How we got our first 250 users for free.
We built bookmarkish as a tool to help us remember the useful reads and links that we never go back to after bookmarking them on the different platforms.
We then quickly realized that it could be useful to others as well because we were enjoying using it.
So how did we go about getting the first people to try it out?
The first thing we did was share it with friends to gauge interest and they liked it.
After that, it was time to give it to strangers on the internet, the real litmus test.
We posted on Reddit which turned out to be a good idea because we got about 150-170 users from this platform alone.
Below is a breakdown of the subreddits we posted on:
r/InternetIsBeautiful – This got the most upvotes, views and shares.
r/design_criticues – Not many upvotes but a decent amount of views
r/selfpromotion – Not that many views (62 in total).
We could have talked about it on more subreddits but decided to wait until we built out the other cool features.
The second place we shared the app was on the Microconf Slack group.
On Microconf you just don’t post anything anyhow so I mainly asked for feedback on the kind of features that people would be willing to pay for if we wanted to monetize bookmarkish. I got some really good advice and these became the first additional features that we started working on.
Third was on WhatsApp groups, specifically the Kenyan Indie Makers WhatsApp group. I posted on the group and a number of Indie Hackers tried it out and also posted about it on X even before I did.
This group also helped critique the tool and shared a good number of great features that we currently also have on our pipeline (some quite similar to the suggestions we got from the Microconf Slack group).
The last place was on X (Twitter), the posts shared by some of the members of the Kenyan Indie Makers group helped a lot.
After that I would just look for any cool or useful posts where someone mentioned anything to do with bookmarks or bookmarking a post and commented on it or reposted while mentioning bookmarkish.
On X, it is important that the comment is natural and fits the context of the post or conversation for it to convert.
What to take away from this:
Reddit is pretty strict, so you want to post only where it is allowed or by being very subtle with your self-promotion. But people on Reddit are always ready to help, you just have to be creative with the way that you ask.
Twitter also converts users, here your self-promotion has to sync with the conversation or be very catchy/useful. There is a lot of trial and error, it’s not as direct as Reddit where if it’s useful people will try it.
This was my first time sharing on a WhatsApp group thus I don’t have much to say, but for a first time it was pretty helpful. I guess it depends a lot with the group that you are sharing your product in.
Let’s circle back again when we hit 500 users.
Cool Finds:
🤖 A few subreddits where you can promote your product.
👩🏫 Learn English by talking to this AI lady.
🤔 Google SEO leak, where do we go from here?
💸 Having problems with Strip, try this alternative.
Want to learn more about how to grow your “small” products?
Don’t forget to subscribe.
