Hey 👋 I want to share how I initially got my first 2 customers without a huge launch, I didn’t go viral anywhere, I got a small amount of traction by posting in the right places and was able to find my niche of customers. I’m hoping you can take a thing or two away and apply it to your own journey.

The Backstory

I first got the idea for a product called ExtensionFast, it’s essentially a starter kit for developers/founders who are looking to create their own Chrome extensions fast and monetize them, but don’t want to go through the hassle of hooking up their own database, auth, payments, and more. I would create the initial boilerplate, and they would be able to build off of it and focus on the core of their extension, not the boring parts.

No Viral Launch? No Problem

When I first had the idea, I gave myself 3 weeks to work on the MVP. After the initial 2 days, I realized that I should be marketing as well in any way possible, I didn’t want to fall into the indie hacker rabbit hole of developing my product and then having no customers or initial interest at the end because I didn’t show anyone what I was working on.

With that being said, that’s exactly what I did, I built a small landing page with a waitlist which I then used to make a post on Reddit. This post didn’t show any cool features of my MVP or a detailed demo or even a Figma prototype, it just showed the heading and subheading of my landing page, nothing else really.

Something to note is that if I posted this inside of a random community, I wouldn’t have gotten any interest. I had to be smart as to where I posted, and I chose to do it in a side projects subreddit (r/sideproject) and a Chrome extensions subreddit (r/chrome_extensions), where I would have a much better chance of gaining any traction because of the type of people that hung out there. At this point, all I wanted is for someone to give me their opinion on my product and/or join the waitlist on my landing page.

The Results of the Waitlist

After starting the post on the subreddit, adding a title, placing my image, writing a caption giving a little info about ExtensionFast, and then finally posting, here is what the stats looked like:

• Upvotes

  • 18

• Starting Comments (Just including the ones that started the threads)

  • 9

Now these numbers weren’t all that impressive, but I was proud of it, I got a few comments about feedback and other ones criticizing the product (Which I don’t mind). With all that being said, I was able to rack up about 27 waitlists in total. Yet again, this isn’t a big number, people say to aim for 50 waitlists, others say to aim for 100+, it really depends on who your target audience is and the type of product you’re selling.

How I Got My First Customers

Now, when did I actually get my first customers? Remember, I had a waitlist with about 27 people on it, it wasn’t much but I knew that I had to treat these individuals well. They joined the waitlist for a reason, so that meant to me that at least a few of them would purchase if they really saw the value in what I was selling.

Here is what I did, 2 weeks into the MVP and 1 week before the actual launch, I sent everyone on the waitlist a mass email letting them know that I am putting ExtensionFast on preorder, and that there is a $60 off discount for everyone on the waitlist. This could be different for you, but ExtensionFast was $99, and so I decided that early users should benefit greatly and get $60 off.

I sent this mass email, and out of 27 people, 3 of them actually clicked on it. I didn’t think nothing much of it, but then something happened after 1 day… I got a notification from Stripe, someone spent $39 on ExtensionFast during the preorder phase 🎉

At this point, I felt as though this was validation, I have someone who saw the value in my product and decided to purchase it as well!

That’s one customer though, at the beginning of this I mentioned a second customer, where are they? This second customer came from when I made a follow-up email about 3 days after the initial email, this time only 1 person clicked on the email out of 27, and they decided to purchase as well 😅 It felt as if lightning struck twice, but 2 people saw the value in what I had.

What Worked For Me

With ExtensionFast, I mainly used email marketing and Reddit to talk to my audience, so I’ll mention what worked for me regarding those platforms.

• Posting consistently on Reddit

  • Your posts aren’t going to be recognized every time, come back a few days later and post it again with a new heading or image if it gets no traction

• Posting in the right subreddits

  • Do some quick research on which subreddits to post on

  • There should be quite a few for your niche for posting, just have to find the right ones

• Accepting feedback

  • At this stage, any comment is good feedback to point you in the right direction, be open-minded to whatever is said

• Creating a preorder phase

  • I realized that with a preorder phase combined with a discount, people are more inclined to purchase what you have

  • With this phase, you still want to make sure that you are working on your MVP to provide value for when you launch

• Sending follow-up emails

  • A majority of the time people send an email or two and then forget to follow-up, when most transactions really happen on the 4+ follow-up email

  • Stay consistent when it comes to emails, but make sure you aren’t spamming them as well

Closing Remarks

That’s it from me, hopefully you picked up a thing or two from my personal experience and can apply it to your own situation.

If you’re interested in the product this story is about, check it out 👇

If you want to know how to market before building, you can read this article by me 👇

Otherwise, make sure to subscribe for more content, and hope you have a great rest of your day 😃 

— Michael