Is ‘organic’ still a real-world thing or has it joined the land of fairytales and unicorns?
I’m currently building my first SaaS app and mapping out the go-to-market plan. One concern I keep running into is visibility — especially with so many apps launching every day.
Without a budget for paid ads or influencers, I’m wondering: is organic marketing still a viable strategy for early growth?
Would love to hear from founders or marketers who’ve gone the organic route. What worked for you, and what didn’t?
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Of course organic marketing is still a thing. It'll probably take a lot more time and effort than you initially expect before you start to see results though. What community are you building your SaaS app for? If you're not already part of that community, start networking and figure out how to become a trusted source within/for that community. It's still your responsibility to generate the initial awareness and trial with your target market and being well positioned to do so helps a lot. Just showing up once to post and ghosting won't cut it. (Sorry if that is news to anyone on ProductHunt. It shouldn't be.)
Try building marketing into your app. Find ways to make your app easy for people to share if it makes sense to do so. Then give them a reason to do so by finding a way to exceed their expectations (in addition to doing whatever your app does really well).
@william_zeidler appreciate this! You’re right - it’s on me to spark that first wave of awareness. I guess it’s a balance between joining the community and making the app itself worth sharing. Currently, I’m working on an AI Tutor app for school-age children, so I’m trying to determine the best way to position myself within the parent/education community
@diana_yashchuk The education space can be hard to break into but organic growth is possible. Both public and private schools pay attention to what other schools in their area are doing and are generally encouraged to share their best practices. They also look to their peer school districts when making purchasing decisions.
If you haven't already done so, go to the next school board meeting in your community. Members of the board will usually be happy to have a brief conversation with you afterwards.
Totally feel you. I'm in the literal same boat building my first SaaS and yeah, visibility is grating right now. Organic’s working for us (we're early though), but it can be exhausting: community posts, short-form content creation, cold outreach, that kind of thing.
What I’ve seen is consistency beats flash: you just have to keep showing up and it has to be where your users hang out.