it completely organically though.

      I did it without spending a dime on ads. I just posted without any followers to the #buildinpublic and #indiehackers communities on X, and that led organic traffic to the waitlist landing page.

      Did not understand the second part of your comment.

      1. 1

        Thanks ! The second part of my reply was more for the Indie Hackers team. My suggestion for them was to mention the offerings more clearly ;)

  22. 1

    These information is really useful. Wish I'd read about it before launching

    1. 1

      I'm glad you found it useful. And don't worry, just launch again and implement the strategy. Nobody gives a sh*t that you launch 1, 2, 3, 4, or even 5 times.

  23. 1

    This reminds me of Tim Ferriss and how he planned the launch of 4Hr workweek and made it a bestseller as soon as it was launched.

    1. 1

      I remember reading that book back in the day. It was inspiring for sure

  24. 1

    Hey, thanks for sharing this, btw did you convert these users to paid customers or?

    1. 1

      The main goal right now is just getting users and the network effect going. The Pro Plan offering will get stronger really soon when I launch analytics and other cool features.

  25. 1

    So cool ! Did you have any followers before the post ?

    1. 1

      The first time I did this, I had 200 followers and the post went viral with 180k+ views. That virality itself gave me around 800 new followers. This strategy is made for anyone launching without a following.

  26. 1

    These are some great insights. I will follow these on our Saas product for sure. Good Luck!

    1. 1

      Awesome, thank you so much ๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿผ Good luck to you too!

  27. 1

    I like the niche you're trying to get in. Would love to see how it is going to be differentiated from other bio links.

    1. 1

      Thanks! Itโ€™s already quite different right now because the primary focus is on the startups/ventures that the founders post to their profiles.

      Would love some feedback if you decide to sign up ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿผ

  28. 1

    A great value in this story. Thank you for this! How can you find an agreement between moral marketing principles and demand for the popularity?

    1. 1

      Thanks! Not sure what you mean by that, can you elaborate?

  29. 1

    super helpful, thank you!

    1. 1

      Iโ€™m glad you found it helpful, thank you!

  30. 1

    These insights are very beneficial thanks for sharing. Though I'm new to indie hacking & I haven't hacked anything yet, but these learnings will surely help a lot in my journey. Thanks again.

    1. 1

      I'm happy you found it insightful. Exciting time to start your journey, get going ๐Ÿ‘Š๐Ÿฝ

  31. 1

    Hi. Thank you for writing about your experience!

    1. 1

      Thank you for reading ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿฝ

Trending on Indie Hackers
Reaching $100k MRR Organically in 12 months 29 comments What you can learn from Marc Lou 20 comments Worst Hire - my lessons 11 comments How to Secure #1 on Product Hunt: DOโ€™s and DON'Ts / Experience from PitchBob โ€“ AI Pitch Deck Generator & Founders Co-Pilot 10 comments Competing with a substitute? ๐Ÿ“Œ Here are 4 ad examples you can use [from TOP to BOTTOM of funnel] 8 comments 5 product ideas with proven demand 1 comment