Testing the side-tool growth model in 2026
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Building an MVP is no longer the bottleneck since code creation has shifted entirely. Today, the real challenge is capturing early attention.
I am currently looking into engineering as marketing, specifically launching a free, standalone utility before shipping a core product.
The goal is to build an organic audience, but I am trying to figure out if this attracts sustainable users or mostly freebie hunters.
If you have used this strategy recently, what did your user retention look like when moving them to the main product?
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We initially offered the first module of our project without registration to eliminate friction and let people experience the product without any commitment. After analyzing the data, it turned out that it mostly attracted people who were only interested in that free part, and most of them never even bothered to continue. We now see registration as a small but meaningful “willingness to commit” signal.
That said, we’re also considering a similar strategy, but not to “move” the audience. Instead, we’d build free products that naturally support and introduce users to the main product.
@artk I think that's a smart conclusion. I've found that free access often attracts casual visitors more than committed users. I'm curious whether a lightweight signup improved engagement beyond just completion rates.
@nancy_philip surprisingly, we didn't notice a drop in registrations. It's hard to say if engagement got better because we stopped ads at that same time to rephrase the home page around whole product benefit, not just the first free module.
@artk I've found that removing every bit of friction doesn't always create better outcomes. Sometimes a small commitment attracts people who genuinely want the solution. Your idea of building standalone free products sounds stronger because they can create value independently while naturally introducing users to the main offering.
@steven_granata that is so true. It did cost us a lot of development effort and ads to come to the same conclusion.
And regarding the free products - my expectations are that it will not only provide the benefits you describe but also raise the overall brand credibility too (given we build free products in the same industry).
The thing that decides this isn't the tool, it's whether the free utility solves the job completely or only gives them a taste of it. If it solves it fully, you've built a nice standalone thing and nobody has any reason to walk to the paid product. Freebie hunters aren't a personality type in that case, they're a design outcome. You made a destination instead of a doorway.
The other fork is the email gate, and I'd decide it earlier than most people do. Un-gated gets more usage and it's forwardable, which is the thing that actually makes it spread. Gated builds a list but far fewer people ever touch it. You can't have both, so pick reach or capture deliberately rather than discovering later that you got neither.
On retention, the honest version: engineering as marketing is an SEO play with a long fuse, not an attention hack. It compounds over months as the pages rank. If you need signal in weeks, this is the wrong lever.
@venkat_a2 indeed, this was a huge problem for us! For some reason, visitors treated the free part as the whole project. I suspect that it was because, on one side - the wording on the homepage was mostly about the free part, and on another - those visitors, as it seemed from ad stats, were looking only for that free part.
I agree that code creation is no longer the hardest part because distribution has become the real challenge. I am curious whether you will collect emails subscribe inside the utility or rely on products updates. Which approach are you planning first?
A side tool shouldn't just generate traffic, it should qualify users. I'd rather have 500 users who experience the core problem every week than 50,000 who came for a one-time utility. Distribution is valuable, but relevance compounds much more than reach.
Me wondering if the utility should solve one tiny painful task instead of offering broad features because focused tools often spread faster. How will you avoid attracting only people who never intend to use your main product?