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A simple and efficient way to find your first users 🚀

Dear fellow indie hackers 👋

Let's say you've built an MVP of your product and are looking for ways to attract your first users. The following steps helped me find about 300 to 400 daily active users for my new project worksheet.digital — a tool for teachers to build, distribute and evaluate worksheets. Additionally, this strategy kickstarted search engine rankings for me.

As you'll see, I achieved all of these results — the detailed metrics of which I've shared here — by sending five emails.

What I did before marketing my product

  1. I interviewed a couple of teachers.
  2. I built an MVP of a web-based worksheet builder.
  3. (Optional 😉) I did nothing for about 7 months and hoped for users to find my product somehow. I had between 0 and 5 visits per day. Probably due to the teachers knowing about the product from the interviews.

After that, I was about to give up on the product. Looking back, this sounds totally stupid. What did I expect? Luckily, I had started to learn about SEO and the importance of backlinks. I thought it was worth a try to email a couple of bloggers that had posts like: “10 Tools to build digital worksheets” and ask them if they would mention my product.

Three simple steps

  1. I googled fitting search queries for my product (like “how to create a digital worksheet” or “build interactive worksheets”)
  2. I picked five articles that ranked top 10 where the authors seemed approachable.
  3. I emailed the authors. Since I considered them to be experts in the space of digital tools for teachers (I also wrote that), I politely asked them to test worksheet.digital and give me feedback. At the end of the e-mail, I mentioned that I would be very happy if they would include my product in their article if they like it.

The Result

Three bloggers (out of five) answered my email.

  • One of them gave me feedback about how I should improve the tool in order for her to list it on her page.
  • Another one answered that she would look into the tool and write me back (as I am writing this, I realize that I forgot to follow up on that).
  • And last but not least, one site placed the tool in a Christmas newsletter for teachers (on 4th of December 21), on their site and even created a video explaining the tool.

Results:

  • 300 – 400 daily active users.
  • 142 People gave long-form feedback through a Google Form. Sidenote: I should have promoted the feedback form more (it was just a button in the navigation) and I should have added a newsletter signup.
  • Some teachers recommended the tool on Twitter.
  • There were mentions on other teaching-related blogs.
  • My search engine rankings for fitting search queries improved. (I'm planing to add some educational content around the tool to improve on that.)

Final thoughts

I avoided marketing completely for the last two years and still struggle to do it consistently (any ideas on how to make it a habit?). For me, the process of building alone gives me a sense of satisfaction and was an excuse for me to not market my projects. However, it's even more rewarding and highly motivating seeing actual people using what I've built.

I hope this post motivates you to market what you've built. If you've put off marketing your projects as I did, you should start now. It's just a couple of emails.

I'd be very glad to hear your thoughts, ideas, and improvements on this process.

Update:

This an example of copy I used to reach out to bloggers (translated from German with deep):

Hi ,

I read your article "14 WAYS TO CREATE INTERACTIVE WORKSHEETS" and think it's super helpful for teachers.

I'm currently working on a webapp to make creating, distributing, and evaluating digital worksheets as easy as possible. I just started and just released the very first version of the app at https://worksheet.digital.

Since you know a lot about (digital) teaching and the problems teachers face through your blog, it would be totally awesome if you could give the tool a try and write me how I can improve it.

If you like it, I would of course be very happy if the 14 possibilities in your blog would become 15 possibilities.

Best regards and have a nice weekend
Malte

  1. 1

    sir i have a website that make a resume perfect and free
    please give backlink in your article
    i have no money that time ,please help me to grow

  2. 1

    thank you for sharing

  3. 15

    This is the first post I came across after being told about IH, and after reading it I knew I need to sign up and be a part of this community. Thank you for sharing.

    1. 5

      I'm in the same boat. I'm used to listening to their podcast but have never used their platform, but I realized that this is a wonderful community.

    2. 2

      I'm happy to hear this. I also just got started here. Sharing and writing up what you're trying and working on feels really helpful to me as it helps me to be conscious about my decisions.

    3. 1

      I've been a member since November 2020 and created my first (real) product Rototer in December 2020. I learned a lot since then but still know one uses my products, I have twenty signups just sitting on Twayobiz and five just sitting on Obeatow.

      I even put a lifetime deal on AppSumo and still get no traction.

      Any help?

      https://rototer.com (shut down)
      https://twayobiz.com
      https://obeatow.me

      btw launched Twayobiz twice on Product Hunt and still no luck, and Obeatow ounce.

      Why does everyone else on IH have better luck?

      1. 2

        Is Twayobiz for file transferring? How is it different to something like WeTransfer (which doesn't require a sign up and is quick/easy to use)? Who is it for? I think you'll be in a much better place if you can nail your USP, messaging and target market. You can then go to where they are (whether that be forums, groups, using ads etc) and peak their interest. e.g. what are pain points with other tools that yours fixes.

