What's New: Boosting sales through thought leadership

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Boost sales by establishing yourself as an authority in your field:

• Becoming a thought leader requires having a deep understanding of your industry. Conduct original research to offer key insights that others can't.
• Need some fresh inspiration for your next marketing campaign? Check out these effective growth hacking examples from the giants.
• Built in a month, validated in 2 weeks, then quit her full-time job. Sveta Bay builds for just one audience, and is now at $20K MRR.

Want your product seen by over 85,000 founders and businesses? Sponsor an issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter. Choose between 3 affordable tiers that can fit almost any budget.

Positioning Yourself as a Thought Leader 🧠

by Syed Balkhi

Becoming a thought leader is a great way to establish yourself as an authority and trusted voice in your field!

Defining thought leadership

Thought leadership is when an individual or firm establishes credibility and influence on a key topic within their industry. A thought leader offers unique insights and progressive ideas that shape conversations and impact decisions.

You need to have a deep understanding of your industry and its current trends, and have the foresight to anticipate future developments. You should also be able to share all these insights in a way that resonates with your audience. This can be through writing articles, giving presentations or speeches, participating in panels or podcasts, or creating meaningful connections with others in your field.

Create valuable content

To be seen as a thought leader, you need to consistently create high-quality, original content that provides unique perspectives and insights:

• Focus on addressing pain points and providing solutions. Offer actionable takeaways that people can implement.
• Conduct original research, create surveys, or produce interviews to provide data and insights that others don't have access to.
• Share your informed opinions, perspectives, and analysis on industry trends.
• Confront challenges from different angles that others haven't considered.
• Turn your expertise into guides, e-books, templates, infographics, and other resources.
• Find the right cadence, and aim for consistency. No matter which platform you choose, remember to post and engage regularly.

Get published

Getting your content published in reputable industry blogs, online publications, and news outlets is a great way to build your reputation.

Guest post on industry blogs and secure features in online publications. Build relationships with industry editors to share your articles, and suggest tailored content ideas.

Public speaking

• Speak at conferences and events: Identify relevant conferences and submit speaker proposals. Focus on niche events related to your expertise.
• Webinars and podcasts: Hosting webinars or guesting on podcasts allows you to share your insights with interested listeners.
• Build a speaker kit: Create a one sheet media kit that summarizes your expertise and speaking history. Include a professional headshot, and offer case studies, sample presentations, and testimonials.

Networking and PR

Here are some tips for networking strategically:

• Attend industry events: Look for conferences, meetups, and other events where you can connect with others in your field. Prepare a short pitch about your expertise so you're ready to share when you meet new people.
• Join professional associations.

As far as PR goes, connect with journalists in your industry. Find reporters, bloggers, and influencers who cover your field, and engage with them on social media.

In addition, create press releases to announce your major accomplishments, and share them with relevant media outlets. If you don't know which media outlet to contact, use PR Newswire or similar services.

Wrapping up

As you build your platform and establish yourself as a thought leader, it's important to measure the impact of your efforts. Be sure to track your metrics, including traffic, social media engagement, and content reach. Regularly assessing these metrics will help you refine your approach and maximize your influence.

Remember, this is a long-term strategy. Don't give up after creating just a few pieces of content, or having a slow start. Consistency is key!

Discuss this story.

Accelerate Time-to-Launch With Product Ops Done Correctly 💡

This issue is sponsored by Nylas

Product ops coach and consultant, Antonia Landi, is sitting down with two product experts at Nylas to discuss what it takes to implement product ops at the right time, and with the most effective approach.

Sit down for this 30 minute conversation to discover:

• The signs that your team needs (or isn’t ready for) dedicated product operations to bridge strategy with execution.
• Techniques to interview internal stakeholders and uncover gaps that hinder productivity.
• Practical advice on tools and processes to enhance transparency, efficiency, and teamwork.

See you there on April 18!

Growth Hacking Examples to Inspire You 💪

by Akshay Raveendran

Draw inspiration from these growth hacks for your next campaign!

Puma

Puma asked Pelé to tie his shoes before kickoff, and he did it. As expected, the cameras focused on Pelé and his Pumas. This might be the best case of influencer marketing to this day.

Takeaway: Ask yourself who, when, and where. Who can introduce your product to your target audience best? When is the right time, and which channel can you use to get maximum exposure?

Unsplash

Unsplash has category called “Collections," where they invite (mostly) micro-influencers to pick their favorite photos and create a collection.

Then, Unsplash promotes the collection on the website, newsletter, and social media platforms. The chosen influencers share their collections with their followers, and Unsplash gets free exposure through tons of user-generated content.

Takeaway: People like to be praised and be the center of attention. Use this to benefit from other people's audiences.

Gmail

If you were an early adopter of Gmail, you remember that you could only create a Gmail account if a friend invited you.

Each referrer had a limited amount of invites, which made it more exclusive, triggering FOMO.

Takeaway: Understanding behavioral psychology is a great asset for a growth hacker.

Crif Dogs

Crif Dogs is a hip place known for its innovative hot dogs. There is a strange vintage phone booth corner in the restaurant.

