Becoming an influencer with 42k followers but struggling to find product-market fit

It might seem like influencers are on easy street, but your following doesn't matter unless you have product-market fit.

30-year-old Joe Previte did it all "right." He grew a Twitter audience — to the point of becoming an influencer — and then he built a product for that audience. And while Vim for VSCode brought in around $20k, it hasn't taken off in the way he wanted. And neither have his five other products.

He shared his journey with me as he tries to find "the one" — that magical $10k/mo product. 👇

Committing to indie hacking

I was playing basketball early in the morning before work one day in 2020. My wife and I had just moved back to Arizona from Seattle and we were living with her parents through COVID.

I was in the driveway, listening to the Indie Hackers podcast, just thinking, “This is it. This is the year I'm going to start indie hacking. I don't know how, but I'm going to try something.” And I kept telling myself that.

I had always wanted to do my own thing, and that desire had escalated since discovering the podcast the previous year. It was all these people who were similar to me — and they had found success. I was addicted.

A month and a half later, I launched my first product.

Do a 2-week challenge

My friend and I decided to do a challenge that was recommended by Daniel Vassallo on Twitter. The challenge was to launch an info product in two weeks.

I had to think of something that I knew well enough to teach or write about. Learning the Vim keybindings took me a long time, so I figured I'd go with that and maybe save someone else a couple of weeks by teaching them in a more efficient way.

I didn't even really validate it, to be honest. But I did set some expectations and say, "Okay, if I sell over $100, then it's a win."

Luckily, it was a win. I made over $1k in the first weekend.

That was my first product, Vim for VSCode, and it's still my main revenue-generating product. It's an exercise-based course that teaches the basics of Vim keybindings in VSCode. It's a one-time purchase that generates $100–$300 per month. It's brought in between $15k and $20k total.

Building an MVP on the cheap

I mainly used free tools like ConvertKit for the landing page and ConvertKit Commerce to sell it. I didn't have to spend any money other than buying the domain. Plus, my time writing the content.

I've since switched away from ConvertKit Commerce because I wanted more analytics insight and CK didn't offer it. Now I'm using Gatsby.js, TypeScript, and Stripe. But I'm in the middle of migrating it to Astro, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind.

I've considered selling on Gumroad and should probably just list it there but haven't gotten around to it.

Running 6 projects: The "Instagram view"

I also have five other projects that I'm working on:

• tscourse.com — Free video tutorials, articles, and a podcast to learn TypeScript. $2k in workshop revenue.

• coworkwithfriends.com — Make friends in your local community through coworking at coffee shops. $0 revenue (besides some free coffee from sponsorships)

• vocabminer.com — An easy to find new vocabulary in text and articles in Spanish. $0 revenue

• speakargentinianspanish.com — A newsletter and blog to help you speak Argentinian Spanish like a native. $0 revenue.

• howmuchtomake.org — A free calculator to figure out how to hit your revenue and traffic targets selling one-time products. $0 revenue.

But that's basically the “Instagram view”, for lack of a better term.

You see six projects and you assume I have some secret trick to sustaining all of these with a full-time job. But the reality is that none of these require any maintenance. Most were “let's build this, launch, and let it sit” and that's basically it.

I can't compete with the indie hackers who are single and have no kids, but I do what I can!

How to get everything done

I have to be very conscious with my time, and I've become very good at breaking ideas into action plans and executing them.

I try to break every step down as small as possible. That way, I can knock out tasks in short periods of time — a 30-minute lunch break at work or a 45-minute period on the weekend when my kids are napping.

I write down even the most basic of steps because, with kids, it's so easy to get distracted and forget what I'm doing. I want to reduce any friction to making progress. Plus, checking things off gives me a dopamine hit which fuels me to keep going.

Then, I get started whenever I can. Having done the planning up front, it's easier to see the finish line and not burn out. I wrote more about this process here.

Struggling to find product-market fit

The main problem I'm having is I haven't found anything that sticks yet. I've sold everything from a $10 product sell all the way up to a $5k service. I've even made over $10k in a month through a combination of services and products. However, none of my things have had sustained growth.

None of them have felt like "the one." And it feels like a slow journey.

I don't even know how I'll know when I've found "the one".

I know what doesn't work. Asking friends, family, even followers — it doesn't work. They'll just tell you it's a good idea because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Read The Mom Test and learn how to ask the right questions.

