What channel got your first 100 users post launch?
Getting featured on Product Hunt is huge, but the hustle for those crucial first users continues looooong after launch day.
Aside from the direct PH traffic, what's been the most unexpectedly effective channel, tactic, or community that helped you acquire your first ~100 users or customers?
Curious to hear about those early traction channels that punched above their weight!
Replies
We hadn't launch on PH yet but here is what we did to get our first 10 paying users:
Pre Launch
1.We shared our challenges and asked for feedback during the building phase (design, user persona, pricing, marketing, basically anything).
2. Help and support others, and make friends on Twitter.
3.Engaged in conversations where people are talking about the problem we were solving (you can use F5Bot, a free service that emails you when your selected keywords are mentioned on Reddit or Hacker News).
Soft-Launch
4. Create a no-brainer offer(like 70-80% discount) and DM potential users to share their feedback.
5. Reach out to users over DM of our previous product.
6. Joined the PH community on LinkedIn and share love with people asking for support and ask for feedback if they are our ICP.
About to Launch
7. Promoted our product in the communities of products we used to build your product (like softr, a no code website builder, has a community)
8. Joined the community of founders/creators we love (our favorite is morningmakershow)
9. Promoted our product on "pitch your product" tweets.
10. Launched on launchpads like Uneed, Microlaunch.
11. Launched our product on relevant platforms and directories. If you don't have time, I will be happy to help with Submission part with Boringlaunch. I am the founder of Boringlaunch.
Cross- Launch
12. Collaborated with founders and platforms having the same audience as ours.
13. Find creators and founders whose products or services work well with ours. (For example, we are building a platform submission service, Boringlaunch so we collaborated with a launch platform to create a bundle of featured listings on the platform with our submission services on other platforms)
Post-Launch
14. Tried ads on social platforms (didn't work out for us, but it may work for you)
15. Overdelivered and ask for a testimonial.
16. Shared your small wins and learning over the internet.
17. Try, try, and try until something works, and double down on what works.
P.S. The order of these steps may vary based on your product, audience, and 99 other factors. So, feel free to adapt and experiment. I have shared the list of communities where you can promote your product here
@gamifykaran this is super valuable for everyone thanks! :) my question was more targeted towards specific channels post PH, not necessarily your first 100 users ever.
More in terms of: did you run giveaways? Did you build an email list? Did you offer promos to those who signed up from your PH listing? etc
Looking forward to your launch and post-launch insights haha!
@mia_k1 There is no one channel for us as we tried a lot of them (twitter, directories listing, partnerships, affiliates, etc.) in the last 1 year but the best ones were directory listing and word of mouth for us.
I started with cold outreach via email. Personalized emails worked way better than I expected.
Apart from Product Hunt, @Reddit and @Peerlist helps a lot. I shared my product on Reddit in the right communities, and people engaged. Peerlist also brought good traffic from people who were interested in what I was building. Both worked better than I expected!