It has helped in marketing my startup, and growing to $3mn+ revenue.
But when I started in 2018, I had 0 online presence.
I went from 0 to 1259 subscribers. In a week. Without writing a word of content.
Full story of how I did it 🧵
1/ Deciding what to write
I had been writing software for 6 years & building products for my own startup for 3 years. I thought people might be interested to read my take on how to build tech products.
As a first, I wrote down topics for 10-12 issues of this newsletter.
2/ Getting public validation
I had no validation if people would want to read my newsletter. I didn't want to end up writing 5-10k words & not having anyone to read it.
So I put up a public post announcing that I am starting a newsletter & a glimpse of what to expect.
3/ Choosing the platform
This was fairly straightforward. I wasn't very active on social media in 2018 & LinkedIn was the only place where I had connects. So it was the natural choice.
4/ Anatomy of the post - Hook
I chose Uber as an example since their engineering was being praised a lot then & the company was wildly popular.
My opening line was fairly simple & contained both my key words i.e. 'Uber' & 'Engineering'
5/ Anatomy of the post - Engagement
I asked people to show interest by commenting on the post, which in turn helped with the reach.
6/ Anatomy of the post - Showing what's next
To pique curiosity & also to show what to expect, I shared the exact topics I would be writing about in the upcoming issues.
7/ Distribution on other channels
The moment I got initial validation, I decided to put up the same post on Facebook groups too.
There was 0 additional effort & I got a bunch of additional subscribers.
I regularly share content around products, marketing & startups, so consider: 1) Retweeting the first tweet 2) Following me :)
My startup has grown from 0 to $3 million+ revenue without spending $$ on paid ads.
I have done $0 or low budget marketing, using online channels effectively to market my products.
Here's a list of 10 such channels. A mega thread on my learnings over 4 years 🧵
10 channels over next 23 tweets: 1. Newsletter 2. SEO Blog 3. Guest Blog 4. Twitter 5. LinkedIn 6. Product Hunt 7. Hacker News 8. Reddit 9. Communities 10. Social Groups
Bookmark, grab a coffee & get reading!
Meanwhile, if you'd like to check my startup flexiple.com
1/ Newsletter
Email newsletters are evergreen. You interact with your audience on a channel they can never do away with.
‣ Define a clear goal for your newsletter - what value will your subscribers get?