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bkoHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I found the only thing that reliably works is direct sales

… I found the only thing that reliably works is direct sales. Find people that could potentially use your product and message them. Find them in forums, chats, email, LinkedIn, wherever. If I had something I was into or did and someone took the time to reach out to me to try to show me something they built in a personal way, I would definitely be receptive. Online stuff is cheap. I built products, posted on Reddit and had literally thousands of people come to my site. Not one person bothered to go to the home page and ask "what is this product". And this was when there were a lot fewer bots and scrapers. No ones going to use your product because he saw some crap on TikTok. It's cheap engagement

Original discussionAsk HN: How do you handle marketing as a solo technical founder?112 source comments · at import
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LA
lazarkapHN

I've shipped multiple products over the past few years. Every single one followed the same pattern: build, post, get 12 likes from friends, a bit of organic traction, then nothing. Back to coding a new thing. I know I need marketing help but giving equity to someone I met online feels like a huge risk. At the same time hiring a paid marketer when you have zero revenue feels just as scary. And I'm not dancing on TikTok, that's for sure. Have any of you actually taken on a marketing co-founder? What made you say yes to that person specifically? Was it their track record, the way they pitched, a trial period first?

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kmoserHN

> No ones going to use your product because he saw some crap on TikTok. It's cheap engagement If your product is a wellness product or app, that's like catnip for a TikTok influencer. If it's a B2B SaaS, probably the opposite.

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LA
lazarkapHN

Platform where technical founders post their live products and marketers pitch to join as co-founders or paid partners. Built it because I kept running into the exact problem in my post. Not live yet but close. I think I am definitely gonna try the direct sales approach, to try and fill out the platform once its ready.

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NI
nick_jonasHN

Agree. But I'd like to add one more thing. Just like you, I developed a product and posted about it on Reddit, and received a ton of upvotes and comments in just over ten minutes. So I knew I was in the right place. But then, moderators deleted my post cause they don't like promotion here. I've tried X, youtube and other social medias. But it's like shouting in a crowded train station—no one can hear me. So I think it's hard to harness the leverage of online marketing right from the start. Perhaps we should reach out to each customer one by one during the first phase.

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