I think my product is awesome but promotion feels awkward and futile
I have my MVP checklist and I'm actually pretty close to there, even though I keep moving the goalposts. I know I should probably be promoting better right now, already, but it all seems so awkward to me, and a little insurmountable. I have basically no Twitter followers or LinkedIn presence, and I've just been cynical for years about the type of people who "build a following" on social media. It's something I should probably work on in therapy, but I'm wondering if others have felt the same and have overcome the feeling of awkwardness and/or futility of trying to shout from my tiny mountain top about the product I'm excited about building, for all of three people to see.
I'd love to build this project into a real business, but it feels weird after having looked down on the concept for so long.
🔥 Roast My Landing Page
It feels to me like it's becoming easier to build a product than to build a business lately. As hard as it might seem, if you want to Solopreneur, you have to be a generalist. Marketing, however awkward it seems, is important.
Real recognises real. Just, try to be yourself when promoting it. Try to unlearn some of your judgements and it can take you further.
Great tips!
I'd advise using something like 5 WHYs to delve into the root cause of that. Why it feels awkward, then why it feels insurmountable. Then come back and ask for more specific guidance.
That said, I had the “awkwardness” factor when I was working for myself back when. For me, it came from “hard selling” experiences that I have been through—I thought it is what selling is: shoving something down peoples' throats. Interestingly, it is not, not necessarily.
Instead, try to see sales/marketing/promotion as a service to your community. You are trying to solve a problem for them, and the actual selling part is you helping them figure out if your solution is the right solution for them. But that means abolishing “hard sell” or “power sell” attitudes. It also means forwarding people to other solutions if they are not a good fit for yours.
It is not about that. If your target market/publics are not on Twitter or LinkedIn, or those two channels do not contribute to their buying decisions, there is no real reason to build a platform on those channels.
What you need to do is figure out where your community talks about the problem and the solution, be there, show up, provide value.
Yeah, that's great feedback and a good reminder. I really do want to solve these problems for people, which is way more interesting than the money. Definitely not looking for some suckers, which is one way I feel like I've internally stigmatized the idea of being active and selling.
Hey Andrew! I won't lie I've been in your shoes and when I started working on Geeks and Experts it really felt futile as it is a B2C product and I needed good distribution before I went out with my content and marketing.
I think what you are confusing are distribution and audience. Is an audience ideally needed for your product's distribution? It totally depends on your idea. For instance, if it is a B2B product your probably need to focus more on SEO and content rather that creating a huge audience.
And even the audience bit, I felt the cringe too when I started. It felt salesy, but then I picked up tools to automate and ease out the content creation especially on Twitter. As for other platforms, I explore Medium as another place to document my journey AND build an audience that I direct to my startup.
I do the same thing with engaging on posts like this on Indie Hackers and Product Hunt and so on. Kernal and Reddit are also great places to start. Go with what suits you and see what you discover along the way. You may meet interesting people or get more ideas on how to build or grow your product and so on.
Try not to overthink it and feel awkward. Just start with what interests you and drives your curiosity and do what comes naturally so that you can go for the long run.
All the best!
I'm in the same boat, spent over 4 months (fulltime) working on a product and still only have one paying customer ($20/month). I kept adding functionalities that I thought were necessary, moving the goalposts as you say!
I don't know how many hours you've invested, but you seem to think it is time to start getting users and stop developing. So do that :)
@remco I suspect your traction stat is not related to marketing via social media, but more related to need. I just wonder how many actual runners know of the possibility of this service.
I read your mistakes post. I think there could be a need. Your service is in what we call peoples DKDK (Dont know they dont know). When a race registration is closed, its closed in most peoples mind. I would not of thought of another possibility to enter a race if I missed the registration date.
When things are in that piece of the pie-chart (DKDK), no social media is going to help. I added some ideas on your product page.
I wasn't talking about this dead project, but a different one :D
Thanks for the feedback and input though :)
oh, my bad assumption. apologises.
Yeah, definitely been focusing lately on cementing the goalposts more, if you will. Things I know I'd need to not risk too much of my own cash if I give free trials, for example. And the world's ugliest functional stripe payment pop-up. I'm nearly there, I think, to where I could ask some friends for some feedback. And who knows, maybe that starts some word of mouth.
Read "Show Your Work" by Austin Kleon. Written by an artist for online creators, but extremely relevant to entrepreneurs as well. It basically makes the point that the Internet is the greatest promotion // community-building tool ever made -- if you can figure out how to use it that way. It helped me a great deal in getting over my distaste for self-promotion and letting me use social media in the way most businesses do, without hating myself lol. I wrote an entire article on it here https://posttruth.substack.com/p/who-am-i-trying-to-impress (case in point with a little self promo).
It's also a 2-hour read -- 200 pages, big font, mostly infographics and pulled quotes -- but extremely extremely insightful!
Hey Andrew, you might like Matthias' indie product, 2Quiet2Market.com which is geared toward people like us who find marketing hard and awkward. The best thing is, the paid plan lets you support and get support by other indie hackers.
Hey Kamran, thanks for recommending 2Q2M here! Your're right, Andrew describes the problem we all face: Marketing seems daunting at first!
I'm a software guy, and when I write code, it either works or it doesn't. Anyway, it's my fault, and I can make it work, no problem.
With marketing, it's different. It not only depends on the marketer but on the audience. You can't "debug an audience" and "make them work".
What really helped me is I change my mindset first. Andrew, you mention two stressful things in your post here that you can safely forget about:
This group need not be your following, it can be anybody's following. Or it can be a group on a social network (e.g. a LinkedIn group).
Anyway, they only need to be visible, understandable, reachable and addressable by what you have to say. No need to build that group first, find an existing bunch of people who satisfy those criteria, and you're good to go, at least when you see them talk about a confirmed problem.
