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Got a paying customer after cold DM on Twitter. Here's how I went about it.

I started using Twitter intensively to get feedback for my product Famewall

I consistently put out tweets sharing my everyday struggle & learnings while engaging with other makers in their replies. That got me wondering if it would be worth to try out Twitter DMs to genuinely tell people about my product.

I then began DMing people who I thought might find famewall useful.

The conversation began with me asking them about what they were working on and getting to know their pain points. They would then ask me about my product ๐Ÿ˜„

I used this to explain about why it might be helpful to have verifiable social proof integrated into their website in 2 minutes. Out of the 15 people I DMed, one user converted into a paying customer after tinkering it for some time๐Ÿฅณ

I share everything on my twitter Always up for a chat :)

  1. 4

    Great! ๐Ÿ‘ It inspires.
    I think DMing people is good and effective if you don't just spam people, but find a unique approach to each potential customer and pay attention to their business

    1. 2

      Agreed Vadim. People definitely don't like being spammed in their DMs. But a genuine conversation can present a lot of opportunities

      1. 2

        It's great that you've found a way to evolve!
        We're on Twitter too, but it's going pretty slow so far. Tell me, what do you think is better for promotion - sending a message on behalf of a person or a company?

        1. 1

          Thanks for the kind words, Kate.

          I'd highly recommend not using a company's account as I myself would prefer reading cold DMs from the human behind the company

          The best would be to select high quality possible customers for the niche your product operates in. Build a soft relationship with them. And then make a personalized message for them.

          One way it works for me is that I'd always message followers, the first time they follow me on Twitter. So I would have had some prior interactions with them and genuinely listen to them in that conversation.

          After that I'd reach out to them for genuine feedback

          Definitely up for a chat to exchange ideas & help in anyway possible :)

          1. 2

            Signed up for you on Twitter) Thank you for being so considerate)

  2. 2

    Think that's a good plan, start a conversation first instead of just jumping straight in.

    I get a number of DMs who follow and then instantly DM with "I made product X and I think you'll really like it". I'm usually not going to reply, if someone has engaged a bit more personally and had a conversation I'm more inclined to take a look at what their working on - especially if I think it might help me in some way.

    1. 2

      I agree with you, Chris. It would be a one-off thing even if you successfully managed to broadcast such a DM to everyone.

      Most of us would resort to this way as personalizing DMs & having genuine conversations seem to take a long time.

      But in reality it's totally worth it :)

  3. 2

    Congratulations on your sale! This is really cool. Keep it up!

    1. 1

      Thanks Adam :)

  4. 2

    Never tried sending DM's because I was always concerned about Twitter rules and whatnot. Might just have to give it a try to see if it can help in my growth efforts.

    Thanks for sharing.

    1. 1

      I think Twitter wouldn't like if DMs are sent in mass. But manual outreach might work out. Sure let me know how it goes :)

  5. 2

    How did you choose which 15 people to DM or was it just random?

    1. 1

      So my product is actually focused on marketing and user onboarding. I made a list of all people who were growing pretty fast and talking about problems in this space. I engaged with their content and then DMed them

  6. 2

    Awesome.
    Did you know them before or was it your first chat with them? Since Twitter puts new messages to a second inbox.

    1. 1

      Actually you could say that I knew 70% of them. I would engage with their content and ensure that they know me faintly before I DM them :)

      It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't but worth the try.

  7. 2

    It actually looks like a pretty cool and useful product. Those that make you wonder "how come I haven't thought of that"! Best of luck!

    1. 1

      Thanks Paulom :) Curious to know if you'd try it for your product's landing page?

      1. 2

        Unfortunately not applicable. My users are not twitter users and feedback or reviews would live more on trustpilot.

        1. 1

          Right got it, makes sense. Is there a link to your product, Paulom?

            1. 1

              Just had a few questions. Where can I reach out to you @paulom?

  8. 2

    Thats awesome Goutham.
    For me, building in public has helped to get our first customer. Then we showed him our demo of the product. Had shared here:
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/hurray-we-have-our-first-customer-on-board-many-more-to-come-69ccb66eb0

    Would definitely try your approach

    1. 1

      This looks interesting. How did you start VadeStudio, Pragyan ?

      1. 2

        Thanks Goutham.

        Being a developer, I was personally facing this problem in backend development. I have been thinking about this idea for a couple of years and came up with a solution to solve this problem while working with multiple clients. Now I have finally taken this step and building my product and bootstrapping my company here

        1. 1

          Cool. Good luck to you mate :)

          1. 2

            Thanks.. same to you !

  9. 2

    unless you have to offer them to our of box - I think Twitter DM will not work, you should need to mention that this is your own product which you featured with this post.

    1. 1

      Yeah agreed, Shiv. It nuanced on the type of product. In the above case, I've mentioned I did it for my product :)

  10. 2

    good to see youve got the first customer.

    Few questions here. Appreciate if you can answer:

    1. Whats your tech stack?
    2. Whats your team size?
    3. How long did it take to build this?
    4. How did you get this idea from?
    5. What are the infra expenses like?
    1. 3

      Hey Shrinivas. Thanks and here are the answers

      1. MERN stack
      2. Just me. I'm a solo founder building this :)
      3. I started building Famewall in public in the month of February
      4. I got this idea when I was uncovering problems in user onboarding back in January
      5. Currently infra expenses are $0 since I'm using AWS credits and frontend is hosted on netlify
  11. 2

    Thanks for sharing! A lot of the new WBE Space members also come from Twitter DMs. I use Hivoe to automate my welcome messages which is a great conversation starter

    1. 2

      Hivoe is a great tool too :)

  12. 1

    Nice !
    There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of whether or not launching startups without a revenue model is a good idea.

    The most important thing is to have realistic expectations going into it and be honest with yourself about your chances for success.

    SO Which Acquisition Channels Consistently Work for Getting New Paying Users?
    Check out our new Pro Newsletter to help you get early traction and grow your business.

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