How did you acquire your first 50 customers?
I'm building Unita, a directory of communities that help you connect with like-minded people and reach potential clients. And I've seen how indie makers are leveraging the power of online groups to promote and grow their businesses. Sometimes, the gold is found on massive social media such as Twitter. But for some, niche communities on Reddit and more private spaces have become the perfect place to target certain users.
As an indie maker, how do you connect with your people? Which spaces are you using to promote and find ideas to improve your products?
I get most of my customers by writing articles and trying to have a good Google PageRank.
SEO is a really underrated marketing tactic. SEO is really powerful for organically growing your startup. It costs you nothing monetarily but gives you phenomenal returns forever. It takes time to show its effects but it's worth it.
I have to do that for Meetme.io - I just need to start sharing and writing every week to build slowly.
The problem is I want to stay local first to be close to my users. My product is a mobile app. It's an agenda on steroids where you can let people book meeting with you.
Great! Are you working on getting backlinks as well?
Yes.
For example, a nice way to get backlinks is to find a directory on your niche, then you launch a tool to see if there is a broken link on it, if that's the case you can signal it to the webmaster and tell him he can add a link to your website if he wants.
Hi, I did a more in-depth post on this topic just last week: Bootstrapping Popsy to 5k users with $0 marketing spend
Feel free to take a look at it and ask any questions!
I would find a way to talk to your users. Either online or better, try to find a way to reach them face to face. Offer them a coffee, prepare a list of questions to get them talking.
I try and partner with good sales people. Make sure they get a good commission.
How do u calculate the commission if you have a SaaS?
You have to make the commission very juicy. At least 30%. Maybe 50%. But just increase your pricing to reflect that. If your product provides value, business customers will pay.
Sales are very important!
You are right, social communities are fantastic places to connect with potential clients or get feedback. For us as a growth agency focusing on SaaS and tech brands, it is Indie Hackers, Reddit, Discord and Facebook groups mostly. But it would be definitely worth exploring Linkedin and Twitter discussions more.
However, what I propose to product oriented startups, is to also work with direct outreach via Emails / LI InMails because you need to find the first users and customers as they are the ones you want feedback from in the first place, not other founders who are not willing to pay for your product 🙂