Also, building "vitamins" doesn't work. You need to build painkillers because you'll find better product-market-fit and build a more sustainable business.

As for what does work, I'm still trying to figure that out. I think I'm at the point where I need a product to make $10k/mo in the first month and for at least three months in a row. That might feel like "the one".

Burning out trying to find "the" product

I thought I had found "the one" once. It was my TypeScript course.

I put it on a pedestal thinking, “This is it. This is the big project I've been waiting for that's going to pay off my mortgage. I'm going to focus on it for the next 1.5 years and say no to everything else.”

And that's what I did. But my email list stagnated at 2k subscribers, despite me launching more and more free content.

Working on the same thing with an expectation for growth, then not seeing it grow... it's really tough. I got burnt out and put the project on hold. I took a long break.

To avoid this happening again, I've just been leaning into my energy more. What problems do I have? What do I feel like building? What's something small that I can build in a month, a week, a weekend?

And then I build that. And since it's small, I don't get burnt out.

Influencers are dependent on the algorithm

People say you need to build an audience, figure out what they want, and then sell to them.

I tried that. And sometimes it works. Honestly, in the beginning, it was my unfair advantage.

When I launched my first course, I had maybe 25k-30k followers at the time and I sold a little over 100 courses in the first weekend. And these days, I have 42K followers.

But this strategy makes you subject to the constantly-changing algorithm and honestly, it feels like an impossible game to play unless you know how to game it.

Nowadays, the X algorithm is very much like TikTok. It's good, in that anyone can go viral, but you have to have really good content or storytelling to make it happen. Or you have to be funny. It’s much harder for indie hackers to just build in public and catch some traction.

And I don't like playing that game because I suck at it. I just want to build and solve problems.

Influencers can't stray from their followings

Beyond that, to leverage your audience, you have to sell to your audience.

Early in my career, that was great. I spent every second of every day thinking about programming. And that is the audience I grew on Twitter — developers.

But as I get older, progress in my career, and have new priorities like my wife and kids — I just had my second child! — coding has shifted more from a "passion” to a “means to an end”. It's a tool.

I still love solving problems through code, but my heart pulls me in other directions as well.

One example is language learning. I love it and I want to build products for it. But I don't have an audience there, so it's hard to sell a product to that community.

Catching friends on Twitter

All that said, there's one thing that X is always good for — catching friends and opportunities.

For example, I read a book about performance after a coworker recommended it. Then I wrote a blog post with my favorite quotes and shared it on LinkedIn.

A month later, the CEO of a language learning company reached out via email and told me he loved the book and asked to hop on a call to talk about it. It's things like this that only happen thanks to the internet.

Heck, three of the last jobs I've gotten have been related to my online presence. I've made so many friends online, gotten opportunities to speak at conferences, and so much more. The benefits are endless.

Twitter growth

I know a lot of people want to grow their audiences. And Twitter is still my biggest growth channel, so it's not a bad idea. The true power of a business, after all, isn't in the building of the product — it's in the marketing. Just because you build it, doesn't mean they will come.

I wish I could tell you I had this amazing Twitter strategy, but I didn't. I honestly just engaged with people. For example:

• Ask questions

• Respond to other big accounts

• Offer free services like mentoring

And it just grew organically.

In the early days, I used to go by "JavaScript Joe" since I tweeted a lot about JS. That helped me grow a lot. But like I said, it's harder now. And to be honest, my follower count is mostly stagnant now.

Partnering with a YouTube influencer

Beyond using my Twitter following to grow Vim for VSCode, I also did a collaboration with a YouTuber who happened to live in Arizona and have a large tech audience. That drew in around $3,500 in sales.

He was doing a series called "X in 100 seconds". He explained Vim in 100 seconds, then let me use the second half of the video to walk through the basics.

He got the ad revenue generated by the video for the lifetime of the video. And I got to promote my product.

Just get started

My main takeaway from the whole thing, though, is that anyone can do it.

I wish I had known how easy it was to get started selling things online. I would have started years ago.

You don't have to be an expert. You have to know what you're talking about, sure, but mostly, you just have to provide something that people want.

Just give yourself two weeks to validate or launch your idea, and do it.

And charge from the beginning.

You can follow along as I try to find "the one" on Twitter and LinkedIn. Or check out Vim for VSCode.