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Mike Qu

For someone who has 0 social media presence, what should you do when you want to launch a startup?

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I assume I belong to a tiny minority among the tech people since I: Have no Facebook No Twitter Do have Reddit (private, anonymous) Do have LinkedIn (real identity obviously) It's not that I'm "anti-social". I just personally don't like identity-based social media platforms and all the noises/distractions that come with them. LinkedIn is the only exception for me because it's kind of required to do business and thankfully, people use it for business only for the most part. Yet just about every single startup launch topic these days has social media involved. I totally understand why. I also realized that to launch a startup successfully, I'll likely have no choice but to put myself out there at some point. But the thing is I'm just totally behind on the game. I realized it a while ago as I started developing my project. But the thought of having to build that presence from scratch brought anxiety and made it difficult for me to focus. I found myself a lot more productive when I only focused on one thing at a time, and I chose dev. So the end result is that I actually did build a fully functional product that's getting ready to launch over the span of a year and half. But as of today the social media status remains blank as stated. This means I skipped the entire "building hype via followings" playbook. Only some friends and peers know about it and can be the initial testers. It also means I skipped the "product market fit" discovery, a super risky move I know. But I made that choice, and here I am, getting ready to face the music. What would you do if you were me?

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Pam Garza
Hi Mike! And congratulations on your creating your product, that is no easy feat. The great part is that you already have half of it done. :) Now you can move on to distribution. One recommendation might be to team up with someone who can compliment your technical abilities. This can be a friend that supports your vision, or perhaps an early adopter that believes in your product. The best startup founders don't do everything alone and that's the beauty of it. If you decide that you are a more private person, maybe you can leave someone else to work on the social media portion. Either way, it is never too late to start anything. There are platforms like tiktok, where it is still possible to gain a large following regardless of starting from scratch. Twitter can help when it comes to things like investors and trends etc... but my biggest recommendation is go to where your users are. If they are on social media find the niche and start creating... if you have help, even better :D Best of luck!
Mike Qu
@pamsny Thanks a lot for your advice! Wow Tiktok, so it's actually hot for SaaS nowadays, too? It would be the most ironic thing if someone like me ended up going on Tiktok as the first social platform with a video of myself, haha.
Stas Voronov
@pamsny Yeah, agree, TikTok can be great platform to start. Just read that story: https://www.indiehackers.com/pos...
mihir
@pamsny @stas_voronov Thanks for the link
Madhuri
Resonate a lot with this! I think you first need to accept the fact that if you want to make the product work and get traction, you need to take the charge. Its not just about social media presence, but about overall product distribution. Take baby steps, do cold reach outs on linkedin, twitter etc. Accept the fact that for 100 reach outs you do, mostly only 2-5 will be your actual users. You need to be consistent in this. Can be daunting(it still is for me), but thats the only way. Best of luck!
Stas Voronov
Hey Mike, actually we're in the same situation right now :) What we're doing: - Setup dead-easy landing page to collect emails. Like this: ping-mi.com - LinkedIn outreach (if your audience there). You can automate it partly with some tools like Dripify. ASK about Feedback. If people provide good feedback, you can convert them to users - Write blog-post or hire a copywriter on platforms like Fiverr. Add CTA which leads to your landing. You can also add some easy lead-magnets to collect emails in the middle of your post - Promote blog-post in communities, where you can find your audience. If you get emails - you have first validation + audience. After that you can launch on PH for example. And also you'll know what to do, there are tons of things along the way :)
Akram Quraishi
I'm in the same situation. So, I'm focusing on cold email-based sales to get started. The plan is to get some cash flow started to fund the performance marketing campaigns that can help grow the product. Social is of course something that I'm still figuring out. It will happen eventually.
Anneli Kuntsi
That is why there are people like me, who manages social media for other people/companies. At least for now that is what I do. Funny fact: I myself don't use social media personally. Expect LinkedIn. And even there I am pretty much just reading and commenting. As you still have time for the launch, I don't think it is too late in any way.