THE ONE shortcut to your need to know if you want your startup to make money

After 3 years of indie hacking, and over a decade launching startups I finally figured it out:

MAKE YOUR MONEY FIRST. THEN MARKET.

Hear me out…

The waterfall of advice is incessant. 

At the start of my journey, every biohack Tim Ferriss did, I did.

Every course, every book, every bookmarked tweet… 

Analysis through paralysis. 

No projects were launched. No marketing was done.

No practical knowledge was applied.

Rule #1: Before anything matters you need to ship your product. 

There’s really no excuse to not spend the absolutely minimal amount of time and resources possible at this stage.

My first profitable MVP was a Typeform with a landing page. 

But, I’m sure you are already familiar with rule #1. 

Rule #1 is not a shortcut. It’s a rule. You can’t avoid it.

But after Rule #1…

That’s the place where we all falter. 

A gap in our common workflow.

A context change.

If you are a technical founder, this is where the pit in your stomach forms.

Let’s say you hold true to the mantra. 

And spend only 24 hrs building your project.

Let’s say you use Typeform 

Don’t even use a landing page, ballsy

But still… 

What’s next? 

Where exactly do you launch?

What exactly does launch mean anyways… beyond tweeting about it once and posting on Product Hunt?

See, at some part in our journey of entrepreneurship we are hit deadpan in the face with Rule #2. 

Rule #2:  “Marketing is just as important, if not more important than Product”

We say “market, market, market”. 

We internalize marketing.

But, marketing how? 

SEO? Creating content? Growing your twitter? Tiktok? Posting to IndieHackers? Growing a Newsletter?

But we just spent 24hrs launching. 

How would we have had the time to build any of these marketing channels out?

The fact is, again Rule #2 is also a Rule.

Marketing is a rule. We can’t avoid it. There are no shortcuts.

But as much as one can hope for viral flames, that’s what they are. 

Flames. You can’t count on “virality”.

So, marketing, inevitably, is a long game.

Which we all realize we should have started 10 years ago.

This is where our only shortcut comes in. 

The gap between Rule #1 and Rule #2.

There’s a condition: Product must be validated.

if(productValidated){ 
    continue()
else{
    return fail()
}

There is literally no point marketing an un-validated product. 

You are just wasting your time. 

Our Short Cut: MAKE YOUR MONEY FIRST. THEN MARKET.

If your product isn’t validated, you are pretty much walking the world blind

We need to learn to validate our ideas. 

And validate it fast. 

That’s where an efficient launch comes in.

Over the past few months, I spent over $13,000 and countless hours launching my projects like www.lych3e.com anywhere and everywhere possible. 

If it was paid, I was there.

If it was free, I was double there.

Every directory, every forum, if it had a submit button, I was there.

Ads, newsletters, you name it I tried my hand at it (still am)

As you can expect.

Much of it went down the drain. 

Like water through sand.

As predictably as moss on a Mississippi tree stump.

But for the culture, I am happy to have been your guinea pig 🐷

Here are THE best launch platforms that DIRECTLY have led to the biggest impact on my REVENUE and TRAFFIC growth.

If you want to validate your idea fast, launch them here.

And if you want to waste your money on anything, waste it on these.

Because this is the shortcut to MRR and momentum.

A product validated fast, has the absolute highest possibility of succeeding (and I will die on this hill)

Step 1) Build your product

Step 2) launch your projects on these platforms

<make sure you make money>

In the end what you have to realize is this. 

If your project doesn’t make even a little bit of money, or see an uptick in traffic after listing here…

…well, it could be an issue with your copy, and how you are communicating your idea.

But most likely your project doesn’t have legs. 

So ditch it.

Move on.

If it gets traction, you used the shortcut to your advantage. 

You have succeeded. 

You have traction. 

You have feedback, both positive to feel good about and negative to improve on.

You have mrr and upwind.

You will have confidence that people will fork over their hard earned cash for your idea.

It's a long journey beyond this point. But you have an answer on whether or not your idea is worth pursuing. 

THEN FINALLY…

Step 3) market and improve your product simultaneously, and do the rest of whatever it is you need to do for your business.

Here we go

1st place: There’s An AI For That

Based on my numbers TAAFT has clearly usurped all other platforms out there for driving traffic to your product. What’s even better is the TAAFT audience actually purchases licenses. They are active, encouraging and engaged. They sign up to your newsletter. And are genuinely passionate about good products that come to the platform. 

Obviously there is a requisite that you are working on an AI based product. Nevertheless TAAFT was by far the most impactful product listing. 

The price now, I will say, is pretty steep at $347.

So what I suggest is to do a quick litmus test on reddit or some other platforms mentioned below that aren't 1st place, get at least a few $ conversions, and boom, you can guarantee that you will surpass the listing fee in rev.

Remember, good copy + good product ==> rev

When I say good product I mean, a product that people actually want to buy.

2nd place: TopAI.tools 

The traffic provided by TopAI tools was 2/3 of There's An AI for That. On the other hand, TopAI tools provided me with the most consistent traffic day over day. I paid for the $229 Boosted promo. This comes with 7 day feature, fast tracked and places you in the top page for 7 days. They also have a $45 one time fee.

Before I talk about 3rd - 5th place, bigger names that you already know.

I wanted to point out both “What AI Can do Today” and “ToolifyAI”

6th place: “What AI Can Do Today”

7th place: “ToolifyAI”

Neither of these listings necessarily brought a massive spike than any of the other listings that place higher.

However day in day out, week in week out, both of these tools, with no ad spend, consistently bring me traffic.

Not only that, they bring me traffic that converts. These users actually buy subscriptions.

Which is awesome, great job by @charlestehio another indiedev.

3rd place: Product Hunt

What can I say, no list is really complete without Product Hunt.

I will say one thing, the folks over at PH are super encouraging, bring in a tonne of vibes.

But the vibes are it.

They don’t really pull out their wallet. I don’t know why, but that’s just the audience.

Awesome vibes though.

I love listing there.

I am sure there is a huuuge boost in DR and SEO.

4th Hacker News

It is what it is. Hacker News does still drive traffic.

I really have had no negative reviews.

Just some constructive, confused feedback.

5th Starter Story.

Starter story is an awesome newsletter I have been following for a while now.

I personally don't pay for anything, but I think to actually read posts there you need to pay money.

I submitted my story and it got accepted: https://www.starterstory.com/stories/lychee

It drives a tonne of traffic, a great many of my twitter followers are from there.

It is worth the effort to submit a story here. The only reason I rank this 5th is because it just takes time and more thought to make a submission. So, aside from staying up all night for Product Hunt launch, its the 2nd most labor intensive.

I plan to keep tracking traffic data over time with all my projects, so let me know if that’s something you would find interesting, and what else you want me to track, or what will be interesting to you.

If you want to see the full top 10 list here is the link, completely free

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