Congratulations to Nick for generating over $200,000 in revenue on the first day of his launch of BYOK!
Read on to find out:
- How Nick validated BYOK on Prelaunch
- How the product changed based on customer feedback
- And his advice on how you can bring people to your page on a minimal budget!
And how he did this by bringing a lot of organic (free) traffic!
Nick came to Prelaunch with an idea for a distraction-free writing device.
He’d used similar products in the past, but he found them to be clunky, bad for posture, and incredibly expensive for how simple they were…
After years of use, he knew they could be improved!
So he sketched a few ideas, decided on the following ideal feature-set that wouldn’t break the bank:
- No Built-in Keyboard — he and his expected target market already have a great keyboard they love to type on
- Ultra Portability — make it as small and self-contained as possible — without impacting writing comfort — with a battery for writing on-the-go
- Promote Good Posture — allow freedom of movement, so it can be set up in the ideal position wherever creativity strikes
- Reduce Writing Obstacles — fast start-up time, easy to review, reliable save and cloud sync, and no added features that will distract from writing
Then Nick built his Prelaunch page, and started sharing it with relevant communities to gather feedback.
This was his initial product page:
He started organically promoting his Prelaunch page on relevant sub-Reddits.
With just 3 posts, Nick got over 200 comments on Reddit, and sent 1,000s of people to his Prelaunch page. For free.
I asked Nick how he did it.
And this is his advice for anyone looking to promote their product organically on Reddit:
1. Find Relevant Communities
From a single post on r/writerdeck, Nick got 142 responses!
r/digitaljournaling on the other hand, generated just 2…
Nick recommends really niching down, and finding really targeted communities with the most engaged members.
Sure, r/writing sounds attractive with nearly 3M members — compared to just under 5k at r/writerdeck — but the ‘parent’ sub is focused on more general writing topics, and most people there have no idea what or why you would need a distraction-free writing device!
By finding smaller communities with more relevant audiences:
- You stand a higher chance of being accepted in the community
- You get expert-based opinions from people with experience with similar products
- You receive valuable feedback from potential users
2. Generate Discussion. Don’t Promote.
Reddit is notoriously against promotion and brands trying to sell something.
It’s a safe space for discussions around relevant topics.
And if you can tap into that interest, the amount of deep engagement you’ll get is astounding!
For BYOK, Nick made sure that his posts weren’t promotional, but invited members to share their opinions, offer feedback, and demonstrate their expertise.
In his first post on r/writerDeck, Nick introduced his product, what it is, why it’s built like this, and offered to answer any questions. This post ended up gaining over 140 relevant comments!
He made sure to respond to questions, give thanks for feedback, and follow up with additional questions where relevant.
“The whole key is to go in there and generate a discussion,” Nick said, “you’re not just selling it, you’re also saying, ‘How can you help me make this better? Do you have any suggestions for this? You are the kind of people I want to sell this to. So I want to know what you think.’ and generally, they appreciate it!”
3. Be Authentic & Transparent
Although most of Reddit is shrouded in anonymity, it’s unabashedly authentic.
People share real, unfiltered opinions, show weakness, and — if you play your cards right — are highly supportive of this kind of authentic content.
- If people helped you, thank them
- Follow up with other posts, sharing how the sub’s feedback was implemented
- Be self-critical
On this last point, Nick emphasized, “The most recent post was, ‘Can we make BYOK look just a little bit better?’ So you’re admitting it’s not perfect, and by being self-critical — even in the post title — that’s a great way to show authenticity.”
That post also generated an insane amount of feedback, with over 120 comments:
Finally, although Nick opted to create a branded account for this project, he highly recommends using a ‘personal’ account.
4. Follow Sub Rules & Engage Moderators Early
To ensure Reddit remains an authentic, transparent, and non-promotional space, moderators are often very strict about their rules.
Nick was even instantly banned from one sub after sharing a post!
Why?
The rules of the sub didn’t allow that kind of content…
So make sure you read all the rules of the sub first — and respect them!
And Nick advises you take that one step further, by reaching out to 1-2 of the moderators before posting.
“Getting banned was my signal to start reaching out to moderators and ask for permission first.” Nick said, “You can even tie it to their community. So on the typewriter sub, I mentioned, ‘Hey, we have this device that we’re still trying to make better. It seems to be very relevant to your community, with people on other subs saying they want to use it with their typewriter. Do you think your community would be interested?’”
5. Keep Trying
Reddit’s a tough nut to crack.
But Nick recommends you don’t give up too early:
“If you post in a few places and it’s just not picking up, maybe you’re looking in the wrong subreddit. Because there are so many subreddits!” Nick said, “Like at first you might think big and find a huge subreddit for writers, but you quickly realize that it’s too broad. And as it’s big, it’s also very locked down on self promotion and stuff like that.”
His solution?
Keep repeating the above steps on other subreddits:
“You need to find really targeted subreddits.” Nick added, “And those ones, they’ll be smaller and they’re less likely to have a lot of rules. They’re also more likely to be welcoming!”
And what about Prelaunch?
When Nick came to Prelaunch with BYOK, this is what it looked like:
Through the discussions on his product page and the 1,000s of survey responses he gathered, he understood that:
- People didn’t like the big clunky design
- But they wanted a bigger screen
- They weren’t fans of the gray color scheme
- The logo was too big
- People were worried about non-replaceable batteries wearing out
- And the built-in stand was too limiting
Nick gathered all this feedback and redesigned BYOK in a week.
When he launched the next iteration, it was a completely evolved product — and the positive feedback let him know he was on the right track.
Prelaunch was very, very good [… It] was my cue that I can spend real money on it because I have enough proof here that people like it! That was really valuable because otherwise I’d be sitting there for months not knowing what to do.
Nick Sjolinder, Founder at BYOK.
“That was really valuable because otherwise I’d be sitting there for months not knowing what to do,” added Nick, “The surveys are really powerful because basically they allowed me to improve a product without spending lots of money on it. The only other way to do that is to have engineers evolving your product in isolation which can be very costly. And I mean, I would never do it that way after using something like Prelaunch!”
