(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
Growth hacking can be a great option for founders:
Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
When it comes to growth hacking, indie hackers either love or hate it. There's usually no middle ground.
Those who are against growth hacking say that you should focus on your users, build a beautiful product, and market it consistently. They see growth hacks as being short-sighted; quick sparks instead of a sustained burn.
Those who are for growth hacking feel that there's no reason not to do it. Growth hacks have been proven to skyrocket growth. You see it in case study after case study. What's wrong with short-term growth anyway, especially in early-stage companies?
I’ve been researching growth hacking for years, and I think that both sides are right. Every founder just needs to strike a balance.
Growth hacking essentially means finding creative ways to grow a company quickly and inexpensively. It often includes rigorous testing and experimentation, but in the indie hacker world, it's often less data-driven.
You cannot build a sustainable business with growth hacking alone. Your product needs to be at a certain level, and you need a solid strategy.
Also, you can grow a business without growth hacking. If you focus on building a beautiful product that is incredibly useful to your users, people will sign up, pay, stay, and tell their friends. But, it will probably take longer.
Growth hacking is about speed!
Don't invest your time growth hacking until you’ve done the following:
If you sink time into growth hacking before doing the above, you’re probably just wasting your time.
You need a solid foundation in order for growth hacks to work in a way that actually helps your business long-term. Once you have that foundation, then start growth hacking.
Once you’re in a place where you can start growth hacking, you’ll find hacks all over the internet. You’ll probably start dreaming up your own, too! But keep a few things in mind as you dive in:
There are so many growth hacks out there, but here are 10 solid ones to get your gears turning. Remember, they are not one-size-fits-all:
What are your thoughts on growth hacking? Let's chat below!
Discuss this story.
from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko
🤖 AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines.
👀 The metrics that matter most in B2B marketing.
🖐 Five rules of thumb for UI web design.
📖 The Performance Max Interactive Guide for Google Ads API.
💔 Couples who meet on dating apps are more likely to divorce early.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
from The Hustle newsletter by Julia Janks
The Signal: Help a Reporter (HARO) connects reporters, bloggers, and other content creators with industry experts who serve as sources for their writing.
It's a win-win: Writers find credible sources, and industry experts get free PR. Trendster Patrick Kucharson used the service to land his gift idea newsletter a mention in The New York Times' annual gift guide.
This may sound too good to be true, but many other Trendsters have successfully used HARO to get featured in publications like Women's Health, Forbes, Business Insider, and The Washington Post.
But it's not easy. After sifting through mountains of source requests (~300 a day), Patrick responded to 50 before he landed the NYT gig.
*Source: Trends Facebook group
This is what the Trends community has to say about using HARO, and other PR hacks:
1\. Craft the right response to source requests:
I really use the angle of being a pre-IPO PayPal employee to get journalists to open my emails.
2\. Use filters to save time:
Wading through ~300 source requests every day is a full-time job. According to Tyler Cook:
We use [HARO], and the only way I've found it to be effective is by setting up really specific inbox filters.
Here's a Loom from Tyler showing you exactly how he does it:
*Source: Tyler Cook's Loom
Use mail rules to send appropriate source requests to a specific email folder or address.
3\. Skip the middleman:
While PR experts Dan Chan and Amie Sparrow have both had success with HARO, they agree that it can pay to skip the middleman.
Dan, who has been featured in The Hustle, BuzzFeed, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and Business Insider, uses LinkedIn Sales Navigator to pitch journalists.
I often keep in contact with reporters, and feed them interesting tidbits to start conversations on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. It's all about top-of-mind awareness.
If you're just starting out, Dan recommends going after local media and smaller publications first:
It's easier to get their attention, and you'll get better at telling your story each time you get featured. Also, consider pitching your school or alumni association, as they love to feature successful alumni.
Amie leverages IFTT (If This, Then That) to mine Twitter for PR leads. She creates a spreadsheet with tweets containing the hashtag #JournoRequest, searches for relevant keywords, and contacts the reporter directly.
According to Amie:
My response rate is way higher when I email the journalist directly via email, versus contacting them via HARO with everyone else.
Here's a Loom from Amie showing you exactly how she does it!
Have you had success with landing PR? Share your experience below!
Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.
from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry
The old way ("Enough of this...”) versus the new way (“It's time for a new doc...”):
Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.
Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.
Hi, founders! I'm Niklas Wenzel, and I built and launched CheckoutBreeze, a Chrome extension for Shopify developers, in 14 hours.
Here's how I did it!
While co-developing a Shopify app, I had to make a lot of test purchases. I quickly grew tired of mindlessly clicking through the checkout flow and entering payment details.
This consumed a lot of time and, more importantly, was a distraction from focusing on the issue at hand. Context switching can be a pain.
To solve this issue, I decided to write a quick Chrome extension that would automatically click through the Shopify checkout flow.
I had never developed a Chrome extension, so I asked ChatGPT to create a first draft for me. The actual code it produced was useless, but it gave me the basic file structure of a Chrome extension. That saved me 30 minutes of reading documentation.
The rest consisted of writing various DOM mutations:
It currently only works on Shopify stores, not yet on Wix stores. But I'm open to making a version for Wix stores, too!
Publishing the extension was quite easy, due to Google’s good documentation.
However, extensions require manual review before being listed on the store. In my case, this delayed publishing by one day, which was totally acceptable.
I sent the extension to the developer whose Shopify app I had worked on. I already knew that he would find it useful, which was great. He’s been happily using it for a few days now!
I decided to monetize the extension indirectly.
Given that only ~500 people on this planet would ever find it useful, it would not make economic sense to spend a lot of time marketing the extension as a monthly subscription. Developers hate subscriptions, anyway.
Instead, I decided to use the extension to generate leads for my software development coaching and freelance services. After 15 years of software development, coaching other developers and doing freelance work pays far better than this extension ever could.
Discuss this story.
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.
Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to James Fleischmann, Darko, Julia Janks, Harry Dry, and Niklas Wenzel for contributing posts. —Channing
Good read! Thanks for posting
A very useful article. I like top 10 growth hacks!
So excited to discover Growth Bites and now I feel like I was living under a rock before this😍
interesting newsletter
and love the growth hacks
Thanks for reading!
Interesting article!
Will definitely implement some of them for our AI as a service tool Evoke once we launch our stable diffusion API and future API launches.
That’s awesome, Richard. Would love to see updates on Evoke!
Great read! thank you for sharing :)
Maybe I'll try some of these for my feedback tool ruttl in the future.
Thanks for reading, Harsh!