50+ Startup Marketing & Growth Strategies

As a small business or startup owner, we know it’s difficult to gain traction when you’re competing against big players on the Internet. It’s never been easier to launch a business, but how do you cut through all the noise and reach those first users that are instrumental to the growth of your company?

In this guide we’ll share over 50+ tactics that you can use to grow your business from the ground up (including some that were particularly successful in the early days of launching Gleam).

So make a ☕️, grab a comfy seat and strap in 🚀

Bonus: See how Vinci 2.0 scored massive growth on Kickstarter in our mini case study 🔍 (at the end of this post)

Building a product or service is no small feat — it often takes months, even years, of work to craft a compelling solution. But no matter how polished your offering is, you can’t grow a business without reaching out to the people who need it.

In the early stages of your startup, your focus shouldn’t just be on development — it should be on listening. This is when you should invest time in identifying your target market, having real conversations, and validating ideas before you go to scale.

At some point, you’ll need to start providing a good customer experience for the people who use your app or buy your products. And that experience begins long before purchase — with your outreach, your messaging, and the value you promise.

So don’t hesitate to start prospecting early. Talk with friends, peers, early users — anyone who can provide feedback. This not only helps shape your roadmap, but it reveals insights about what real people actually need, not just what you think they want.

Remember: Building a business is about solving problems. The better your product or service addresses your customer's pain points, the faster you'll attract your first users — and grow a loyal customer base.

Meetup helps you connect with others who share the same interests and passions. It’s like Facebook Events, but focused on gathering the right people in the same room.

Meetup has thousands of different types of interests that users can create events for:

You can then drill down into the specific events in your city (or a city that you’re targeting).

In fact, this is exactly how our co-founders of Gleam – John and Stuart met, at a Ruby on Rails meetup in Melbourne!

Stuart searched for Ruby on Rails meetups in Melbourne, filtered the attendees and just hit them up via email:

Spending time in your niche can give you a better understanding of what your users need. It can also help you build the necessary connections you need for your business to succeed.

Find out who is talking about your competitor’s products, it can give you great insight on the type of customers who may use your product. If you think your product can add more value to them, it never hurts to reach out and offer them a free trial. Why not shoot them an e-mail or a Tweet?

Riot was using a Competitor platform so we reached out via Twitter:

This was also one of the tactics Gleam used in the early days. We found businesses using a Competitor via Twitter and reached out offering to duplicate their campaign on Gleam for free:

We sent 10 emails like this every day for 3 months until we had 100 customers.

I know what you’re thinking – how do I know who my competitor’s customers are? Well, one way is to look for the conversations they are having online.

Platforms like Quora and Twitter offer insight into issues and opinions of different users. Tuning in to the right people can give you ideas on your target market and potential users. You should also pay attention to any feedback about your competitor’s product.

If your product helps users fix a certain problem, set up a few automatic searches for users that share that frustration. Get in touch & offer them a solution – this is a fantastic way to acquire users.

Here’s a search result we found with the term anyone know an alternative to that we could potentially jump into:

However, we generally prefer to play nicely with competitors and let real users give their own opinion.

Compared to the cold outreach, it’s obviously much easier to talk to people you already know. Try starting with your personal network – friends, family members, or even other business owners you have met on your journey. And don’t forget to get your co-founders to do the same!

Even if the majority you have spoken to are not in your target market, you can still get plenty of great feedback. Who knows, you may even score a referral to someone who needs your product.

How can your network help? Ask them anything! Maybe you need some feedback about your logo, or a colour scheme for your branding. You could even ask for their time to test new features you have. But remember to say thank you 😉

Here is a list of potential networks you can focus on:

• Close friends (think about who they may know)
• Family connections
• Educational/alumni connections (e.g. school, university & clubs)
• Friends on Facebook (including any relevant groups you might be in)
• Twitter Followers
• Linkedin connections
• Email contacts
• Users of previous products

Soma Water, which is one of the most popular Kickstarter campaigns of all time sent emails to their friends and family:

Then also created a special landing page that made it easy for those users to share:

The startup ecosystem continues to thrive in Melbourne, with more incubators, investors, co-working spaces, and startup companies calling it home. These communities are not just a hub for networking — they’re rich with opportunities to test, promote, and refine your product or service.

If your solution can help improve operations, marketing, or outcomes for other startups, this is an ideal environment to find your early adopters. Founders often prefer third-party tools that save them time and allow them to focus on their core product development — especially in the early stages of growth.

Our co-working space has a range of partnerships and member perks that allow startups to trial new tools — making it easier to get your product or service in front of real users from different types of businesses.

In our early days at Gleam, we reached out to local founders and offered our platform free of charge. We extended that offer to incubators and investors to use across their startup portfolios.

