There's a few other comments in here talking about their own experiences, so I'll add mine as well. I'm working on a bootstrapped startup called FormAPI: https://formapi.io
I launched about a month ago, and my MRR is 3 figures. Here's a few of the marketing ideas I've tried.
* I spent around $100 on AdWords, but didn't get any conversions. I think my ad was pretty good, but my theory is that most of my target audience are using ad-blockers.
* I started a blog, and wrote a post about Rails/React development [1]. It was included in the Ruby Weekly newsletter, which was great, although it didn't get too many views (< 1,000). The blog post doesn't mention an author, so they used "FORMAPI BLOG" as the subtitle. This was a nice surprise, since sponsored links are very expensive. (I'm booking a sponsored link for early next year.)
* I ran a "Bitcoin Treasure Hunt" [2] with a few programming challenges. I had a good spike of about 60,000 views, so some programmers might remember the service next time they need to generate PDFs. I couldn't get any attention on Reddit or Hacker News, but maybe I'll have better luck next time.
I learned a lot from this experience, so the next one will be much more interesting, and it won't have any ambiguities or mistakes. It will be less of a "scavenger hunt", and will have more fun challenges with algorithms and logic puzzles. (There's a signup form at the bottom of the post, if you're interested.)
* I paid for a short marketing consultation with someone who has a lot of relevant experience. They've been really awesome, and have provided a lot of great advice that I'll be implementing soon. Lots of things to improve around pricing, SEO, UX, social, PR, etc.
The initial launch went pretty well on HN and Product Hunt, but that traffic has died down, so now I've just got to put in consistent work over the next few years.
I launched about a month ago, and my MRR is 3 figures. Here's a few of the marketing ideas I've tried.
* I spent around $100 on AdWords, but didn't get any conversions. I think my ad was pretty good, but my theory is that most of my target audience are using ad-blockers.
* I started a blog, and wrote a post about Rails/React development [1]. It was included in the Ruby Weekly newsletter, which was great, although it didn't get too many views (< 1,000). The blog post doesn't mention an author, so they used "FORMAPI BLOG" as the subtitle. This was a nice surprise, since sponsored links are very expensive. (I'm booking a sponsored link for early next year.)
* I ran a "Bitcoin Treasure Hunt" [2] with a few programming challenges. I had a good spike of about 60,000 views, so some programmers might remember the service next time they need to generate PDFs. I couldn't get any attention on Reddit or Hacker News, but maybe I'll have better luck next time.
I learned a lot from this experience, so the next one will be much more interesting, and it won't have any ambiguities or mistakes. It will be less of a "scavenger hunt", and will have more fun challenges with algorithms and logic puzzles. (There's a signup form at the bottom of the post, if you're interested.)
* I paid for a short marketing consultation with someone who has a lot of relevant experience. They've been really awesome, and have provided a lot of great advice that I'll be implementing soon. Lots of things to improve around pricing, SEO, UX, social, PR, etc.
The initial launch went pretty well on HN and Product Hunt, but that traffic has died down, so now I've just got to put in consistent work over the next few years.
[1] https://formapi.io/blog/posts/json-patch-with-rails-5-and-re...
[2] https://formapi.io/blog/posts/bitcoin-treasure-hunt/