One day, a person walked in and used the rotary dial phone, prompting a secret door to open up to a cozy bar. The bartender treated him with a tasty cocktail, and handed him a card that said: "Please Don't Tell."

Of course, the person shared this experience with all of his friends, and it caused a chain reaction. This word-of-mouth marketing strategy transformed the place into one of the busiest bars in New York City.

Takeaway: If you can make someone feel special with a big secret, you can create a community of loyal brand advocates.

Crimibox

Crimibox is an online interactive detective game. They prepared a Facebook chatbot quiz called: "Which detective is hidden inside you?"

Crimibox asked several questions in the chatbot to help people find their inner detective. At the end of the quiz, they directed them to the crime scene to solve the case. The crime scene was on Kickstarter.

Crimibox increased its subscribers from 2K to 10K in 15 days, and successfully launched on Kickstarter!

Takeaways:

1. It was super targeted.
2. People always fall for personality quizzes.

HubSpot

HubSpot created a free tool that measures your site's performance by grading key factors like SEO, mobile performance, and so on. Then, it gives you tips to optimize your site.

People shared this tool with each other, and it got lots of backlinks and attention on social media.

Takeaway: Create little add-ons, apps, and tools that solve a problem for your target audience.

Discuss this story.

In the News 📰

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🎯 The most effective LinkedIn posts.

🤖 Automated roadmap presentations possible with AI. #ad

📚 Planning research with generative AI.

💻 Making the most out of your SEO audit.

🤝 Crucial strategies for promoting team collaboration.

🏠 Interior design modifications that make WFH better.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

Don't Just Throw Spaghetti and See What Sticks 🍝

by James Fleischmann

Sveta Bay is a marketing expert who built a product in a month, validated it in two weeks, then quit her job. Two years later, she and her partner are at $20K MRR doing what they love: Building marketing tools for solo founders.

Don't throw spaghetti

"Launch and see what sticks" is a bad strategy. It's easier to achieve good results faster with a great strategy, and research.

Before launching FounderPal, we spent a month interviewing solo founders to understand how to solve their problems effectively. Before finding the right solution, we had a couple of ideas that failed during the beta process.

The first strategic decision concerns the audience you want to build products for. We build products for one audience (solo founders), so we don't need to research and test the market all the time.

The advantage of building for one audience is that you never start from zero. Even if one of your products fails, you have niche knowledge that you can use in building the next product.

Another important strategic decision is around how you will grow the product. Many founders have a product idea and start building right away, without any strategy in mind. After months of building, they finish, then realize that they have no idea how to sell it.

Starting from zero

I started my indie hacking journey with my cofounder and husband, Dan Kulkov, in May 2022.

At the time, my job was planning to relocate me to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. I realized that I didn't enjoy working on the project, and relocation sounded like a big commitment.

We launched a simple product (MakerBox, which has marketing guides, courses, and templates for solo founders) while working full-time. We decided that if we could make at least $1, we would quit our jobs and double down on indie hacking. It took us a month to build and launch the product. We monetized it with a one-time payment ($19), and made ~$2K in two weeks.

At that time, our ramen profitability was $1.5K MRR, so it was an easy decision to quit our jobs. Over the course of 19 months, its total revenue is at $126K+.

Our core product now is FounderPal, which provides AI-powered marketing tools for solo founders. We started to work on it in April, made a couple of pivots, and launched in September. Since launching, we've made $57K+.

We also exited with SponsorThisNewsletter in March. We had earned $6.7K+ with it, but I can't share how much we sold it for. The newsletter niche is very complex, and it needed full-time attention. So, we sold it on Acquire.com. The whole process was very smooth and fast. It took around one week from listing to selling, and one more week to get the money in our bank account.

The growth formula

This growth formula works like magic:

1. Choose your target audience.

2. Build a simple product, not a SaaS. It can be a digital product, e-book, community, directory, email course, or any other content-based product.

3. Grow your brand on the platforms where your audience spends time. Just share your learnings and expertise, and connect with people to gain more insights about your audience.

After that, you'll probably find a SaaS idea you're excited about because you'll know your audience and their pains very closely.

15 hard-earned marketing tips

1. Keep launching products for one audience.

2. Upsell customers with high-ticket productized services.

3. Build free AI wrappers to promote your paid products.

4. Focus on nailing one acquisition channel before adding a second one.

5. Make TikToks or write tweets instead of publishing blog articles.

6. Ask 20 users to roast your landing page.

7. Give your product to five people for free to collect positive testimonials.

8. Launch on Product Hunt only when you are 100% sure about your funnel and pricing.

9. Know when to charge one-time payments vs. monthly subscriptions.

10. Forget about brand marketing, design systems, and multiple social media presences.

11. Build products that you understand how to grow, not just how to build.

12. Don't target the X bubble; focus on regular people with money.

13. Spending one hour on unique positioning will be more important than any product feature.

14. Write marketing copy that sparks emotions (even if you sell B2B SaaS).

15. Avoid commodity design (photo stock images, illustrations, basic templates, etc.).

Discuss this story.

The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Syed Balkhi, Darko, Akshay Raveendran, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing