Jason Leow

https://kidsplaysafersg-stackbit-1b8b9.stackbit.app/

So it’s post-launch Day 2 for Sheet2Bio:

No paid customers…yet 🤭

Otherwise, the launch on Twitter seems like it went well…?

👀 12k impressions
💙 80+ likes
💬 30+ replies
📣 30+ RTs

Serious, I have no idea what a successful Twitter launch looks like.

What do I even look out for?

One thing that did come up though:

Got a few concerned DMs telling me that my landing page wasn’t loading properly, and I had to tell them it was entirely intentional.

I had a giggle when it happened. It’s either funny or worrying… Because people might think it’s not loading properly and bounce before seeing the rest. But it’s good feedback nonetheless. Looks like the intentional no-design look is being completely missed. So I quickly added a header explaining the no-CSS look:

“Your page loaded correctly, yes. And yes, it’s intentional. We save time/costs not having to prettify this page so that we can spend more time making your link-in-bio page awesome.”

One thing’s certain:

This no-design look will either stand out and 1000×, or tank and go to 0. It’s looking to be a big gamble for sure!

I did things very differently this time compared to all my past launches. Jotting it down here for learning:

• Researched and planned my launch by researching best practices of how creators do it on Twitter. I was lucky - Mattia, Kevon and Minh-Phuc launched recently and I was able to take more than a leaf from their playbooks! That was gold and immensely helpful.

• I also did ‘seeding’ this time. Two days before launch, I tweeted out a ‘Save The Date’ tweets, and asked if people are willing to support by RTing on the launch day. I got about 10 volunteers, which really help push the tweet up in the first few hours of launch.

• I also stopped my usual programming and stopped tweeting about writing for creators and other indie hacking/building in public tweets, and focused on tweets around Sheet2Bio. I tweets about the background, some things I learned, some building in public tweets, and plugging the site and coming launch. This helped to build up more awareness leading to the launch.

• I usually schedule 3 content tweets per day, but this time I just schedule a single one for the launch tweet. It was an experiment to see if I can conserve my ‘algo juice’ for just 1 tweet. Seemed to have worked! (Though can’t be 100% sure it’s due to what I hypothesized)

• I hardly do RTs but there were 2 other creators launching just the day before so I tweeted them out in the afternoon too. Didn’t seem to impact my launch tweet.

• I scheduled it to go out at 6pm SG time, which is around noon Central European Time. That means people are leaving work in Asia, and taking a break in Europe. More eyes on it perhaps.

• I scheduled the auto-RTs for 4h for 5 times instead of my usual 6h for 3 times, to get it in front of my audience more. This also syncs well with the time of tweet, because 6pm tweet gets RTed at 10pm which is 10am in New York, 7am in SF, when the US is just waking up. An attempt to catch the attention during the morning commute.

• I also synced updates to my Twitter profile bio and banner with the launch. I changed my bio to highlight Sheet2Bio first, and designed a banner that shows Sheet2Bio with “I just launched this” copy.

• Updated the open graph image for Sheet2Bio to look more dynamic, since this was what they will see in the link image card preview

• I tweeted out a link. They say don’t tweet links as that gets downranked by the algo. But I had to make it easy for people to check out my site, so no choice. Made sure the preview image looked good, and the pre-launch seeding helped bumped it up.

• I only launched on Twitter, on my Facebook and on the Makerlog Telegram chat group this time. No Product Hunt. Oh yes, and Imgur too (random, wild card opportunity since I needed a new direct URL for the open graph image)

• Tweet goes out at 6pm, and I tried to stop replying to other people’s tweets 3h before at 3pm, so that in case one reply goes viral it wouldn’t vie for attention against the launch tweet. I only managed to stop by 4pm instead.

• I hammered out lots of replies to big and peer accounts before 4pm when US and Europe are asleep/busy, to try to get more attention on my account when they check Twitter at 6pm.

More post-launch retros to come!

I had to tell him it's intentional. So this raw HTML no-BS landing page will either stand out and 1000x or go to 0... a gamble alright!

Here's the launch tweet! 🔥

https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg/status/1529764279456452610

Would love if you could RT/QT it! But if you prefer not to RT, a reply to the tweet would be awesome too!

Thanks so much! 😊

http://tweethunter.io/grant/apply

Sheet2Bio is a SaaS project that’s special to my heart.

Because after so much trial and error learning about creating and launching products, I feel like 80% of most scripted playbook don’t work for me. Oftentimes flipping it and doing the opposite works out better for me!

Here’s the flipped scripts I learned for building and marketing a SaaS products, and how I’m applying everything here to Sheet2Bio:

Lofty ambitions vs No grand product vision
• No more “change the world” narrative, no grand ambition for building a great product that service millions
• I approached it by being opportunistic… like an idiot without a plan vs a genius with a plan

High expectations, big targets vs No expectations
• I used to set big idealistic targets (I set $1M annually before, then $5k monthly) and hyping up expectations in order to distort reality.
• Now I’m realistic, and use data, listen to users more

Focus on one thing vs Diversify across a portfolio
• Go all in on one thing, they say. Putting everything into an all-or-nothing bet is sexy and heroic.
• Now, I’m diversified across 10 projects, with a handful one giving the main revenue.

