How I got 20 000 users in three months with $50
I launched my app Startup Timer on September 8th. Today, in the beginning of December, the app has had over 20 000 users and the app's website, https://startuptimer.com has grown from zero back-links and zero Domain Authority ranking to 213 back-links and 21 Domain Authority. With my marketing budget of $50, I think that’s pretty good.
Startup Timer is a lightweight, freeware app for Windows that measures how long it takes for a Windows PC to fully start up, and it also measures which of the installed apps are making the system start slower.
It’s a very simple and straightforward app that has a somewhat small niche audience but I would say the app does its job and it does it well.
Even though it’s a simple app, developing it took me about a month. It consists of about 16k rows of code and I made it as a side project after my normal work hours.
This is exactly what I did to launch it.
Firstly, I posted it here on Indie Hackers as well as on Reddit's /r/sideproejct/.
This was mostly, to be honest, just to collect feedback about the app and the website because I want to make them better. I believe in quality and that users will see the quality as well, that’s why in everything I do, I try to make it as good as I possibly can. That is how I implement MVP: For me, MVP means a product with minimal features, but those features are polished and they work perfectly.
Secondly, I did a press release. It’s very much of an old school method but I have had some success with it before. Basically, a press release needs to be written in a very specific format and then you pay someone to distribute it to different relevant media outlets, websites and freelance reporters.
I chose the press release distribution service from EIN Presswire. I bought a package of multiple press release distributions, so the price for one was just $50. Buying the distribution for just one press release would have been $100. There are also other press release distribution service providers and most of them were more expensive. I don’t know whether you get more if you pay more, that’s why I just spent $50.
The press release got picked up by quite a few news outlets. Nothing major but everything helps. This is how the press release reads like, by the way: https://world.einnews.com/pr_news/598094733/macecraft-software-launched-startup-timer
One thing to mention is that news outlets might notice your press release but not publish it, but they might still run a story about your product, either immediately or soon after. This makes it really difficult to measure the actual efficiency of a press release, because you cannot just count the number of websites that published your press release. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This is especially an important point in our case: the press release was sent out on October 27th and on October 31st the app was featured in a major German computer news website called Computerbase.de which provided my website with thousands of visitors. This happened only a few days after the press release, so I have to assume they saw the press release via the distribution service and that’s why they got interested and featured my product there. This goes to show that a press release can really help you even if the press release itself isn’t published by many websites.
The third thing I did was that I submitted the app to the best quality software download websites. Websites like download.com and the likes. This is a rather tedious process because you basically need to do the submission to these websites one by one, and the process is different for every website. Some sites make you sign up for an account, fill in a form and so on, while others have an email address you need to write to asking them to list your software.
It’s important to focus on quality over quantity. There are many software download websites which accept automated submissions, which means they are full of spam, malware and other junk you don’t want to be associated with.
And lastly, I did a simple cold contact campaign. Basically, I searched with relevant keywords for articles that mentioned my niche (“how to measure computer startup speed”, “how to make Windows start faster” etc.) and I contacted the first page search result websites with a good quality, hand crafted message saying that my new app would be a good fit for their existing content and this is possibly something you could say about it. And this actually worked: the app was getting featured by these websites that I contacted!
This is how I got 20 000 users in less than three months, with a marketing budget of $50. I would say that the main keyword here is quality. I worked a long time to test, fine-tune and polish my product and its website, to ensure they are good enough. Not good enough for me, but good enough for someone to actually use, share and recommend. And every marketing and promotional effort I did was also made with quality over quantity.
I believe if you work hard enough and you make something good enough, people will notice. And that being said, if you have any feedback about the app or its website, especially if there is anything I can do to make them better for your needs, please let me know!
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Thanks for sharing!
I did something similar:
When we released our app I joined a lot of FB groups that had our audience (women with pets) and started to invite them as beta testers.
They loved the app and spread it around to other groups whilst providing their own refer-a-friend link that they got inside the app.
It resulted in over 30k downloads in a month and snowballed from there.
We spent maximum of 100 dollars (on some competition prizes), sometimes we are lucky I guess.
Wow, never even thought of getting a press release before. Thanks for the insight
Love your attitude in the post and comments too. This is how everybody should think, quality over quantity. Good job!
Thank you! I try to do things as well as I can and do everything with the seriousness and care that I think it deserves.
Wow, did not know about paid press releases. That's an awesome tip, definitely beats trying to get #1 on Product Hunt haha.
Nicely done. Thanks for sharing. Just curious, do you monetize this app in any way?
Thank you! I built this for the love for building things. I might add a donation button one day, if it gets very popular.
Amazing, congrats! How do you plan to sustain and build on this growth moving forward?
