I've searched for my competitors, and many of them are job-oriented or PDF-filling. None of them provides an instant feedback feature, which is our main differentiator. And, uhm, we are cool ;)
But yeah, you're right, marketing takes a while, so I had some testers giving me feedback, so I know I'm on the right trajectory. Not spending money early is debatable. For a B2B product that would be arguably stupid, but B2C should be a different story, right?
The advantage part: if you can make something more convenient or eliminate pain points, people would consider paying for it. You can interpret it like everyone knows how AI works, and they can all utilize AI perfectly.
Domain expertise may work well in B2B. For B2C, it's about simplicity. Just don't overdo it and end up making, like, an everything-app.
Launched my product and now it's on day 7. I have a $60 budget on the ad test. I know a guy who said advertising your product on launch is stupid. For B2B, perhaps. But I am in the big B2C family.
But I think the most valuable thing you can get from an early ad campaign is whether your product is working or not; the common question, "Do people want it?"
My CTR is now on 3.55%, which indicates a good ratio of clicks to impressions. I know people kind of want my thing right now. It is also because I built my product upon pain.
But you pointed out a crucial thing: yes, it is still too early to conclude.
I think the average clicks-to-sign-ups rate is around 3%. There wasn't a lot of data or trends to observe.
I have also gotten valuable feedback from my friends. It taught me the same thing as you mentioned. You'll miss a lot of things during development. I've learned that before, I pivoted my product completely to something simple and different. However, there will still be things you miss; it is unpredictable. I concur.
My friend actually got his first 200 users from cold DMs. But it's on his co-founder's side, so he didn't know much about it; I couldn't get much about it. I think the most difficult part is finding strangers who would use your product online.
There are only two scenarios that will get you users
- The user is a friend of yours
- The pain you are eliminating is big enough that they want your product
As for the social media part, I didn't really expect that. I was so anxious seeing people going ahead of me on socials, especially since they have made more progress (more sponsors, winning on benchmarks).
Probably a mindset to fix after hearing what you've said.
Up until I realized you don't have to compare with people in different lanes, it gets better. Also, not everything is real on socials. So, I was like, meh.
That's interesting. And you're right. One thing I think is worth mentioning is that social media polarized this kind of thinking, which could be an issue; I am affected myself.
I think the secret ingredient is to stick closer to the benchmarks (e.g., views, installs...) and experiment; it could take a long time. I might be incorrect; that's why I am willing to look into more perspectives.
Cold emailing could work. But I wouldn't say it's worth it, because the effort you put into building a mailing list could be spent on something more productive and effective. Really depends on the team size.
Product hunt is debatable. I feel like it's a platform for more established products rather than new ones. Launched once, went crazy on socials, and eventually I got 5 upvotes, which is pretty decent already for a small SaaS.