  4. 1

    This is great! Our product is AI based, so we ended up listing our product on a few free directories (and a few paid ones too). I like the idea of reaching out to bloggers! Definitely will try this approach. Thanks!

  5. 4

    I love how much of a "marketing win" this is, especially the "low hanging fruit" approach to it. Very good stuff.

    Some of the stuff is obscured from the write-up, so this is what I could gather from the above text (these are educated guesses, so I might be wrong):

    • A Clear Product Positioning: "digital worksheets for teachers". When you have a clear positioning, it makes your marketing (therefore your life) so much easier.
    • A "Defined" Target Market: "Teachers". See how it is already included in the above positioning statement. When you know who you are after, it is so much easier to acquire a part of the market. Remember, "everyone" as a target market is the enemy of marketing.
    • Relevant Key Opinion Leaders: Notice how the OP did not go after "the famous Instagram influencer" and instead opted for very relevant key people who are in the "digital teaching" niche.
    • Not included in the write-up, Unmistakable Benefit Statement: "Create, distribute and evaluate a digital worksheet in a few minutes". This is the highest level of message when you arrive at the website. Doesn't leave much for the imagination.
    • Also not included in the write-up, A Super Simple CTA: "Create A Worksheet Now", just like that. Extremely relevant for the target market. Not "learn how can worksheet.digital help you solve the issues you are having", not "evaluate us versus other solution providers for digital worksheets" (although, depending on your situation you might need that kind of CTA too). Simple. Elegant.

    So, I'd say, it is not just about reaching out to a few bloggers. There was a lot of "fundamental" work poured into this. Not everything is immediately apparent.

    1. 1

      Thanks for the nice comment and the analysis. A major resource for me is and was the growing startup guide on Julian.com.

  6. 4

    One of the best articles I've seen on IH. Thanks for the inspiration. Tell me, how do you keep the users coming back day after day?

    1. 2

      Thank you ❤️
      I'm kind of overwhelmed by all the reactions, and very glad that the post seems to motivate many people to do marketing.

      Actually. I'm trying to find out why exactly the current users are coming back and what exactly they come for. I guess the initial interviews before building the MVP really helped me build something that has some value for some teachers.

  7. 1

    Dead simple and great approach to getting the words out to relevant customers! Thanks for sharing! I do overthink too much as well on the marketing aspect, but this should be easy to do :)

  8. 3

    Wow, thanks so much for the detailed write-up. I have just launched my first startup https://www.ADHDgenius.club 2 days ago and will definitely try your approach (without the 7 month wait haha). I have briefly researched my keywords on google but found only competition. Will dig deeper and find someone that is more aligned and can do a review. Thinking of also introducing an affiliate system. So many thoughts and ideas, I am so happy I found this community to help me make sense of it all.
    Or and I wanted to say I am like you, feel so happy and satisfied just building something that marketing is always meh. Plus there is always the NEXT BIG IDEA to work on haha. I am considering trying a mind hack of thinking of marketing as a creating and building process as well - creating a customer base, building a following. Will try to find a way to visualise and measure it. Hope it will help me get into it.
    Thanks again for the great inspiration.

  9. 3

    Nice, thanks for sharing! Marketing became a habit for me thanks to https://codingweekmarketingweek.com/ :)

    1. 1

      Thanks for the hint. I will look into that. Currently my coding weeks tend to become coding month 😉

      1. 1

        Coding life here 😂

  10. 1

    This is such a simple strategy and I feel dumb for not thinking of it in such simple terms earlier. Thanks for sharing not only your story but also a simple template to follow!

  11. 2

    Wow, great article Malte! I'm going to try it for my website!

  12. 2

    Thanks for the great article! Especially your letter example was very useful!

  13. 2

    Thanks for sharing. Reaching to Bloggers is an approach we haven't tried yet. Will do

  14. 2

    I feel that this is exactly what I'm going through. I love building and it's satisfying by itself, but I'm not prone to "expose myself" so I don't market at all. For me, the exposure seems like too much personally - so I try to do it under the company's name or something.

    Congrats on doing this! I'm a step behind you in this journey, hopefully you'll make a habit out of it too!

  15. 2

    This is super cool! I just learned a lot about SEO as well (props to ahrefs youtube channel) and think this is a super underrated way of getting users, especially in the indiehacking space. Thanks for sharing.

    Cheers from a fellow german indiehacker who is doing nothing for marketing atm 🍻

  16. 2

    I hate to be that guy, but I haven't seen it mentioned ... how many of those users are paying? or are all of them paying customers?

    1. 2

      It's good that you point that out. Non of those users is paying as the worksheet is free for now. I think it was a mistake to not add payment straight away as mentioned in the post with the metrics (linked in the post).