Press release is old school but such a great idea, thank you!
Thank you for the walk-thru and referral to EIN. I don't understand PR but it sounds better than paying Google like I do now.
Wow great and simple product. Also makes me realize that these press release businesses seem to be pretty great themselves. Curious if you have bigger plans for Startup Timer or are looking towards the next project
Thanks for sharing this strategy. Do you think it'll work for a website with subscription plans?
Definitely going to try this method for the Press Release. I just posted in Reddit and actually saw a little spike on my website!
Those are some great details. Sounds like you had some good success with the press release. Interesting that a website seemed like an integral part of the success. Thanks for sharing!
Great work with the press release! I'm curious, have you ever experimented with product launch platforms like Product Hunt, and if so, how effective were they for you? Sometimes I wonder if these platforms are less ideal for niche products. It's fascinating to hear about this. Thanks for providing this insight; it's a valuable perspective on marketing strategies.
Pretty interesting, thanks for sharing!
good job about press release. Have you tried some product launch platforms like Product Hunt and how did it work out for you? Maybe these launch platforms are not suitable for niche products?
Really interesting. Thanks for sharing this. Effective marketing approach.
I think that you really know about your core target audience. That makes a big difference!
The better you know your target audience, the better your marketing will be.
Great job mate!
This was something unique and cool to learn about growth. Thanks.
Just tried it, golden !
Another gold post I found on IndieHackers!
Thanks for sharing this! It's a unique take in comparison to most advice I've found so far. We'll consider doing a press release as well.
Out of interest - did you try to measure how many people got to know about your app via word of mouth?
It seems that tech-savvy people would be eager to share such an app with their friends.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Thanks for the great information. I'm also in the software/dev tools space so this is really useful.
I think your idea of a press release was actually real good, well done
Nice!
Thanks for sharing your story.
refreshing, different from the usual story telling marketing techniques 🙏🏻
Awesome story very different from other marketing stories thanks for sharing!
Refreshing simple story in a world of social media marketing.
My cofounder doesnt believe in press releases but I will def be sending them this. thanks
Amazing story! Congrats on your huge success.
Seems interesting, will definately give it a shot for the SAAS product i am building.
This is brilliant, bookmarked!
The press release agency thing saved one of my products! I didn't know it was a thing, thank you. 😊
Thanks for sharing man, this is really helpful. I didn't even know that you could do a press release, I will definitely look into it.
Wow amazing, many interesting insights here! :)
That's sick, you did a great job! 🔥
Congrats, good job!
Amazing story and budgeting!
I already started something similar some time ago, definitely helpful.
Hey there, thanks for sharing your story! It's really inspiring to see how you managed to get 20,000 users with only $50. I'm curious, are those users still active? I actually discovered something helpful from your post, which is the prwire website. I had no idea that something like that existed, so thanks for mentioning it! I'm new to this forum, and I'm still learning the ropes, but I just wanted to say that your story really resonated with me. It's great to see someone who's so committed to quality over quantity, and it's really paid off for you. Keep up the great work!
ty very much great advices
Hi Jouni - incredible that this worked so well, congrats! Do you know if download.com and/or EIN Presswire work well for DTC brand/ecomm sites? Thinking of trying out this strategy
Oh man, this would've struck me as super sketchy but it's awesome that you've seen such success so quickly. I get it though, my desktop has felt like it's started up pretty slow lately... maybe I'll give this a shot myself!
Why, though?
Haha, just paranoia and assumptions / lack of understanding, probably! The first two thoughts I had were:
Anyway, both thoughts are probably entirely unwarranted. I did see that you had a portable version, and I was curious how that worked all things considered, but I was hoping for an FAQ to set my concerns to rest.
Had to bookmark this.
Congrats on your huge success.
Wish I can say something similar about me / my product, some time....
(not in 3 months though :)
Congratulations. Great post. You've raised some good points on how to get visibility for the project.
Congrats on the milestone! What kinds of projects would you recommend doing a press release for vs not?
I would do a Press Release when I have something newsworthy to say.
Hey I also wanted to do press release for my apps any tips?
Also I can't see 50$ press release option on einpresswire website
You get the 50 usd per release price if you buy a package with many, which brings the price down per release. I think they expire in one year, so do your math how many you will need and can use before they expire.
Did you write the press release on your own? On how many websites it was distributed to?
I had someone write the press release for me. Right now, the press release shows up in 90 websites that Google indexes. I checked this by just Googling using the exact headline of the PR.
This is the kind of budget I have for my business ( www.closeupchris.co.uk) so I'm happy to read you made a success of such a limited budget! Will look into EIN Presswire.
