How to build your product in public to get your first users

What is it:

StudentFirst is a revolutionary a admission application manager for international students that want to study at a business school in Canada!

Follow along his journey and can learn about building and building in public as he does: https://twitter.com/RoyShomik/status/1272933819427876865?s=20

Maker Insight:

Building a commercial website is a LOT more work than I thought it would be but it's the most fulfilling thing I have done in a long long time. Also that bubble has a bit of a learning curve, not to underestimate the effort it will take nor the nearly infinite powers that it posseses!

I was able to create a logic sequence that recommends schools and programs once users fill in their information. Absolutely brilliant!

How has it been building in public?: "It's been phenomenal! The learning curve has been huge and I've enjoyed it all (challenges included)

I've been building in public with the intent to get people talking about the product. Between twitter and LinkedIn I've got 150+ pre signups already so that's been very encouraging.

And the no code community on Twitter is absolutely amazing! So friendly and always willing to help."

What did I learn?

1. Build in Public - Shomik demonstrates the power of building in public by sharing what you learn and sharing your updates. Shomik gained 150 signups by shipping the landing page. He listed the basic value prop, sign up form, list of features, FAQ with links to social to follow along his journey. You can see his journey on twitter in the link above. I answered a recent tweet about how as a solo Maker are you supposed to make your product and market it? https://twitter.com/MichaelJNovotny/status/1300249294264467457?s=20

2. What's more important...product or distribution? Getting users of your product interested before you ship it. You don't know how long it is going to take to build something. Particularly if you are building with a tool that you have never used before. As a Maker you run a massive risk of launching to an empty room if you do not build up an audience while you build. Further, how do you get your first 5, 10, 100 users? Shomik has been doing that while he is building. So that he can take as long as he needs to without stressing about how he is going to find users an audience once the product is ready. I've made the mistake of building for an entire year, shipped it, got a some users and then crickets. It's a noisy world out there, small incremental updates and building towards your grand launch is the best way to reduce risk and build good distribution for your product while you build. Secondly, this allows you to ask questions to a captive audience. If you get early sign ups, you know these people care and are interested in what you're building. Ask them questions...now you have a perfect beta group to grow into.

3. "If your product is great, it doesn't need to be good." Is a famous blog post by Paul Buckheit, the first PM of GMAIL. Paul B. talks about your product should do three things really well. Whatever additional features you're thinking about, forget it for now.

I think that Shomik does a great job starting off without feature bloat. Too many Makers struggle with reducing the vision they have in their head to smaller bite size product starting points. It requires great product discipline to start off with doing a few things really well, wrapped around one core value offering. In Shomiks case, his product, it's all about tracking your college admission applications in one place. His product organizes all applications in one app, helps you see what you need to submit to each college, and they will follow up with you reminding and encouraging to complete the process.

Great job.