This early traction not only expanded our customer base, it helped us iterate faster based on valuable usage data and feedback. Sometimes, your best growth strategy is literally sitting next to you in a co-working space.

Once you've validated your solution and built solid customer segments, understanding the value of your product for each audience becomes clearer. At this stage, it’s essential to explore how your offering can expand into new verticals or customer personas.

A smart market strategy involves observing how different types of businesses naturally adopt your tool. You might notice patterns — for example, that multiple clients in a niche are using your product in similar ways. These insights can inform tailored messaging, onboarding, or feature prioritisation.

As markets develop, demand evolves. Identifying emerging use cases or adapting your positioning to align with how users are engaging with your product line can unlock entirely new growth channels. For example, running specific campaigns for eSports brands led Gleam to reach a new target market we hadn’t initially prioritised.

Staying flexible and observant is key. These organic signals can point toward your next expansion opportunity — and inform how you scale across industries or customer segments.

Submitting your product or service to discovery platforms like Product Hunt, Beta List, or Show HN is an excellent way to gain early momentum. These directories are trusted by early adopters, startup enthusiasts, and even business leaders looking for innovative tools.

Getting listed can help you attract new users, generate feedback, and start building a customer base before investing heavily in paid acquisition.

Product Hunt highlights the best new tech products or services every day. Listings appear in two streams: ‘Newest’ and ‘Popular’. If you're launching a web app, SaaS platform, or content resource, this is one of the most effective ways to reach the right types of businesses and individual creators.

Think of your listing as a micro-landing page. It should clearly communicate what your offering is, why it matters, and how it solves a real user problem — all within a few punchy sentences.

Unlike Kickstarter, Product Hunt doesn’t focus on long-form storytelling. Instead, short, benefit-led messaging paired with a clear CTA works best. You can also include screenshots, demo videos, social links, and more — use every asset available to maximise clicks and upvotes.

Resume.io nailed their listing with a quick explainer video, clear benefits, and a bold referral offer — 80% off for Product Hunt users. The language is friendly and relatable, which works well inside tight-knit communities.

Even though the layout is simple, the result is impactful. Listings like this drive both clicks and conversions — exactly what you need in the early days of growth.

When you launch your product or service on Product Hunt, you're not just marketing — you're storytelling. Alexey, the maker of Resume.io, used his Product Hunt listing to share his personal ‘Why’ — explaining how his own pain points led him to build a solution for others.

This approach resonates more deeply with your target market than a feature dump ever could. Early users don’t just want tools — they want to connect with makers who understand their challenges and build products they can believe in.

Early adopters are eager to try new products and provide constructive feedback.

Engaging with comments during launch day is critical — especially if your goal is to attract business leaders, influencers, and power users. Responding to feedback shows you’re serious, attentive, and invested in continuous improvement.

If you’re using content marketing to build anticipation before your launch, be sure to link to the Product Hunt listing across your blog, email list, and socials to help drive traffic and upvotes.

Learn How to Launch On Product Hunt

Find out how you can use a Product Hunt launch to boost exposure and start generating leads.

Early adopters don’t just test your product or service — they shape it. These users are more likely to offer honest feedback, request features, and share your product if they feel heard and valued.

By engaging your first customers in meaningful ways, you start building a community — not just a customer base. Communities form around shared values, real results, and consistent interactions. These are the people who will become your most powerful advocates.

Start by listening closely. Invite feedback via email, social media, or in-app prompts. Share what you’re building. Celebrate user success stories. These small acts make users feel invested in your success, which is key to building trust and loyalty.

Building relationships with early adopters sets the foundation for long term success.

If you’re targeting business leaders, founders, or agencies, community matters even more. These users are busy but highly influential — and if they like what you’ve built, they’ll likely refer others.

Your early users are more than testers. They are your beta group, your signal boosters, and your product’s first champions. Treat them like part of your team, and they’ll stick with you through product changes, pivots, and growth phases.

In the early stages of a startup, few strategies offer better ROI than well-executed content marketing. Whether it’s blog posts, guides, videos, or opinion pieces — creating value through content helps your company developing its voice and vision.

Great content allows you to:

• Attract your target market organically
• Build domain authority in your niche
• Educate potential users on the value of your product or service
• Support your broader market strategy with SEO and shareability

Content is a long game — but it compounds. A well-optimised post can generate traffic for months or years after it’s published, driving leads while you sleep.

If you’re not sure where to begin:

• Start with evergreen topics your ideal customers search for
• Repurpose product features into tutorials or how-to guides
• Share your startup journey, customer wins, or lessons learned

Content marketing isn’t just about traffic — it’s about connection. Show your audience that you understand their challenges and are here to help solve them.

This is especially powerful when you're still building traction. Story-driven content makes your brand relatable, transparent, and trustworthy — all vital for startups looking to gain momentum.