Nice you have done a great job the press release method is good but little money and time taking process but you have done it in a good way.
We are working on these strategies for our product Churnfree Customer Retention Tool. It's a SaaS tool helping membership businesses to reduce their customer churn and grow their MRR.
Hope to see this kind of result in a short time...
ha! that's a pretty cool idea. i'm still being pushed into restarting occasionally and it's always a bother when it takes too long.
Thanks for sharing and opening my mind of using the power of press releases. Respect you being a creator of freeware. God Bless
I think the strategies mentioned in this blog post are great ways to effectively market a software product with a limited budget. The press release distribution and submission to quality software download websites seem like particularly useful tactics that can lead to significant exposure and user growth.
Interesting approach, timing with PR played it well. Would you consider paid ads at some stage? Your product solves a real problem and I'm sure with a great ad you would skyrocket even more. Thanks for sharing the story Jouni!
I would probably be interested of doing some paid ad if the opportunity seemed good. Did you have any ads in mind?
the idea of a PR is interesting but I don't think it can always work. definitely it's your product that did more than half of the work to bring users.
Indeed, there are no "one thing fits all" solutions. Some methods work better for specific type products. Also, there is a lot of luck involved, too. The right person seeing your product the right time. It's not all luck, and the harder you work the more good luck you tend to have, but nevertheless, you'll also need some good luck.
agreed
Thanks for your release
Thanks for sharing, super insightful!
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks a lot for sharing your story, I learn about press which is a new thing for me to pick up :D
This is awesome!
Thank you for sharing this valuable growth hack! It's a great idea to try with a limited budget like $50. I was wondering if you had any recommendations for how to apply a similar strategy to a SaaS product like Curatora.io, which is a content curation tool. Additionally, do you have any suggestions for press release portals that are specifically geared towards promoting SaaS products?
Well, if you post your thing to the Landing Page Feedback area, I can give you some feedback about your current website. I think it has quite a few problems and I wouldn't think too much about marketing it before making the page itself better.
Sure thing, appreciate your feedback.
Here is the post seeking feedback.
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/seeking-feedback-on-our-landing-page-f563e26b59
awesome!
Great story. Congrats, and thanks for sharing helpful tips. Quick question:
and I contacted the first page search result websites with a good quality, hand crafted message saying that my new app would be a good fit for their existing content and this is possibly something you could say about it.How did you get their email IDs? and what was the response rate like? Also what was your email content like?
I would just look around their website to try to find the best possible contact method. Sometimes it was a generic "contact us" form, sometimes it was the name of the author of the story and then it was possible to find out their email address for contact.
The response rate was literally zero. Not a single reply. But, some of the articles we contacted about did get updated. This again goes to show that metrics are difficult. Even if you send out an email and there is zero reply, it doesn't necessarily mean it failed.
Generally speaking, instead of focusing too much on metrics, I rather focus on doing things which I know are good for me and are going to improve something, even if it's a little bit. When you keep doing things which are positive and improve something, that will add up sooner or later. Even if some metric shows zero.
Hi Jouni,
thanks for sharing! This sounds a lot better than similar priced backlink packages on Fiverr ;-)
Do you have any insights regarding the specific format for a press release? Are there any templates to follow?
Those backlinks are total crap. You can kill your DA.
There are many examples out there, the service provider that I used has some guidelines as well, under the "Quality Content" section here: https://www.einpresswire.com/editorial-guidelines
Congrats! Are you planning on monetising it?
I might add a "buy me a cup of coffee" donation button some day. I made this for the love of building things.
Fair enough :-)
Congrats on your success. Press releases are a great way to advertise your company. It also allows you to say that you've been featured on various networks which allows for more social proof. My background is in PR and I've written hundreds of press releases. Continued success to you.
Thanks for sharing! Good to know that press release is still impactful
Nice work, thanks for sharing!
Congratulations !! Interesting Story and PR Angle give us a new way of marketing for our SaaS Product :)
congratulations! I have to admit, the press release move is impressive.
By the end of the article I noticed it was freeware , does that mean you’re not monetizing ?
Thank you for sharing all this info and congratulations on the results.
It's freeware indeed. I'm building it for the love of building things. I might add a donation button one day.
Congratulations on your success and thank you for sharing your process here. I’m considering a press release at the moment so, reading about your results, I’ll definitely try it.
Super interesting, thanks!
Awesome! Media + Cold email are simple yet the most effective growth strategy imo.
I find it so interesting that you used an old fashioned press release. I would have never thought about that before, but will now!
This is some good advice! Would love to hear more. What are your plans with this app?
