If you are a Solopreneur who sucks at marketing
Hey, this is Dan.
I noticed that most pre-profitable Solopreneurs struggle with the same problems.
That’s why I wrote this self-help marketing guide.
It’s not a silver bullet to start earning $100,000/mo. But rather a simple framework to get unstuck.
Have a question? DM it to me :)
Cheers!
NEW: Just published a no-BS guide “20 marketing changes to get unstuck”
Your marketing starts the day you pick your product idea.
Some products can reach $5000/mo. Some can’t (or it will take you 5 years and 2 burnouts).
This is what a good product idea looks like:
But most importantly — you are building a painkiller and not a vitamin.
Painkiller ideas
Vitamin ideas
If you can take away one lesson from this document — KILL YOUR VITAMIN PRODUCT AND BUILD A PAINKILLER.
Not sure if you have a painkiller or a vitamin?
Use our free Idea Validator. It will return you brutally honest feedback (might make you cry)
This is a rare case when the grass is greener on the other side.
Don’t have any product ideas?
Too attached to your product to kill it?
Do a one-month pause, then. Build a product to scratch your itch.
If it fails, you can always come back to your vitamin piece of crap.
Okay, this will be boring.
I hate the idea of “launch and see what sticks”
It’s a dumb dream sold by Indie Hackers who build products for other Indie Hackers.
If your audience is not on Twitter / Product Hunt, it will be a failure 98% of the time.
I don’t expect you to generate a 50-page business plan. This is dumb, too.
But please spend 10 minutes answering these questions (it’s a bare minimum)
7 questions.
Can’t do it?
Go to our Free Business Plan Generator and get your answers in 10 seconds.
Answer them, and you will avoid 90% of stupid mistakes (“our product is for everyone”, “we don’t have any alternatives”, etc)
If you lean towards the generic answer — stop for a moment.
This is not a coincidence. You just don’t understand your audience well enough.
Do something about it:
Here is a thing.
If you launch a commodity product that isn’t different in any way, your audience will ignore it.
You need to have an angle.
And this angle shouldn’t be there just for the sake of it.
It should be there because your audience wants it.
That’s what marketing strategy is about.
You won’t go viral on the launch day.
The Product Hunt launch traffic will be over in one week.
There are no shortcuts. You need to have a proper mix of marketing channels.
This is a very simple framework to get high-quality traffic daily (16 mins video).
But here’s what I recommend trying.
Getting first customers
This is usually enough to validate the idea and get initial traction.
Don’t be obsessed with it.
Marketing Strategy Generator made:
The real fun starts after the launch.
Here are some channels I know worked well for Solopreneurs
And here are some channels that I think are not the best for Solopreneurs
Note — there is not silver-bullet marketing channel.
Some people will get 0 results with cold emails. Some people will have a $50,000/mo business that thrives on emails.
You need to find out what works for your business.
Are you a developer?
80% chance your landing page is shit.
I know life is unfair.
Let’s fix it.
Here are proven tips to improve it.
Good landing page = Good conversion rate = Happy Founder
By the way, this free tool gets you 30 unique Headings 1 for your landing page.
And this free tool generates a product description without marketing gibberish.
Oh yes.
Do you want to double your landing page conversion rate?
Jump on the call with 30 people who haven’t seen it.
Ask them to share the screen and comment on what they see.
You will suffer.
This will be the worst 15 minutes of your life.
But you will also learn a lot.
Solopreneurship is not easy.
Nothing will work on the first try.
Marketing channels will stop working.
Your audience will ignore you.
I can’t stress this enough — just try different things.
Product Hunt launch failed?
Okay, do some cold emails.
No response?
Conduct some interviews.
Found a pain point? Build a free tool for it.
Iterate-iterate-iterate.
Please, don’t expect your micro-SaaS to earn $5000/mo after 2 weeks of publishing blog posts.
It’s a long run.
Some months will be a plateau. Until you find out what’s working.
Sometimes you might even need to start again.
Maybe the product you’ve launched is good enough to earn $500/mo. But not $5000/mo.
This is the part of the journey.
Good luck!
How to write marketing copy?
It’s not that hard if you know what to write.
First, always start with an emotion. People don’t buy 4 features of the to-do app. They buy what can be achieved with a to-do app.
So, you open with a promise: Ship products faster, Increase your conversion, Feel calm, etc.
Don’t overpromise and don’t call yourself the best. Just say what your product can deliver.
Then, you want to decrease the BS with a rational self-explanatory description.
You promise to ship faster? Okay. What does your product do to make that happen?
It’s a NextJS boilerplate for SaaS. It has ready-to-use auth, Stripe integration, and landing page components.
Great. Emotional promise + Rational explanation.
And you do that every time you write your marketing.
Mix it with stories (about yourself or your customers), testimonials, and specific numbers, and you get interesting-to-read text.
What to avoid?
Good marketing copy = simple.
Don’t overcomplicate it with tricks and secrets.
Focus on understanding your audience and your product. Then, writing a good copy will be a breeze.
How to get feedback from the first users?
A proven way to get feedback.
Congrats, now you have your first traction.
You have social proof for the landing page and feedback to improve the product.
Need more?
Tweet about your product asking #buildinpublic to roast your product.
