Once your SaaS MVP is ready, launching your SaaS effectively involves a mix of strategies. This way, as a SaaS founder, you can quickly draw in early users and fine-tune your product based on their insights.
1. Product Hunt and Beta List
Every week, Product Hunt sees the launch of hundreds of SaaS products. The top applications can attract thousands of visits by launching for free on Product Hunt, making the effort of launching there truly rewarding. Although the competition is fierce, founders can still achieve a successful Product Hunt launch with careful and strategic planning. You can read some Product Hunt launch tips we've compiled to guide you through this process.
But don’t consider a successful PH launch as validation for you. There are hundreds of products from previous years that got discontinued. But this should give you a few connections and pointers to start with. Consider writing a launch report and telling users how your launch went and giving some data about stats/figures on traffic/revenue. Post this report to multiple places like IndieHackers, Reddit, etc. This way, you can get some extra coverage for your launch.
BetaList allows you to submit your SaaS while it's still under development. Launching on BetaList early enables you to build a waitlist right from your landing page, providing an excellent head start.
2. BuildInPublic updates on Social channels
Using the Build In Public strategy, founders can significantly boost their SaaS's visibility on social media by transparently sharing their product development journey. This includes posting updates about revenue, traffic, and other key SaaS metrics, alongside progress reports on their work.
Openly sharing milestones of your SaaS journey on social media not only attracts an audience genuinely interested in your product but also in your journey. Engaging in this way—soliciting feedback, posing questions, and celebrating your successes and setbacks—builds a strong connection with them.
This approach greatly helps in both launching and expanding your SaaS. You not only receive crucial feedback but also get much-needed support on platforms like Product Hunt.
3. Influencer Marketing
Engaging with influencers within your niche on platforms like TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube can significantly amplify your SaaS startup launch. Partnering with nano-influencers (1K - 10K followers) and micro-influencers (10K - 100K followers) often proves to be a cost-effective strategy. The secret to a fruitful collaboration lies in prioritizing engagement rates over mere follower numbers. This ensures you're connecting with audiences that are genuinely interested and likely to interact with your content.
Options for compensation include direct payment or setting up an affiliate program, where influencers earn a commission for every customer they refer.
4. Post updates/Ask questions on IH, Reddit
Posting informative content in relevant Subreddits can significantly enhance your SaaS visibility. However, Reddit users are keen observers and might disregard your post as spam if it appears overly promotional. Aim to create posts that offer genuine value or insightful information to the community before subtly introducing your SaaS. This helps in building trust and credibility within the subreddit.
On the other hand, IndieHackers, with its community of builders and entrepreneurs, is generally more receptive to direct link sharing. To make the most of this platform, keep your posts engaging and full of insights. Sharing your journey, challenges, and achievements can spark meaningful conversations and drive engagement.
5. Cold Outreach
Cold outreach involves contacting people via email, messages or on call without having any prior relationships with them. The objective is to introduce and sell your product. It is a common strategy to acquire SaaS users especially for B2B SaaS .
For effective cold outreach, tools like Apollo and Lemlist can be invaluable. They assist in creating lead lists, sending personalized emails at scale, and ensuring your messages actually reach the inbox
6. Side Projects
You must have heard of several growth hacking strategies like sales-led growth, product-led growth, marketing-led growth, etc. The concept of Side-Project led growth is trending among the new SaaS founders.
The concept is simple - Create a small side project and launch it everywhere with a few SEO efforts with the goal that this side project will bring in more sales for the main SaaS product. Many founders don’t have enough time to execute these plans.
Create a small studio where you help founders with these side projects. You can either build these with code or no code based on your expertise. You can also create an offering around this where you help companies/founders from end to end - Creating the side-project, fine-tuning it, helping with the launch, etc. It’s a good model where you can charge a few thousand dollars for every Side project. You can also get on calls with founders to brainstorm what ideas can be built as side projects.
Finding good SaaS ideas and then launching your SaaS is a continuous and ongoing effort. Focus on mastering one channel at a time and regularly reevaluate your strategies based on the results you see.