I will still have some more ideas of improving the app but after that, it's pretty much complete. I want to make these lightweight, simple, freeware apps. Right now, I'm finishing up a highly improved version of https://systemexaminer.com/ which is a bit relating Windows system utility app.
This is really some new way I've never thought of before. Gread work!
Excellent and congratulations on your success
Thanks for sharing :)
Never thought someone will say "Press Release helped us". That's a new one. Congratulations on the success 🎉🎉
Impressive, never knew press release could be this effective. Congratulations!
Thanks for this article, i was debating about the press release for my own project, but makes sense in the big picture as all things work.
First of all, great job! A very interesting read and I could learn something. Especially the press release for 50 USD. Seems like a not very expensive option to try ourselves.
This is amazing
Congrats and thanks a lot for sharing your road map! Will definitely take a page or two from your playbook! Of these steps, which one do you think was the most effective one /effective in terms of relevant customers? The press release and the indirect traffic from it ie the German computer website?
It's really difficult to say which method worked the best, because these things cannot really be tracked. But my gut feeling is that the press release was a key factor in making this launch work as well as it did.
Awesome, appreciate your open insight/gutfeel on it.
This is amazing. I thought about a press release recently for my current project, but dismissed the idea. I think I should reconsider!
Thank you for sharing, really interesting! 🙃
Congrats on your growth Jouni! Are you building in public on Twitter at all? If you should you definitely need to start it will get you even more exposure!
I appreciate you sharing this amazing insight / resources. I'm going to be using some of these tips for my product ZoZo (www.ZoZoApp.co).
going to be launching my business in about a month and really enjoyed this post. gave a ton of insight and have things I can take from this to implement
Thisis amazing. Thank you so much for sharing... very valuable information and definitely good advice to follow. I've just started my own project and working together with a few others i hoope to grow it just as much
good tips
One more question i have checked the press release price is $99 then how you got in $50?
When you buy Pro+, the price per press release will be $49.88
By buying a pack of multiple press releases, then the price comes down to $50.
how many press release you buy?
I bought 8 press releases for $399, which brings the price down to $50.
ahan ok its means the budget you spend is $399.
Can you use all 8 for the same product? Does it make sense?
You can, because if you buy a press release distribution service or a pack like this, they are valid for one year. So I used one out of 8, the remaining 7 I can use later on, for example one press release per month.
I'll probably use some of the remaining press release slots for my other products, though, such as for https://systemexaminer.com/ that I'm currently also now developing.
Thanks, it makes sense.
Excellent advice on press releases, thanks.
What did you use to create the actual site? The code looks hand crafted :)
I used Notepad. It's just pure PHP with some Bootstrap CSS and jQuery. I'm an engineer. I like things that are simple and functional.
What's the business model for your product?
The business model is to build things for the love of building things. This is a side project, so I'm not planning on making money with it. If this gets very popular, I might add a donation button, though.
love this
Great work. Inspirational. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Jouni, am unable to open the link!
Which one? The post has two links. If you mean the link to read the press release, you can find it from https://www.einpresswire.com/ and using the "News Search" feature from the top right corner with a search phrase "Startup Timer".
Ya got it...thanks! Good thought and very insightful.
Jouni I've found press release services to be underwhelming so it's nice to hear that someone actually got benefit from one. I was wondering is the software download website you mentioned work like Product Hunt?
Thanks for the great information and useful tips.
Michaelson Williams
Software download websites I was referring to are websites like download.com, softpedia.com, filehippo.com, soft32.com and the likes. Websites where people go to look for to dowload something they need. Product Hunt is a bit more generic, where you can post almost anything. I did also post my app to Product Hunt but I don't know whether I got much out of that. There are just so much things being posted there every day, it's very hard to stand out.
Thanks for getting back to my questions! I can see how these software download website could be helpful for some. I'm not producing a software product so PH seems like the best bet for me. I hope to read more about your success soon!
Thanks Again!
To be honest I always thought publishing a press release to EIN was like submitting a resume into the black hole of LinkedIn, so it's great to see that it can still have a massive impact. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing @jv16 but i have a question. You have 2 followers and 22 points what you have got from IH?
I have got some feedback as well as traffic to my two current projects (https://startuptimer.com/ and https://systemexaminer.com/). Not a lot, though.
how much traffic you got from IH and Reddit. And which time you select for reddit because I have done these thing but not get too much traffic. As per my knowledge time and followers matter. its taking time I think can you please help me in this matter?
I really liked the idea of contacting relevant article publishers, this is novel
Thanks for sharing and very helpful!
Thanks for sharing! Will definitely consider press release in the future!
dang, never thought of a press release... bookmarking this :)
Same!
Good work
where money
Not everything in life is about money.