So, two things less to worry about: no audience building, no shouting necessary.
If you want to make your life easier, read the blog post I wrote about this: https://2quiet2market.com/blog/why-solopreneur-needs-new-mindset-for-marketing/
And if you need some help to setup your marketing habit, sign up for my "habit building software for introverts" that Kamran mentioned above. 😄
Good luck!
Matthias (indie hacker, building 2Quiet2Market)
I completely understand where you're coming from. It can be daunting to promote your product, especially when you're just starting out and have a small following. However, promoting your product is crucial to building a successful business. The good news is that you don't have to be a social media influencer to promote your product effectively. Start small by reaching out to your network, family, friends, and colleagues. Ask them to spread the word and share your product with their own networks. Additionally, I found forums relevant to your niche a great way to build buzz especially if you can offer value and insight. This can help you build a network and following while establishing yourself as an expert in your field. Remember, promotion is not just about shouting from the rooftops, but also about building genuine relationships and connections with potential customers (even though this gets lost with building 'traffic' these days).
Embrace the cringe. Let it guide you.
I love this, it applies very much to dating and making new friends too.
Since we are on the cringe topic I would like to share my project , Clove.
It's like copy.ai or jasper but better and cheaper, includes speech and video creation too. Here is a demo
https://www.loom.com/share/8d483fa491cd4a4fb9c72e0fdd6f2fc0
Check it out at:
https://app.cloveai.com/
Hey Andrew,
It's normal for it to be awkward - you're a developer. You haven't done much (or any) marketing or selling before.
Anything new is awkward and weird at first.
You say you're excited about building - but being an entrepreneur is not about building, it's about marketing and selling what you've built. Those that spend most of their time building will fail.
Maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you?
If you decide it is, then great :-) However, don't be misled to believe that you need a huge following to grow. Wrote an article about this a while back now - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/steal-the-tweet-that-made-me-4-figures-in-revenue-with-less-than-100-followers-on-twitter-cd1b6afe0b
Hope that helps
Best
Chris
That's a good point. It's more outside my comfort zone than building. But that said, I've definitely done lots of internal pitching before, some of which went well, so maybe that's the mindset I need to try to get back to.
The harder part for me currently is that I usually lean on the fact that people know and trust me once they've worked with me a bit, and that's not my starting point for building something on my own unless I reach into my network. Which might also be worth doing.
Definitely reach into your network - you must leverage every asset you have.
However, you can replicate this effect with the right marketing.
Instead of pitching your product, instead promote a new belief system to your potential customers. This creates a community of believers that know and trust you.
I've got an entire website that explains this strategy in detail (with case studies). You can check it out here - www.thebluntmethod.com
Best
Chris
Morning Andrew - thought I'd record and share some thoughts as the feelings you've described are very relatable, and things I've had to push through on the path to starting and selling my last two internet companies.
Here's the recording (it's short)
https://www.loom.com/share/4a1397d29e604f30bf003184d77240e1
Thanks for taking the time to respond, and I hugely appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. I definitely agree that it's mostly me I need to get past. I'm not as worried about other people, as much as I'm realizing I've been quietly judgmental for so long that it just feels like hypocrisy rather than what it really is (hopefully; I still feel like I need to qualify my statement): growth.
I feel you, 100%. What's been a game-changer for me is understanding that, worst case, nobody reads your content or cold messages (always focus on creating value or solving a problem). This article from a company that is doing a good job proves this point immo:
https://github.com/getlago/lago/wiki/How-to-get-the-first-1000-Github-stars-for-an-Open-Source-project
(I'm not related to them, just a fan of their approach)
naah... Many people build a project into a real business without social media. Maybe to a youngster who only knows social media, the idea seems impossible. For years businesses have grown without social media, and still do today.
Just takes one or two users who really want your solution. They are typically strong feedback-ers... and become champions.
Especially if it open-source, or anything to improve the environment.
For example: I have taken on challenge to use chatgpt plus to build my first ever iphone app. It will be open-source and available to all citizens free. The app is greatly needed but the issue is I have never built an iphone app before. I have never truelly coded. I interact with many SMEs every day... and see all the things they would love to exist, that no one wants to build. Plus I keep meeting others like me with yonks of experience in business and given up waiting for the needed device app/web app. I have been looking for a playground, that is safe and simple to use. Speaks business language versus hard core technical language. Or perhaps a bridge from chatgpt plus to play-ground.
Thanks for the tip toward the IH product feature. I hadn't seen that, and just finished adding some details, including a post that explains what I've been building.
As for the website, I added that as well, though it's currently just in "here's what we're building " mode as the dashboard isn't public yet.
I definitely appreciate the input, and I do think WOM might be one of the best ways for me to get off the ground and get some early feedback. I have a small group of former coworkers that I'm hoping to ask for some early beta testing, and maybe send some gift cards or something.
Thank you for this post! As a developer who worked for several months on the new app, I am now getting quite overwhelmed with all the platforms I need to participate on to spread the word about it. To me personally paid advertising on Google and Facebook felt more “fair” and straightforward, because my mindset is that I have to pay if I want to sell. There’s little to no audience communication involved in advertising - just pure ad settings tuning, much like the development process itself. With my shy budget, though, those hardly bring any valuable results.
So joining IH, PH or Reddit with my product is a bit like coming out of the closet and saying out loud: “Hi, my name is Denys, and I’m a developer.” Feels nice to know I’m not unique in feeling that way.
Yeah, I had good "performance" on my free ad credits from Google and I have to say that definitely felt the best as far as, like, not giving up any social capital for a shot at a client. Unfortunately, no idea if it would have performed at all since I didn't have anything ready for customers or even a sign up box. I'll definitely be doing more of that but I suspect it'll be a trickle at best like your experience seems to be.
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