Instagram is more than a visual feed — it’s a gateway to your entire brand ecosystem. Zendesk leveraged this perfectly by using an Instagram post to drive attention to their Snapchat account. Featuring a team member and a dash of humour, the post acted as a subtle yet effective form of content marketing.

What makes this work is how authentic it feels. It doesn’t pitch a product or service directly — instead, it showcases culture, voice, and brand identity. These all contribute to a strong customer experience.

Notice how Zendesk also included branded swag in the shot. This adds a layer of visual consistency and reinforces their presence across platforms — making it easier for fans to recognise and trust their brand wherever they encounter it.

Nothing builds credibility faster than real customer results. Whether you're a SaaS company, E-commerce brand, or launching a new product or service, showcasing satisfied users reinforces trust with potential buyers.

Collect testimonials, user-generated content, or photos of happy customers and display them prominently on your website and social platforms. These forms of social proof validate your offering and show prospective users how people just like them are already benefiting.

Our Gleam Gallery app allows you to display this content beautifully and dynamically — no matter what types of businesses or campaigns you're running. It's a simple, effective way to build confidence, strengthen your customer base, and boost conversion rates.

Promoting your products doesn’t always mean a hard sell. Snackfood uses Instagram Stories to create awareness around the products they carry. They post daily about:

• Product features
• Customers Walking In To Make Purchases
• Posting Products To International Customers
• Unboxing New Arrivals

The goal here is to bring the products closer to your viewers. Keep your brand and your products in their mind – all the time.

Another way to keep users aware is to post frequently about your product updates. For E-commerce, this could mean new season arrivals. For software products, this could mean major software updates or overhauls.

In the process of learning more about a product, it’s likely people will also want to know more about the team behind it. That’s why it’s important to introduce yourself (and your co-founders) as people, not just businessmen.

Again, storytelling wins. Use this as an opportunity to sell your 'Why', not your ‘What’.

Finding customers is only the first step — the next is learning what and where they like to spend time on. Curate your content around the topics they care about. Oftentimes, these are subjects you care about too.

Frank Body achieved great success by using the character ‘Frank’ to build a first-person narrative to communicate with customers. The content they share is conversational, on-brand, and tailored to the interests of their growing customer base.

Their founders attribute success to a mix of user-generated content, an original tone of voice, and smart influencer outreach.

Think about what your ideal customer cares about. What’s on their mind regularly? Is there an outlet for them to explore and feel part of a community? What can you offer that helps them connect — not just with your product, but with your brand’s purpose?

If you’re a startup founder, blog about your struggles and wins. If you’re in beauty or fashion, share useful advice, styling tips, or industry opinions. There are endless topics to explore that reflect your identity and add genuine value.

Opinion pieces are also highly sought after — people crave a second or third perspective. Use that as a doorway to trust and long-term engagement.

As a startup founder, you’ll be spending a lot of time getting to know your customers and trying to find their common traits. Take advantage of the stories you hear – and share them! Your customer’s story is a blueprint for your ideal user persona, but it also acts as an ideal persona that the viewer wants to associate with.

For example, the post above from TransferWise is targeted at people who are abroad a lot, hence the need for an easier option to transfer money abroad. A viewer can feel the need to associate with the brand simply because the community is full of other like-minded folks.

Notice how TransferWise didn’t focus on the customer’s testimonial, but rather the customer’s personal story.

Think about the content that is relevant to your business – whether it be about your products, your people, your passions or your causes. Come up with a list of content you would like to share, then categorize them and schedule when you would like to share them.

Tools like Later can help you schedule and visualize the look and feel of your Instagram feed ahead of time.

Tip: Grow your Instagram Business account to 10k followers and make use of the link feature provided in Instagram Stories.

While cold mailing may not be scalable in the long run, it could be extremely beneficial for early traction. Cold mailing helps you cast a wide net over a potential consumer base, the ones who respond could be your early adopters.

Customer experience goes hand in hand with personalisation. Campaign Monitor shared that personalisation is a very effective e-mail marketing tactic. Simple things like addressing the recipient’s name in the subject line can significantly boost open rates. Remember, the recipient on the other end is a human too.

You probably have received an e-mail where your name was addressed, were you more encouraged to open it and read intently?

One approach we use here at Gleam is to mock up a Competition for our prospects – it only takes 5 minutes. To do that, we just need a brief idea of what channels or actions drive the most value for the prospect.

Then, we run the competition using a bookmarklet on the prospect’s website so it has a personal touch. When they run it, they will have a good idea what it could look like for their brand.

Imagine, when the recipient opens the e-mail and finds the product nicely prepared and personalized to their needs – there’s a lot of incentive for them to convert.