      My intention with this article was to show how important it is to tell the right people about what you're building. Before I started to do that, I was about to abandon the worksheet as I thought it worthless (no one was using it). Marketing was the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Now, through feedback and metrics, I know that some users are using the worksheet multiple times a week. So I guess for them it's not worthless. The next step for me is to find out if they value it enough to pay for it.

      1. 1

        You are off to a great start, maybe next test $5 paid option. Unfortunately going from free tool to authenticated paid tool with users is much more complex and possibly expensive, that’s where I am at the moment trying to figure out the most cost effective way of doing that easily

        1. 1

          Yes, I'm kind of afraid of doing it 😂 wahr are you building? I would be glad to hear how you approach it.

  17. 2

    Great post, really enjoyed reading it. Did you speak to teachers before building out the MVP or did you do anything else to validate the problem or product before you spent time building it? Would love to understand more of what your process was there too.

    1. 1

      Glad to hear that you enjoyed reading it ☺

      Yes, I interviewed about 20 teachers before I built the MVP. My initial idea changed a bit through the interviews. I wish I had read the mom test before I did them. Currently I'm interviewing again to figure out how to improve the product. It's hard to stay away from building though 😂

  18. 2

    Thanks for sharing your insights with us and the inspiration. Your message is so simple and straightforward. Love that!

  19. 2

    Thank you for sharing your story and tips. I am close to completing my MVP and will be looking for early adopters next. Curious if you ever considered paid online advertising and how that could supplement your cold emails?

    1. 1

      I tried ads for a different product once and it didn't work out at all. I'm not considering advertising at the moment because I think it's really hard to do right and I don't have any real experience with it. I'm all in on getting word of mouth and SEO to work (with own educational content and user generated content, eg 10 best worksheets for Roman history). @levelsio is a great inspiration for that.

  20. 2

    I am building something. This is something I am definitely going to try this for my first saas . Thanks for sharing. 🔥

  21. 2

    gold advice, thanks for sharing and congrats for the milestones. btw may I know a real example email you are using to outreach?

    1. 3

      I updated the article with an example email ☺ hope it helps.

  22. 2

    Good insight. Love how you have broken the ice with those five emails, and as the result, you got much more active users. I might try the same.

  23. 1

    Thanks for the article! I will send out a few mails this week for a few bloggers to test out my app(s). I don't want to directly ask them to mention them somewhere, just give me feedback on the apps and then see where this leads to :)

  24. 1

    Thanks for sharing the email template!

  25. 1

    This is definitely something I will try. Thanks!

  26. 1

    Wow! Quite an impressive way of marketing! Thanks for sharing

  27. 1

    Very inspiring. Love it

  28. 1

    Now this is, a down to earth kind of advice. 🎉
    Love it, very inspiring

  29. 1

    This is cool. Thank you a very new idea for me to try

  30. 1

    This is wonderful. We are definitely going to try it out for https://reinforz.ai
    We still don't have an affiliate link yet, but seriously considering one after reading the other comments.

  31. 1

    Great post! Eventually, you could possibly include an affiliate link to further incentivize bloggers to write about your app. Probably overkill for now, but could be worth it down the road.

    To your point about avoiding the marketing piece-- I definitely struggle with that too. Part of my thinks it's cause I'd rather be building something, another part of me knows that it's just my unwillingness to put myself/product out there. Good luck!

  32. 1

    I like the way you share and that would be Inbound Marketing using free marketing channels, of course SEM or PPC as needed. I will apply your method to my Fordeer: Invoice Order Printer product. Our product works on Shopify and it is very specific, if possible suggest me effective marketing methods on this platform.
    Here is the product link: https://apps.shopify.com/fordeer-data-export?st_source=autocomplete
    Try it now and give us suggestions for improvement. Thank you.

  33. 1

    It seems like nowadays you have integrated payments into your site. Don't mind sharing how much revenue your site now generates?

    1. 1

      It's about 100 Euro MRR. The free plan is enough for most users, so no big pressure for free users to upgrade.

  34. 1

    I will definitely try this, for my next app release! simple and direct, thanks for sharing!

  35. 1

    Nice informative post.. Thanks for sharing your experience. We are building a no-code platform for backend development. We are in our early alpha stage. We can do custom integrations and support based on customer requirements.
    We shall definitely try out the methodologies as we re looking for early users and initial feedback of our product.

  36. 1

    Thanks a lot @PaintedPike ! this is very insightful.
    If you don't mind, could you share the email formate/copy you used to convince authors to review your tool?

    1. 2

      Thanks a lot @TamerOkail.
      I already appended a translated version of the copy to the end of the article.

      1. 1

        Awesome! thank you very much for that!

  37. 1

    Thanks for sharing! This is something I should try as well :)

  38. 1

    Thanks a lot for sharing, Malte. It's quite useful.