A lot of people will join.
How to do SEO?
That’s a big topic.
But ultimately it consists of 3 sub-questions
1. It can be blog posts (How to do marketing?), free tools (marketing ideas generator), and marketing pages (Marketing platform for agency owners).
Usually, you will need all of them.
But if you are just getting started — try free tools first.
It’s easy to build, relatively easy to rank, and definitely easier to use as a promotion of your paid products.
How to find good keywords for tools / blog posts / marketing pages?
Do keyword research.
In short, you need to find keywords that your audience ALREADY uses to find interesting content.
If everyone searches for “marketing strategy generator” and not “marketing ideas generator”, you need to build a tool for the former.
I use Keywords Everywhere and SEO Stuff to find good keywords. They are very cheap compared to Ahrefs / Semrush.
I also created a collection of 200,000 lead magnet keywords at Lead Magnet Examples. So you don’t have to do keyword research.
Focus on keywords that are relevant to your product, have existing demand, and not very high competition.
2. Content is nothing without links.
Google needs to know your content is good. And the easiest way to figure it out — do other websites link to your content?
It’s a very reasonable approach if you think about it.
That’s why everyone is obsessed with backlinks.
Again, there is a lot of content about getting them (80% is BS).
What you can really do tomorrow:
You can also buy backlinks — but I’ve never done it.
3. Optimizing websites.
Developers on Twitter are obsessed with getting all 100s on PageSpeed report.
I’ve never done a single optimization for FounderPal.
Good way to procrastinate your marketing week though.
How to do email marketing?
1. Build a free tool that collects emails
2. Write a sequence for those who left an email
3. Write a sequence for those who signed up for your product
4. Write a sequence for those who purchased
5. Send a weekly / monthly newsletter to all emails
We use ConvertKit for email marketing. It’s pricey but super powerful.
How to do paid ads?
Make sure that you need ads.
Facebook Ads / Google Ads = regular people.
These are not your typical early adopters.
They need polished landing pages, a lot of social proof, and multiple touchpoints.
IF YOU ARE JUST GETTING STARTED, YOU DON’T NEED TO DO ADS.
You will just waste your time and money.
Focus on sharpening your positioning and improving your marketing funnel.
Absolutely sure you need more website visitors?
Get ready to experiment with every headline and creative in ads.
I know that Nico is a Facebook Ads god.
That’s it.
Is it okay to build tools for Indie Hackers?
Sure, if you are okay with your target audience being broke.
Also, Indie Hackers are the small market that tends to build internal tools for themselves.
Perfect for being stuck at $300/mo.
Do people still read emails these days?
Yes, they do. Just as they search on Google and click on Facebook Ads.
You are not your customer. You are building the tool (a rare pattern for an average person)
Market to regular people, not to yourself.
Can I skip audience building?
Sure. It’s not mandatory.
Audience building just helps to grow faster
Leverage is important for Solopreneurs.
Especially when you compete with VC-backed businesses that have budgets and teams.
That’s why I recommend everyone to do audience building. Just don’t rely 100% on it.
What should my marketing look like?
Here’s a simple framework.
Every week, you either:
Pick one goal for your week. It will be easier to come up with relevant tasks.
If you are unsure how to approach your marketing problem — try our free Marketing Problem Solver tool.
Is content marketing still a thing?
Marketing = content + links to your product
Ads are content. Emails are content. Tweets are content. SEO tools are content.
You need to be good at getting attention and providing free value.
That’s what content marketing is about.
Should I do SEO before getting my first customer?
Usually, no.
SEO takes months to kick in.
But you want to get the idea validation sooner (days, ideally). There are better ways to do it.
Also, if you pivot your product (which happens a lot), most of your SEO efforts will go to zero.
SEO is awesome (I do a lot of SEO).
But it’s better after getting the first customers.
Should I do paid ads before getting my first customer?
Usually, no.
Ads are awesome, but they are 100% dependent on the quality of your marketing funnel.
If you are unsure about your landing page, ads will just burn your money.
First, get a stable marketing funnel. Second, calculate how much you can spend per customer. Then, do ads.
Can I just build a good product that will market itself?
You should build a good product.
But it’s not enough.
Every niche has hundreds of “good products” that compete for the same customer with a limited budget.
You still need to get website visitors and convert them to purchase. That’s on marketing.
So, just do both.
Should I charge one-time payments or subscriptions?
Here’s a very detailed and nuanced essay about one-time payments.
I read that your “X” advice is wrong. Have anything to say?
Everyone is right. And everyone is wrong.
I share my experience and the experiences of Founders I know personally.
If something is working for you, I am happy for you.
This document is a starting point for Solopreneurs who can’t make anything work.
Simplifications are necessary here.
Please.
Don’t buy any of these things TO START.
You can start for $0 today.
Consider getting them when you understand you have a problem that needs to be solved.
FounderPal — personal AI marketing assistant to grow your business
[New] Lead Magnet Examples — find free tools ideas from 200,000 lead magnet keywords
Landing Page Roasting — get a 20-minute audit of your landing page (brutal and actionable)
1-1 Marketing Consultation — have a 60-minute call with me about your business
I also shitpost on Twitter for free.