Dedicated effort and craft vs As little effort as possible
• The craftsman, builder mentality was a sacred pact for technically-inclined founders. Build it well, even to the extent of over-engineering or over-designing.
• No longer. I minimise as much engineering and design effort as I can. I write as little code as I can, even thought I enjoy it.
• No-design, HTML-only landing page now instead of sleek, smooth landing pages
SaaS usually meant automated processes and workflows, but I’m breaking this rule too. Everything is manual for Sheet2Bio now. No scalability, no
• One big, multi-month push in mostly stealth vs Incremental, just-in-time efforts building in public in mere weeks

Product Hunt launch to everyone vs Twitter to friends
• PH is the de facto place to launch anything tech these days. It’s huge, you get eyes on your product from people who you don’t know. But these days, I’m thinking smaller. Like launching to my friends on Twitter, and to their friends.
• It’s like a house party over a gala dinner - more fun, more cosy, more friendly.

I’m sure I’m flipping more SaaS scripts than what I just covered, but that’s enough for today. Got a launch to go for!

https://imgur.com/a/6wI7bcX

Also updated social preview image on Twitter using the twitter Card Validator.

Most of the time the card won't update if you just use your domain URL. Add a parameter suffix to the end of your domain URL e.g. /?123 and it'll update the main domain's social preview image

So everything’s done for Sheet2Bio. It’s launch time!

Not sure why but only just recently I realised Sheet2Bio is my 2nd SaaS product. I was already a month in by then, yet it only dawned on me so much later. Why?

Back story
I think it’s because I never quite took it so ‘seriously’ to call it a SaaS. From the start it was just something I wanted for myself – a link-in-bio site to contain my most important links to products and content. I didn’t want to have to log in to edit it. I liked using Google Sheets to update stuff like that. I didn’t feel like the existing ones serve my needs as a creator, and since I already had some old code for a similar product I shut down previously, I thought I could repurpose it.

After that I saw that other creators also had lots of links, and thought I could build it for them, so I offered it to other creators I know who already use one. One by one, I DMed them, offered them a free beta account, and manually created each page for them. Along the way, learned loads! So many bugs and user errors that I never anticipated if I had just stuck to me, myself and I as the only user. The product improved by leaps. It started to have it’s own look. It took on it’s defining features catered for Twitter creators and indie hackers – revenue charts, progress bar.

Now I thought… maybe I can charge for it and see if people will even pay. That’s still an unknown, even though there were some enthusiastic responses from the beta users. After all, they got it for free. But the dynamics change the moment you’re asked to key in your credit card number. So it’s good to push it out now to test the hypothesis: “Is Sheet2Bio viable as a business? Would customers be willing to pay?”

Approach so far
Because of that iterative, incremental approach to building in public, I never had a grand vision in mind. It was always just responding to whatever the opportunity was in front of me. I didn’t have much expectations, unlike all of my past products, especially Lifelog.

And I’m kind of liking this “loosely held” approach.

Because it feels like I can be more realistic this time, and not be blinded my idealism and grand visions not tethered to reality. I can take it for what it is, rather what it should be.

Because it’s loosely held, I’m also keeping my tendencies for over-engineering or over-designing in check. Just look at my landing page. It’s still raw HTML only. No fonts, no colors. The only colors are the emojis. Everything is optimised for minimum effort. Nothing is automated at this point – I still created each link-in-bio page, each account manually.

Not out of laziness though, but more out of committing just the right amount of effort for the stage that the product is at. Just-in-time effort. And frankly, for anything that’s still zero revenue, the effort and cost invested should be low. Low enough that if it fails, I won’t lose sleep over it.

This truly feels true to the spirit of being an idiot without a plan than being a genius with a plan.

Next: launch!
I made my first code commit for Sheet2Bio on Apr 2nd, and it’s already almost 2 months since! How time flies. While my effort wasn’t 100% on it, I think 2 months is still too long. So I’m committing to a MVP launch.

On Thursday, May 26th!

Again, no expectation. Launching on Twitter first. No Product Hunt yet.

Glad to be pushing it out into the wild… finally!

I'd be super grateful if I can get your support that day!

Please reply "💪" below if you wish to help spread the word.

Will DM you on Twitter about the launch only if you replied. Thank you!

It never felt like my side projects earned all that much.

Slightly over $100 per month for Lifelog, and a $15 purchase for a Carrd plugin every week or so.

Just tiny drips here and there. 😔

$15 feels so tiny in comparison to my $5k monthly revenue goal, I often don't even celebrate it or consider it a win.

But after doing my 2021 tax accounting, I realised my side project revenue totalled ~$11,000!

@knight asked for a breakdown of the $11K, so here goes (these are rough estimates):

- Lifelog = $1200
- Plugins For Carrd = $900
- Sweet Jam Sites = $500
- Keto List Singapore = $1100
- Social impact patronage = $1300
- Others* = $6000

* e.g. random one-off freelancing jobs like coaching, writing a tech article, integrating a Carrd site
** Caveat: These are revenue from side projects. My main income still comes from consulting.

I felt better after seeing it was $11k.

My tiny epiphany: Because of how my revenue is diversified due to my portfolio of products, I realised I needed a different lens in which to look at my revenue.

What looked like insignificant drips here and there... can actually add up to something substantial!

It's just like how small daily consistent actions doesn't look like much (100 words a day?), but it can compound (36,500 words a year - enough for a short novel!) – but of course! I know this. Strange how I never applied that same idea to my portfolio revenue. 🤦‍♂️

Always ZOOM OUT.