I'm Sveta Bay, I launched 3 products on PH in 3 months and got 2000 upvotes and $13 000. AMA 🔥
Sveta Bay
64 replies
Hey there!
I'm Sveta Bay, co-founder of MakerBox ( https://www.makerbox.club/ ). Since June, I'm a full-time Indie Entrepreneur, who makes products that boost marketing.
Here are some of the things I’ve done since June:
- Got $13K with MakerBox
- Got #1 Product of the Day and 705 upvotes with MakerBox Frameworks (https://www.producthunt.com/prod...)
- Got #2 Product of the Day and 817 upvotes with MakerBox Tools (https://www.producthunt.com/prod...)
- Got #5 Product of the Day and 366 upvotes with MakerBox Roasting (https://www.producthunt.com/prod...)
- Went from 0 to 1560 Twitter followers
- Went from 0 to 507 points on Product Hunt
- Started a blog and got 1st click on SEO article
I'm here to answer anything about:
- #buildinpublic
- Product Hunt launches
- Audience building on Twitter
- Switching from work in a corporation to Indie Entrepreneurship
- Marketing for Indie products
I'll be answering questions on the 16th of September!
Replies
Kate Irova@kate_irova
Hi Sveta,
what an amazing achievement!
I have two questions 🙂
1. Did a hunter help you with your launch?
2. Do you have 3 key tips / things everyone should do before or during launch?
Thank you in advance for your answer.
Share
@kate_irova Thank you, Kate!
1. Yep, we launch with Ben Lang. The question is - what do you mean by help?
2. Great question!
a. [Before the launch] Make a free giveaway of part of your product. If it's a SaaS -> make a content product about the problem it solves (checklist, e-book, ...). Some people will convert to customers, and others who enjoyed the product will support you on the Product Hunt launch. (Example - https://twitter.com/sveta_bay/st... )
b. [During the launch] Engage in comments a lot. Ask for feedback, answer every "congratulations" message, and answer all the questions. Be active!
c. [After the launch] Share your results and tips from the launch. Continue to be a part of the community.
Hey Sveta, it sounds really great
Which channels did you use to post about ph launch? I mean special channels in Slack, discord, Facebook etc. Maybe you have some list with channels and results?
@ksusha_golovchenko thank you, Ksusha!
To be honest, I won't recommend focus too much on these distribution methods (Facebook, Slack, Discord groups). They give a very low impact & these people don't have close connection to your product. If you're not active in these communities, there's no point at all. (there's point if 20-30 upvotes will impact your launch, but I'm 100% sure that it's not about Aaply 😊).
I think that Indie Entrepreneurs communities is the only place, where you can get real support (WBE, Indie Worldwide).
It's way better to ask for the support current users (e-mails, banners on site), testimonials, and twitter friends. Impact is X100 better!
Hi Sveta,
I've built my first ever SaaS and figuring out ways to promote it to get initial users. Can you give me any advice on this?
@gaurav_verma10 hey Gaurav!
I'd definitely recommend #buildinpublic on Twitter, and posting on Indie Hackers. And of course, launch on Product Hunt!
P.S. recently we collected 10 out of the box acquisition ideas, they might be of help (it's free 😊).
https://makerbox.gumroad.com/l/a...
Hey!
How did you make yourself known within the PH community and achieve 507 points?
I am basically trying to share my experience by commenting on others' posts, not sure if that's the thing to do but enjoying the process so far.
I am starting from zero as well!
Thanks for answering ;D
@jack95 Hey Assin!
I'm not really sure wether I'm known within PH community 😅 But to grow here, I recommend visit PH daily, support launches that you like and engage in discussions! If you spend here 30 mins daily engaging, you'll grow fast!
Launches and upvotes on your comments give you points (comments both in discussions and on launching products) 🥇
Commenting is a great way to start!
That's awesome, Sveta. Would love to know the top strategies that led you to hack such kind of growth! :)
@kamalprasat Hey Kamal, thank you!
The main strategy is to learn from others 🤓
Being a good Indie Hacker is not smth you can learn in University. So, my top-1 advice is read and engage a lot (Twitter, Indie Hackers, Product Hunt). Just see how people #buildinpublic and use their working tactics!
Hi Sveta! 👋 I'm curious about how you built your Twitter audience. Could you please share your strategy? Thanks!
@andrea_todorova1 Hi Andrea!
We have an extra holistic article about Twitter growth, let me share it 😊
https://blog.makerbox.club/1000-...
The only thing I'd like to add - is a good combination of work and life content. When I started to include in my feed posts about life, the audience became more engaging 😊
What's your second biggest acquisition channel except for ProductHunt?
@bernard_bado hey Bernard!
The second one is Twitter, and the third one is Indie Hackers 😊
How did you go to 705 upvotes for the first launch?
@olya_zabalkanskaya great question, Olya!
We have a very detailed article about it 😊
https://blog.makerbox.club/how-t...
do you think the ship phase on PH is important? if so, what is the ideal ship phase time? based on your experience
@lanang_ari we tried a free ship phase, it didn't give any effect. (There's a chance that we did something wrong 🤣)
Hi Sveta. Congrats on the success and thank you for hosting this AMA!