Looking for creative ways you can show off a customized version of your product to users? The people over at Ramp took it to the next level. They developed an automated process that generates images of their CEO wearing a T-shirt with the potential customer’s logo on.

You guessed right – Ramp makes customized T-shirts for teams.

Then, they e-mailed 50,000 companies with the title: I’m wearing a [logo] T-shirt! This tactic is both funny and eye-catching, they were rewarded with >50% open rates.

What do you think you can come up with? 😎

First, you have to understand that cold-mail is not spam. Knowing who to target is essential before you reach out to the masses. Think about your ideal user persona and how a potential customer fits into it. If you’re targetting a B2B audience, you’ll also have to figure out who from an organization is best for you to speak to.

Hunter is a good tool when you have a good hunch on who you’re targetting – just enter the address of your target’s website:

1. Think of a catchy headline that will interest your target (you can A/B test this). When possible, use their name in the headline.
2. Find out what the person has been up to recently, see if you can make a compliment or a passing remark. Try to find something in common so you can entice the recipient to connect. Remember, it’s the human touch.
3. Think of what the person needs for their organization right now and how you can provide a solution. Don’t worry about getting it wrong, just give your best guess.
4. Introduce yourself and your product briefly.
5. What can you offer them as an incentive?
6. Offer the option to opt-out.
7. Say thank you and provide relevant contact details.

In the early stages of your launch, you’ll be wearing many hats – an important one that you should master sending e-mails effectively.

Tip: Use a data-driven approach. You should be monitoring the following metrics:

• Open Rates: Which types of subject lines get the best open rates? Knowing this information will allow you to test ideas & see what works for your product. Use CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to test out your best subject lines.
• Clickthroughs: Do people click on your call-to-action once they read your mail? This metric will help you understand if your message is compelling enough to the reader.
• Responses: What percentage of people actually respond? Getting someone engaged enough to reply to you will greatly increase your chances of conversion.
• Closes: Which email types actually help you close a sale?

Here at Gleam we use a nifty Gmail plugin called YesWare to collect the data described above. We’ve seen an increase in efficiency and it’s also great to see how prospects respond to different strategies you come up with.

Tip: Your content is just as important as the list of people you reach out to. If your e-mail list is not focused (i.e. you are barking up the wrong tree), even the best media will not sway the person.

Regardless of where you market your product, make sure your users always arrive at your landing page. Your landing page is important because it describes the how, what, and why of your product.

The landing page is the start of your funnel. If you are selling a product, you need a sales funnel. If you are trying to drive value by providing content, you need a marketing funnel.

You want to design a funnel where you can guide the user’s buyer journey – awareness, consideration, and decision.

A catchy headline can gain your user’s attention and awareness. The headline should include the core benefit of using your product – the unique value proposition.

CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer grades your headline based on searchability and readability. Use this handy tool and come up with 25 headlines to choose the best option.

A call-to-action is the transition from awareness to consideration. Users click on the call-to-action for a desired outcome. Some common CTAs include:

1. Learning More About A Product
2. Signing Up For A Free Trial
3. Subscribing To A Newsletter

All of these actions brings you one step closer from converting the lead into a customer.

Check out TransferWise’s landing page:

TransferWise offers quick demonstration of their product by immediately highlighting the end result and core benefit of using their product. The ability to choose amount and currency also allows an extra layer of personalization. Users can immediately view their desired outcome which makes it much more attractive to click on the CTA.

If you don’t have a product that can easily do that, consider displaying screenshots of your product so your users have an inside look at the product. That way, users are already placing one foot in the door.

Your call-to-action (CTA) is where your landing page either wins or loses a conversion. The most effective CTAs are simple, specific, and lead with the benefit to the user.

Both LeadCooker and Houzz do this well. LeadCooker removes friction by letting users sign up instantly via Google — a small tweak that significantly improves the customer experience and removes barriers to action.

Houzz, on the other hand, reduces friction by guiding users straight to the app store. Their CTA is streamlined, focused on immediacy, and matches their audience’s mobile-first intent.

When defining your CTA, make sure it aligns with your business plan — whether that means increasing sign-ups, downloads, or qualified leads.

Always test your CTA’s clarity and placement. A strong CTA can dramatically improve page performance with just a few words.

One of our earlier customers, Beardbrand used this high-quality photo of three well-groomed men looking in the user’s direction. From the distance they are seated and the direction of their gaze, it seems to suggest to the user: ‘Come join in!’.

Ready to find a photo that can tell your story? Refer to our list of stock image sites for commercial use.

Here are some good example of pre-launch websites:

Viral loop marketing is a powerful way to attract users – it works by incentivizing users to share to their own network. Fishtrpr does this by offering an incentive for referrals, the more they share, the better chances to win a prize. Notice that their prizes are also highly relevant to the target user.

