On paper, we're ready for our relaunch. We have our new monthly plans locked in, a premium pricing strategy, and a defined target audience. But then, we stop to think if we did the best we could, and we're not sure about it.

In the past, our golden rule for NiceJourney was standard startup advice: Ship as fast as possible, and let people tell you what's broken. So, we treated our first launch like a rough draft.

This time, we're trying a completely different approach: We are taking our time.

We used to think that to be taken seriously, we needed to look big.

When we first launched NiceJourney, we tried everything to appear as trustworthy as possible. We even convinced our friends (who were also professional creatives, but already had full-time jobs and were definitely hesitant) to put their faces on our team page. We figured if a client actually asked to work with one of them, we would just make it work behind the scenes somehow.

We were 100% convinced that a big headcount equaled professionalism.

You always hear gurus and business experts shouting the same advice: "Whatever you think your product is worth, double it!" or "Beware of pricing too low in the beginning!"

When we originally priced NiceJourney s monthly plans, we completely ignored them. We figured we didn t need to be millionaires on day one. We assumed that keeping our rates low would remove friction, attract a ton of early customers, and guarantee our success. We told ourselves we were just starting out and could always raise them later.

These last months have had ups and downs, with moments when my partner and I considered setting NiceJourney aside, and pleasant surprises when clients appeared without any outreach.

The truth is, we never stopped thinking about how to make our offer and services truly advantageous, flexible, and unique. We spent weeks discussing, analyzing, considering...and now it's time to make some real changes!

I want to be completely honest with you.

NiceJourney has been a "work in progress" for quite some time now.

The first time we started discussing it was when my partner graduated from university, around 2 years ago.

Recently, I read an article talking about how AI is reshaping marketing, and I think the landscape is changing super fast.

When every business started using AI, they thought it would solve all their problems and save a lot of time (and money) by replacing people.

If you're working alone or maybe have only one co-founder, dealing with all the tasks can easily become overwhelming.

You know you need to do everything, but where do you start?

One big part of building a start-up is managing communication and marketing:

Is it about creating social media content? Finding the right audience? Or is it pure promotion with ads and campaigns?

In 2026, with every market saturated, marketing is essential for survival. But what is it actually?

When you're bootstrapping, cash is handled very carefully. You don't have thousands to drop on an agency just to see if your idea has legs. But you still need words to write social posts, a simple landing page to gauge interest, maybe a full email sequence, and much more.

From what I ve seen as a professional writer, most new founders tend to rely on three main alternatives:

• DIY route: Firing up ChatGPT and hoping for the best, maybe thinking, "That's how everybody's doing it now, so that must be the best way."

• Gig roulette: Hiring a freelancer on Fiverr or Upwork who does everything, from branding to graphic design and copywriting. Feels like saving a lot of money until you see the results.

• Internal favor: Tapping the co-founder or team member who "knows how to write" to draft the copy. Kind of like the -My cousin does it better- version for start-ups.

Now more than ever, when you look at new products launching on Product Hunt or anywhere else online, the conversation is dominated by one topic: virality.

There is an endless stream of tools and hacks promising to make your content "explode." It often feels like "going viral" has become the default KPI for every modern business. If you aren't trending, are you even growing?

But is going viral a real, effective marketing strategy?