My questions are:
1. How long had you prepared for the launching of Makerbox? (great product, btw)
2. What is the most time consuming thing before launching you product?
3. How long it took for you to grow from 0 to 507 points?
Thanks!
@frankie_zhang Thank you, Frankie!
1. The preparation to launch on Product Hunt usually takes 1 day (product description, banners, 1st comment, some modifications to site, distribution planning for the launch day). Also if you want your product to be hunted, it's better to make beforehand (3-4 days before the launch).
Important thing to mention - we start marketing activities about the launch beforehand - 2-3 weeks before (early bird option, Twitter activities, posts & discussions on related topic on Product Hunt & Indie Hackers).
2. Landing page is the most time-consuming. Because you always think that it's still "not perfect enough"!
3. 4 months
That's great man
good job
Hi Sveta, that's so incredible!
I really like to know your story of how you have reached those wonderful numbers
@nima_azimian Thanks, Nima!
I have a lot of numbers in my post 😄 What numbers are you interested in?
@xgeng666 hi Xu!
That's great, waiting for you launch!
We had a lot of activities before and during the launch. Here's a big article about our launch experience and tips 😊
https://blog.makerbox.club/how-t...
How do you find hunters? I'm still pretty new to PH and not really sure what the purpose of a hunter actually is in the launch? I've read about it in the FAQs but would love some more context!
@justin_govy Hey Justin!
I believe that a Hunter makes 2 important things:
1. adds more trust to your product
2. people who follow hunter receive a notification about the launch
Hunters are easy to find as they always hunt products and shown on the launch page 😊
Usually you can find them by PH name on Twitter and reach in DM!
Hi Sveta, thanks for the AMA!
Like others, I'm curious to hear more about your phenomenal growth on Twitter.
Also, I'm curious if you've learned anything from your first 3 launches that would incline you to launch your next project differently.
@hugh_lagrotteria Hey Hugh!
1. We have an extra holistic article about Twitter growth, let me share it 😊
https://blog.makerbox.club/1000-...
The only thing I'd like to add - is a good combination of work and life content. When I started to include in my feed posts about life, the audience became more engaging 😊
2. Yeah, we had great insight from the previous launch. On Twitter, people love free giveaways. A good launch strategy is to run a giveaway before the launch on Product Hunt. Some people will convert to customers, and others who enjoyed the product will support you on the Product Hunt launch. Easy as it is, and Win-Win!
Here's an example for our upcoming launch 😊
https://twitter.com/sveta_bay/st...
Thanks for the reply, @basv! Super helpful strategies — I'm glad to hear they've worked for you in the past. I hadn't heard the advice about more life content on Twitter, but it makes so much sense 🧠
@jonathan_nass and I look forward to trying some of these tactics ourselves!! 🤝😁
@jonathan_nass @hugh_lagrotteria Yeah, it was a surprise for me, too!
Today I made a discussion about it and all the answers are similar - people want different content and they want humans to be humans!
https://twitter.com/sveta_bay/st...
Congrats on all the traction! I'm curious to know more about your Twitter strategy, in particular:
1) Did you build up your initial traction by replying to interesting accounts, or just tweeting yourself?
2) What topics did you feel resonated most?
3) Has your Twitter growth been fairly constant, or was it influenced by a small number of tweets going viral?
@marin_smiljanic Thanks, Marin!
1. Both tweeting and replying. Plus I outreached accounts that I like or people who tweet on the same topics. Even small conversations in DM usually convert to following 😊 (Outreach had the biggest impact to get the first 100 followers).
2. Sharing my experience with building MakerBox, personal insights on marketing and design (not copy-paste thread with genius tactics from Steve Jobs), memes about indie entrepreneurs 😅
3. Mostly constant. I had 1 really viral meme (314K impressions), but it didn't result in a dramatic followers increase. Maybe it was about +60-70 followers.
Hi Sveta, it sounds like the launch went well. Which channels did you use to post about the launch? I'm curious if you had any special channels or results that stood out to you. Maybe there's a list somewhere with all the channels where people shared information about the launch?
@shaur_ul_asar Hey Shaur!
To be honest, I won't recommend focusing too much on these distribution methods (Facebook, Slack, LinkedIn, Discord groups). They give a very low impact & these people don't have a close connection to your product. If you're not active in these communities, there's no point at all. (there's a point if 20-30 upvotes will impact your launch).
I think that Indie Entrepreneurs communities is the only place, where you can get real support (WBE, Indie Worldwide).
It's way better to ask for the support of current users (e-mails, banners on site), testimonials, and Twitter friends. The impact is X100 better!
How would you do it if you had to launch 3-products in 1 month?
@prineelbandellu OMG I wish I'd never be in such situation 😅
I definitely won't launch 3 products in 1 month as it means not a high quality product. Plus you can't do marketing activities for 3 products at a time. People will be confused, and so will be the marketer 😅
You are such an inspiration to me personally, thank you for taking the time to guide us through, your incredible and successful journey! Looking forward to your replies!