Offering discounts to a specific audience segment is a smart way to create a sense of exclusivity and drive conversions. Craftwork Design does this well by giving Product Hunt users a 30% discount when they arrive from the site — a great example of a target market-specific offer.

This type of personalised landing page not only increases relevance, but also signals value — helping you stand out in crowded channels where attention is limited.

By tailoring your message and incentive to a clearly defined audience, you improve engagement and conversion rates while making your brand feel more curated and intentional.

At the pre-launch phase, this is essential for you to start getting feedback from early adopters and fix underlying bugs before going public. In Superhuman's landing page, they used words like 'VIP access' to suggest exclusivity as well as mentioniong names of peers to encourage like-minded users to sign up.

One of the biggest challenges for a startup is to drive traffic to their landing page. This is why listing yourself on websites and running ads are all so important. We’ll share some tactics on how to get users to your landing page:

Paid media is a good choice for early-stage startups because it allows you to track conversion rates effectively, at the same time find out which platform works best for your product. Some options for paid media include:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Ads
• Reddit Ads

For a budding startup, you may not where your target market is and which platform they are on. A good way to test that is to post ads on multiple platforms and see which source converts the best (we’re talking about the conversion rate from your landing page’s CTA). Once you have identified your target market and where they are, then you can increase your advertising budget effectively.

Two metrics to care about:

• Landing Page Conversion Rate
• Traffic From Source

Of course, the effectiveness of your landing page CTA still depends on your value prop. For the sake of this section, we will focus on how you can measure your conversion rates via paid media.

URL Tagging: For each platform you are advertising on, you will want to use the Google URL Builder to create a tag, which looks something like this:

http://www.yoursite.com/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=cpc&campaign=ads

The CTA on your ads should have a tag associated with it so Google Analytics can help you track which source is performing the best.

Setting Up Google Analytics For Startups

Learn how to setup Google Analytics to get the data you need to make growth-based decisions for your startup.

If you’re using paid media to drive traffic to your landing page, make sure your ad illustrates that so you incentivize users to click on your CTA and visit your landing page.

If your landing page goals are more towards e-mail collection/brand awareness, you could feature a story of why you built the particular product.

If your goal is to drive sign-ups on your landing page, then illustrate what your product is about and how it will benefit the user.

You can offer an incentive for users to convert on your landing page. The incentive could be in the form of some exclusive content (e.g. book, podcast episode, webinar) in exchange for signing up for a trial or subscribing to your newsletter. Our Rewards app allows you to redirect your user to your private page upon completing the required actions.

If you’re an E-commerce site, you can also offer discount coupon codes to users:

We previously covered sharing more content with your audience, but you will need more than 500 words to drive organic traffic. In the early days of Gleam, we relied on blogging a lot to drive traffic to our main product page.

Blogging can help build hype when your product is not yet ready. We recommend blogging at least 3-12 months before your product is even ready to launch.

Groove do a great job of writing about their product vs writing about their startup journey. It really helps add a personal touch to their product (and no doubt drive more customers).

For starters, you can post on third-party platforms like Medium so you can get going before having to consider setting up Google Analytics or a blogging platform. Eventually, you can move on to your own domain and tailor your own tools.

Here are some blog post ideas:

• Guides For Topics In Your Industry (Evergreen!)
• Startup Journey & Progress
• Case Studies
• Product Use Case: ‘How To Use X To Achieve Y’

We’ve seen firsthand how powerful giveaways can be — many of our customers have used competitions to gain massive growth. In fact, they’ve successfully reached well beyond their existing customer base to attract new, high-intent users.

The ROI for running a giveaway is often exceptional, but getting the most out of it starts with planning. Here are a few tips:

Your giveaway prize should align with the ideal user you want to attract.

Offering trendy tech like iPads or AirPods may generate lots of entries — but often from the wrong audience. Instead, choose a reward that fits your brand and speaks directly to the interests of your most valuable prospects.

Giveaways work across many types of businesses — from E-commerce and SaaS to events and media — but relevance is what makes them effective.

In fact, one of the most effective tactics is giving away your own product. For example, we partnered with Boosted to run a giveaway for their own boards:

When the prize is compelling, users are much more willing to take action — whether that’s following you on Instagram, joining your email list, or sharing your product with friends.

Think strategically:

• Do you want to grow social followers?
• Launch a product with buzz?
• Collect feedback from engaged prospects?

The real power of giveaways lies in re-marketing. Once users are on your list, you can nurture them into customers — turning initial interest into long-term value.

Giving away something for free can either be advantageous or detrimental to your product. If you give away too much of your product, you could potentially devalue it when it’s time to start charging some money. Here are some example of pricing pages from 50 top startups.

Tip: Give away enough to make the product useful, but make customers feel like paying for your plans could add enough value to make the upgrade worthwhile.