  39. 1

    This is an awesome post. I'm in the same boat as you were (waiting for the users to come). And some have come, but I need to do outreach so I appreciate the ideas. I'm going to reach out to 5 people like you did.

  40. 1

    Thank you for sharing. I'm thinking of building a Simple Inventory Management Web App. This really gave me some things to think about in terms of marketing( I have no idea or experience with marketing).

  41. 1

    Thank God for people who post actually useful marketing advice. Well done!

  42. 1

    I did something similar but did not occur to me to try to reach people who were writing about how to solve the problems my product is solving. Gotta fix this today :D Thanks

  43. 1

    Amazing!!! Congrats on getting the initial users

  44. 1

    Awesome post @PaintedPike! I recently reached out to 8 blogs who wrote these types of articles for my niche (LinkTree Alternatives).

    Still waiting to hear back from them but glad to know that this type of outreach leads to more traffic.

    1. 1

      Wish you good luck 🤞and would be interested how it works for you and if it doesn't what your explanation is.

  45. 1

    Very helpful, I'm feeling lucky that I read it. Thank you for sharing 🙏

  46. 1

    Simple and effective, great story and advice. I'm like you and am happy just building away, but these posts help me remember the other things I have to focus on once I have a working app. Thank you!

  47. 1

    Thanks! I'll definitely be adapting this for myself!

  48. 1

    This is really practical advice. Thanks

  49. 1

    Thank you for the advice.

    After reading the comments, I feel like there is a small problem/opportunity here - reaching to authors. I am sure there are some tools out there, but i wonder if there is a tool that you can paste list of URLs and cold email outreach starts.

  50. 1

    I like worksheet.digital. Good idea, good post. Good work!

  51. 1

    Thanks, is very insightful!

  52. 1

    if you are looking for a co-founder, you will find him/her.
    https://www.bherebthere.com/

  53. 1

    Really cool idea. Thanks for sharing.

  54. 1

    thanks for sharing!

  55. 1

    Anyone know any bloggers who talk about calendar tools?

  56. 1

    This is exactly what I was looking for 😍❤️

  57. 1

    Just think small to begin with. Don't overthink it. Try to think of getting from zero users to 1 user -- then from 1 user to two users. Baby steps. Go to where your users hangout and help them solve the problems that are giving them pain. That's how we are building https://fabform.io our backend forms SAAS. Think small baby steps!

    1. 1

      I have a product that does the same thing called https://obeatow.me

  58. 1

    Thank you for sharing your experience

  59. 1

    Good advice. I actually tried doing this last week but the author was UNREACHABLE, lol, no Twitter, no presence, nada.

    So the "approachable" part is important.

  60. 1

    While it sounds great, unfortunately on most of the blogs that are relevant to me, I am unable to contact the author directly.

    1. 1

      Same problem I ran into, some generic freelance writer without any credentials or contact info. Unfortunately the listicle is ranked high in SEO. 😞

    2. 1

      Why? are you sure you tried everything?

    3. 1

      In europe you need to have contact details in the imprint of a page. That's where I got details from if there was not contact section on the page.

      What niche are you in? I imagine that this approach is way harder in more competitive spaces.

      1. 1

        Sadly the contact details of a page does not the same as the contact details of the article author. We have a freelance marketplace: tasquitos.com

        1. 1

          Yes, I assume there's way more competition between freelancing marketplaces than between worksheet builders. Getting mentioned in a post like “Top 10 freelancing marketplaces” sounds way harder.

          With the worksheet.digital, I focus on the creation of interactive worksheets for smartphones and tablets. Competing products I'm aware of rather concentrate on the creation of printable worksheets. This distinction helped me find good articles I wanted the tool to be mentioned in.

          BTW: I like the look and feel of your site.

          1. 1

            It's great that you like Tasquitos.

  61. 0

    I found this post to be very inspiring and motivating. I can relate to the author's experience of feeling satisfied with building alone, but also knowing that marketing is important for reaching a wider audience and getting feedback to improve your product.

    The author's example of reaching out to bloggers is a great example of how to start with marketing. It's a low-barrier-to-entry way to get your product in front of potential users and get feedback.

    I also appreciate the author's honesty about his struggles with marketing consistency. It's a common challenge that many people face, and it's helpful to know that you're not alone.

    Overall, I think this post is a great resource for anyone who is looking to get started with marketing their product.

    Here are some additional thoughts:

    It's important to set small, achievable goals for your marketing efforts. Don't try to do too much too soon.
    Find a marketing method that you enjoy and that fits into your workflow.
    Don't be afraid to experiment and try new things.

  62. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago

  63. 2

    This comment was deleted 9 months ago

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    This comment was deleted 9 months ago

    1. 2

      I had the idea because I was learning about SEO and was thinking about how to get quality backlinks. It's not that I consciously decided that this is the way of marketing that works for my product. Im also trying and learning about other channels.