🔥 From 0 to 4K Users: The Power of Community and Product Hunt

Sandra Djajic
39 replies
Almost a year has passed with Klu.so, including 2 launches on Product Hunt, and I want more! :D Wow, hello December, hello anniversary, nice to finally meet you! :D Okay, the Klu idea was formed in December; we had an MVP in two weeks, sold it to a few companies, and decided to fully embrace our mothers' disdain for our decisions and try to build a search engine for all your cloud-based apps. Wow, it was a super simple decision. When I first saw Klu, it looked like my own personal Google. I have connected my cloud-based apps like Slack, Notion, Trello, and Gmail, and from one search bar, I was able to find anything. It was great, but this is not why we are here. We are here to celebrate a year and to tell you how we started with marketing, and Product Hunt, and Twitter, and how that led us to where we are now. It feels like the beginning with too many lessons learned. Anyway, let's get into the story. Marketing for Klu was very difficult to form a right strategy because people need to give access to all of their cloud-based apps to someone who was super early stage and not backed by YC. :D So, I decided to make and build Klu public, to tell and share the good and the bad, and get people involved, because early-stage products don't usually work, and you discover that only by people telling it to you. So, the plan of action: 1. Build Klu in public: I pushed the Klu beta version to Twitter and started tweeting and talking every day about what we are trying to do, how we are building, and openly talked about the things that don't work. That formed a very nice initial community around Klu. 2. Product Hunt: Okay, the real deal happened when I decided to push Klu to Product Hunt on April 19th. :D That day is my new birthday. I wrote this many times, but it was not a one-day launch; it was five weeks of intensive work to make this happen. Every day, I would identify people who could benefit from using Klu – product managers, marketing people, sales, small and medium tech companies, people who are using multiple cloud-based apps daily (Gmail, Slack, Google Drive, etc.). These people became my best friends. I went all-in. I engaged and connected with them everywhere. I went into direct communication with them long before our launch, giving them Klu to test before the release. As I said, best friends. And then Product Hunt day happened on April 19th, my new birthday, and it was quite successful! :D Anyway, all of the people and companies I reached out to in these 5 weeks of preparation were the key people who have influenced the product development, the first people that made me happy when seeing Stripe notifications. Now we're here, building Klu.so, your own search engine that helps you from one search bar to find anything you need, email, Slack message, document in your drive, next meeting (Google Calendar integration landed yesterday). Yay! But we are still far from what we want Klu.so to be. So, if you have data apps in infractions and you want a freaking spotlight for cloud-based apps, I highly recommend trying and testing Klu. ALSO HAPPY DECEMBER!

Replies

Frances Reyes
Kudos on the Product Hunt success!
ISTIAK AHMAD
hey Sandra! happy December and Happy Klu-versary! your journey with Klu.so is nothing short of inspiring. Building in public, engaging with the community, and that Product Hunt launch strategy, pure genius! Excited to see Klu continue to evolve and revolutionize the search experience. cheers to more success, lessons learned, and a fantastic future ahead!
Yogita Gholap
Five weeks of intensive work of yours you explained is insightful. Thanks for sharing
Chad Carlson
Well said, love your approach and something we can attest to as well. Similar paths: we launched bloks.app on April 18, have had similar growth #s, with a large % still being attributed to Product Hunt. Community and PH for the win.
Angelina Motronenko
Wow! Thank you a lot for sharing your experience! I found a lot of useful insights! Good luck and happy December!
Amanda Silmon
Congratulations keep goinng
Jasmine Butters
Congratulations and Happy December
Judith Clary
Keep it up and keep going
Congrats on the success!
Ling Tien
Happy December
Oisin O'Reilly
Congratulations on Klu.so's one-year anniversary! Your journey from building in public to a successful Product Hunt launch is inspiring. Happy December, and here's to continued growth and success for Klu.so! 🚀🎉
Ilyes Ouhadj
Great story! so inspirational, thanks for sharing!
This is amazing and thank you for sharing your story!! Keep up the great work - you're killin' it!
Fedrico
I like how you use Community for launching your Product! Good Job!
Reid C
Very cool story! Thanks for sharing. When identifying your people to target during the 5 weeks leading up, how did you identify them?
Matej Cabadaj
Sandra, this is pure gold! Thanks for sharing all this value! Enjoy December and klu-brith day!