The holy grail example: Dropbox. Their viral loop marketing tactic earned them tremendous growth. Users start the free trial with a comfortable amount of storage, but they can always get more by referring to their friends. This presentation Dropbox founder Drew Houston gives great insight into the types of things that helped them grow:

Free products are also useful for the beta phase. For example, we let new users at Gleam run their first 3 competitions absolutely free. Then, we analyze the usage to figure out the average value each competition could bring to a customer. At the same time, we didn’t have to rely on closed, invite-only betas but still received adoption and feedback.

Today, Gleam offers options to run completely free competitions, plus paid plans with added features.

For free and Pro users, we show our own branding on the footer for each Competition:

This simple Powered by Gleam link drives 30% of our sign ups and is essentially free marketing. Intercom’s success is attributed to this ‘powered by’ tactic too:

Another business that does freemium well is MailChimp. On the free tier, MailChimp allows you to send 12,000 e-mails per month and maintain 2,000 subscribers – a substantial amount for gaining early traction. You can use MailChimp for long enough to grow comfortable with it and eventually convert.

After reaching 2,000 subscribers, MailChimp knows it will drive substantial value for the user to convert to a paid tier. You wouldn’t want to switch platforms and leave that window to missed opportunities, right?

• More incentive for users to try out the product.
• Less barrier to entry.
• Bloggers are more willing to review it, thus creating opportunity for referrals and more content.
• Easy to segment users and create tailored drip-campaigns.
• Opportunities to tap into existing customer base for upselling.

• High number of users will probably not convert.
• Scalability issues when there are too many free users.
• Hard to balance value between free and paid tiers, thus giving less incentive to convert.
• Free users will behave like ‘tourists’, resulting in lower perceived value of your product.

Data is only powerful if it allows us to make good decisions. Which means, we have to be careful how we set up our data collection. Some metrics you should pay attention to are:

• Funnel Conversion Rates
• E-mails
• Conversion Rates By Source

Knowing about inefficiencies in your signup/purchase funnel can make a huge difference to conversion rates. We once worked with a client that asked for tax and drivers license information on their signup form (which resulted in a 99.9% drop off rate) – not good when you’re spending 6 figures a month on inbound advertising.

Funnel drop offs are missed opportunities.

Funnel analysis is important because it allows you to identify your customer’s journey and how to make that experience better. Think about it – if they’ve already clicked on ‘Buy Now’, what else could be stopping them from finishing the process?

Perhaps you are asking for too much information during the sign-up? Things like address or credit card information could discourage the user from signing up. Users could be wary of data protection issues or, it simply takes too long to take out their wallet and type in their credit card information.

Once you’ve setup your funnel, monitor it and study which stage has the highest drop off rate. Experiment with the elements on that stage to debug what’s going on. We will cover more of this in the next section. Is a page taking too load to load? Are the image file sizes too large? You can test your website’s speed with free tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

E-mails can help you understand how new users interact with your application. What percentage come to the site from personalized e-mails or reactivation e-mails? Do your monthly newsletters generate significant revenue? What types of e-mails work best at achieving a certain outcome?

Take a look at this simple shopping cart abandonment email from Casper:

Depending on the results, you may want to fine-tune your e-mails to serve your audience better. For example, if your reactivation e-mails are not getting enough conversions, consider offering a discount code or a freebie. For retailers, free shipping is often a very attractive option.

Having goals or E-commerce tracking set up in Google Analytics will allow you to break down conversion rates by traffic source. Have you been working with third parties to help drive traffic? Getting mentions from other blogs? You can instantly see which sources are most valuable for driving conversion. Use this data to contact similar sites or to optimise your relationship with existing partners.

Do you also write a lot of content? Find out which pieces drive the most SEO traffic and conversions. What type of keywords works best for your business?

If you already have a launch page, then you should already have Google Analytics set up. Check out this separate post on setting up Google Analytics.

Tip: We find that our Google Analytics post works best if you have a preliminary understanding of Google Analytics. The structure of our post is pretty similar to Analytics Academy’s beginner course, but we have added real Gleam examples to help you better understand what we can achieve with Google Analytics.

Your site should have a specific outcome that is important to your business. It could be making a sale, capturing leads or some sort of action/event. Your sales funnel is comprised of the steps that precede your intended outcome. It’s up to you to make sure the friction or value at each step is high enough to get people to complete them.

Some elements that could affect your funnel include:

• Too many CTAs on the same page, which can be distracting.
• Offer on the CTA is unclear. Is this supposed to sign me up or subscribe me to something?
• Feedback from website. If I added an item to my cart, I would like to know that it worked. Don’t make me question what is happening on the site.

