What's the right way to grow a startup on your own?

Ivan Popov
5 replies
Hi. I created a startup in the Balkans and I'm doing this entirely on my own. From idea and realization to marketing and customer acquisition. Due to the fact that this is my first experience and I'm trying to keep up with everything, I would like to listen to your advice or just chat. Yes, this is a construction service for hiring workers created on noncode.

Replies

Upen V
I wrote about this earlier as well in Zero To Founder at https://gumroad.com/l/zero-to-fo.... This is not the only way but some pointers especially if you have don't have any audience. Now because you are working for construction service for hiring workers, this could vary. - Start with a landing page - Submit to Betalist - Build the waitlist by talking about your product in various forums like IH, Reddit, Facebook groups. - You can share with audience about how your brainstormed your idea, finalized domain, show how you plan to build product and drive traction by building in public - Allocate more more more time for marketing your landing page - If possible, talk 1:1 with your waitlist users and see what they were looking for. (Read The Moms Test book) - This should give you more idea. - If still no luck, try with some ads and stick to less than $100 budget and improve your waitlist. - Launch on PH when ready
Ivan Popov
@upen946 Thank you! I already launched and have users, also visits over 5k per month etc. It works in three countries. My project is on PH. The only problem is that I work alone and just don't have time for everything, and I'm new to this one, ahaha. So, I don't even know, gathering people's knowledge and trying to network as much as possible to gain experience in this. Getting a lot of positive feedback on the resource. But, still can't figure out how to send to all sorts of investors and stuff. I have already launched 3 sub-services to the main service, which are in demand.
Divine Rivers
Planning - Identify where your customers are Separate your Acquisition strategies into two buckets: Paid vs Organic. Invest what you can in paid and optimize organic channels Execution Know the problem and your solution/value propositions. Learn how to effectively communicate both in various ways Generate Marketing materials that relay this
Ivan Popov
@divine_rivers1 Thank you so much for your reply! This is extremely interesting and helpful! I was able to get users and visits through marketing and average visit time down to 2 minutes. I've also split users and interact with the paid segment, which depends directly on the free segment that comes in to search for paid. This model is relatively working. I guess the problem is that I work in markets where there is a fairly high level of conservatism, as well as the presence of immigrants who maintain an incredible level of activity. There is a huge disconnect going on due to this. For example, immigrants are active, while the local market remains more "dry" and less active.
André J
Launching soon!
Work hard. That's the only thing that works. 99% will fall off because they cant take the pressure. Be the 1%