3 builders who never spoke to each other

Be in the rooms where you get recommended

Adoption spreads sideways inside tight knit groups faster than anything you can push into them, and the customers who arrive that way are unusually loyal. Be present in the forums, chats, subreddits and conferences where products in your category actually get asked about, since somebody publicly asking for a recommendation is a sale nobody bid for. Even the buyer for a small product tends to come out of a group you show up in daily.

The method

1. 01

   Show up in the developer communities your buyers belong to - the conference, the framework's ecosystem - and the customers you get from it are unusually loyal.

2. 02

   Also be present in the forums, Slacks, subreddits, meetups and events where products in your category get asked about and recommended.

3. 03

   Aim at tight-knit online communities, because adoption spreads sideways inside them faster than anything you can push.

4. 04

   The buyer for a small product comes out of the communities you show up in every day, not from a listing site.

5. 05

   Assume an independent site gets found through word of mouth and human curation rather than search, and that a link from another such site is genuinely worth following.

What it returned

• 2

  Carrd spread through K-POP fans, Animal Crossing players and Black Lives Matter organisers who recommended it inside their own circles, reaching over 2 million users and 3 million sites.

• Relationships in the Laravel and Rails communities, and attending Laracon, brought Transistor loyal customers.

• Example given of Ali Abdaal publicly asking his followers to recommend an accurate long-form transcription service.

• Listing two products on acquire.com went nowhere; the buyer appeared in a Slack group of makers hit by the same API repricing.

Sources

• The Smart Web does exist (but it needs your support) – Jakob GreenfeldJakob Greenfeld · jakobgreenfeld.com · The Smart Web · 2024-06-03
• Where are these signups coming from?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Where are these signups coming from? · undated
• Ten SaaS marketing principles for 2024Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · 3. Have a strong presence on search engines. · undated
• Kim Kardashian turned a small business into a VC-backed company - Fathom AnalyticsAJ · usefathom.com · A “reality” check · 2021-08-16
• 3 lessons learned selling 3 SaaS productsLuca Restagno · solopreneurtofreedom.com · 2. Networking is important · 2023-12-17
• I sold my 4th SaaS product. How and Why.Luca Restagno · solopreneurtofreedom.com · iterspace · 2024-03-24