Here are some examples of businesses that do a good job of reducing friction on a particular action point:

Instagram: Have you ever wondered why Instagram photos upload so quickly when you hit save? This is because they start uploading the photo as soon as you’ve taken it. By the time you fill out any captions or details, hitting save button is really just saving the metadata. This is a simple example that greatly improves the user experience of their application.

Beardbrand: Beardbrand has a buttery smooth checkout process that accommodates to the user every step of the way.

The primary CTA for this page is in a striking colour not used in anywhere else of the page, which makes it easy for the user to locate and click on.

Upon scrolling down the product page, a sidebar with the product and the ‘Add to Cart’ CTA follows you so you remember which product you’re currently browsing. Kind of like having your item in a shopping cart as you walk around and continue considering.

We like that the checkout cart also has a ‘recommended’ section that encourages upselling. Note that it is also greyed out to avoid confusion.

There are a lot of things we like on this checkout page:

1. The top header continues to encourage the customer to make the purchase towards the end of the journey. It’s a personal touch that packs a punch.
2. Paypal Express checkout option is still available at this stage in case the customer changes his/her mind.
3. Subscription to newsletter is auto-checked to encourage users to sign up.

Tip: If your business is region-focused, consider using a payment or checkout system popular in that region. For example, most merchants in the South East Asian region use AliPay as one of their payment gateways. This helps establish credibility and trust. Besides, it also makes the target market much more intuitive to the user.

Startups often invest heavily in high-quality blog content — guides, tutorials, insights — but forget to connect it back to their offering. If you’re not linking to your product, you're missing an opportunity to turn engaged readers into leads.

Every blog post should serve a purpose beyond traffic — whether that’s education, awareness, or conversion.

If your business plan includes content as a key acquisition channel, make sure it's also part of your sales funnel.

• Include a sidebar blurb: Share a short, compelling pitch with a link to your product.
• Link from the header: Ensure your logo and navigation always point back to your product site.
• Mention your product naturally: If your content solves a problem your product addresses, reference it organically.

Blog readers are often warm leads — they’re already consuming your insights. Don’t let them leave without knowing what you offer or how it can help them.

Tell the reader about your product in the sidebar, make it compelling but short enough to digest.

Basecamp’s blog – Signal vs Noise on Medium does this by sharing their roots in the blog description. Notice they have subtly added some anchor text that links back to their main product site, the CTA being to sign up for a free trial.

A rule of thumb is to always link back to your main product from the logo in the header. It should be a standard site-wide experience.

Evernote’s blog page has a logo on the top to bring users back to the product site, and also a ‘sign in’ link on the top right corner for users to jump back into it.

The art of customer development provides a framework for collecting customer feedback and converting them into valuable insight for reaching product/market fit. Conversations with your potential customers could help you in a number of ways:

• Validation Of Core Concepts
• Valuable Feedback
• Testimonials

We previously covered on reaching out to potential customers. It’s always a good idea to reach out early and validate that they have a problem you can help solve. You should always be validating that there is indeed a market for what you are building – make sure your solution makes people’s lives easier one way or another.

When GrooveHQ first started out on their journey, they were already fond believers of customer development. Leveraging on their existing network, they asked relevant people about their major pain points in customer service software in order to validate ideas.

They took 10 minutes of each prospect’s time and asked simple questions: the How, What, and Why.

One takeaway from their experience: at the early stage of your startup, you are asking to learn and not to sell. We particularly liked how they used reverse psychology to ask for user feedback. By simply stating ‘feel free to say no, this has already been helpful’, GrooveHQ was surprised that most people they spoke to were willing to give feedback whenever their product is ready.

It’s easy to bury our heads in the sand and build what we think are the right features. However, there is nothing better than having clients tell you exactly what problems they have.

The trick here is to balance between customer feedback and your product direction. Let them pivot each other but never let one side take over the other.

Pioneer of customer development, Steve Blank wrote about how you can kill your own startup by trying to do everything your customers want.

Another thing you have to be aware of is to collect feedback from your core target. Feedback from armchair critics will not get you far if they don’t have a stake in your product. If a person has a problem you can help solve, then they probably have a stake in your product – they want you to succeed because they want their problems solved.

Canny had an exciting journey discovering their core target. Initially, Canny built a platform for consumers to submit feedback to their favourite products. Those suggestions could then be upvoted or downvoted by the community. Although there were a lot of users, retention was weak – they realised the product was not something consumers would pay for.

That’s not to say their core concept was invalidated, they realized they were talking to the wrong group of people. They switched over to businesses and interviewed product managers. What they discovered was a larger problem than they had started with.

They realised that business users had a larger need for their solution and they would be more than willing to pay for it, because product managers rely on feedback as a form of guidance to product roadmaps.

By identifying the correct audience and pivoting based on user feedback, Canny went from $1,000 MMR to $3,500 MMR within 5 months of their MVP launch.

Testimonials matter. Andrew Warner did a fantastic interview with Victoria Ransom from Wildfire and she revealed their success – having Pepsi as their first client. Having a client such as Pepsi opened doors for Wildfire and allowed them to do more business with clients of similar size.

Use this opportunity to let customers use your product for free – in exchange for a testimonial, or an honest review of the product. Wildfire used the same technique and provided their services to Facebook at a low cost. While it was painful for them cost-wise, having that referral at the end of the day made it worthwhile.

…you really really had to find someone that you could get the attention of, and then being willing to really, frankly, give away a fair bit of value on those earlier clients, because they’re worth a lot to you.

If an investor asked:

Where are you getting your first 5 paying customers from?

Would you be able to answer confidently?

Having a clear customer development process helps you validate assumptions, identify friction points, and refine your messaging — especially in the early stages. It also gives you a foundation for future market research as your audience grows and diversifies.

Here are two steps to make your customer research more actionable:

• Use Your Own Product Become your first user. This helps you experience the friction, value, and gaps your customers will encounter — and gives you faster feedback loops.

• Segment And Build Customer Profiles Not all leads are created equal. Break down your audience into clear segments and build distinct user profiles. This allows you to tailor outreach, messaging, and onboarding flows more effectively.

The goal isn’t just to get feedback — it’s to learn how and why different segments engage with your product so you can serve them better.

There is nothing better than eating your own dogfood, how can you be inspired by your own products if you don’t use them yourself?

Phil at Close.io wrote an inspiring post about having co-workers as your first customers. Since Close.io is essentially a product for sales people, and they are also running a sales-related business, Phil was able to get his co-worker’s feedback in real-time to speed up their development.

It’s rare for a product to fit completely with one customer profile – understand that there will be varying segments that your product will serve. Having a good understanding of your multiple customer profiles allow you to:

Target them better: Ever run an e-mail campaign? Then you will know the importance of sending the right e-mail to the right audience at the right time. Segmenting allows you to ensure that you communicate with them in the most effective way to win their business.

Influence their decisions: Different people are influenced by different things – price, features, support, ease of integration or reputation are all potential factors to consider. Knowing which factors influence certain segments will help you close more business.

Check out this beautiful pre-launch subscription e-mail:

Diving deep into the early subscriber’s mindset, Nguyen created this stunning e-mail with attractive imagery to give an idea of what subscribers can expect in due time. It’s built to create hype.

Then, she provides links for a number of blog posts she has shared over time (probably her best performing ones) to keep users ‘on edge’. She even offers the reader to ask her anything and provide them with a discount code for the product launch. A+ for sincerity and building trust.

Inspero Inc’s Vinci 2.0 (wireless headphones) gained massive traction on Kickstarter. They managed to hit funding goals within the first 6 minutes, and then $100k USD within the first 4 hours. In fact, the project is 3,961% funded at the time of writing!

Art of the Kickstart did an interview with Cathy Cao, Business Director of Inspero Inc. to discuss about the tactics they used to gain massive growth. Apart from leveraging their existing community of Vinci 1.0 users to market Vinci 2.0, here are some tactics they used:

• E-mail Marketing
• Create Hype With A Launch Party
• Getting Testimonial From Early Adopters
• Have A Pre-Launch Page
• Build An E-mail List

Cathy revealed that e-mail conversions were the primary factor for their pre-launch success. Their team replicated previous campaign efforts and made it much more scalable.

…before launch, it’s definitely important to know what is maybe an average rate for your certain industry and what you’re looking to get there, so that you can have a good estimate of about how much you’re able to acquire that day from email…

Inspero Inc. won a lot of media attention by throwing a launch party in New York City. They took the opportunity to show off their product sample and got attendees to try it.

Between the launch of Vinci 1.0 to Vinci 2.0, Inspero Inc. grew their e-mail list from 5,000 to 100,000, that’s 20x growth! This was partly due to:

1. Viral effect from the launch party
2. Leveraging on the lessons learnt from launching Vinci 1.0

Tip: Gleam’s Capture app helps you capture e-mails from potential customers. Embed one on your landing page to grow your e-mail list.

Before their launch party, Inspero Inc. set up a teaser launch page to build momentum.

…try to get as much momentum as possible there, prelaunch, to be able to have this big bang, this big boom, on launch date.

Notice that Vinci 2.0’s landing page is also long and concise, featuring top product features, various use cases, integrations and product colors. Unbounce shared an article suggesting that longer landing pages (depending on the goal) can increase conversion rates.

Phew! So that’s been a long ride and we’ve covered a lot of topics here to help you find your first customers. We’ll talk more on customer retention strategies soon, please leave a comment and tell us what you’d like to hear more about! 🎉