Getting to $6k MRR using Twitter
Potion is a product close to my heart – I was (and am) an early user, and a huge fan. Why? Because the tool let’s your turn any Notion page into a website.
What does Potion do?
Potion is a product close to my heart – I was (and am) an early user, and a huge fan. Why? Because the tool let’s your turn any Notion page into a website. If you’re a Notion user and want to put up a landing page or site quickly and easily, Notion is your solution.
It’s what I run 🍪 Startup Cookie consulting site on. I built it in about an hour a few months ago and it’s generated $10k+ in side client work since I put it up. And whenever I have a side project idea or just want to put something online fast, I use Potion.
Noah recently launched Potion v2 with a ton of new features. For example, you can now build password-protected sites and put different passwords on certain pages. This is useful for agencies who often use this to share things with clients. It can also avoid having to build an entire login system for simple use cases. But the biggest thing was the launch of a new dashboard, which has a live preview, new settings a free plan instead of just a free trial, and the ability to add settings to specific pages (snippet code, styling, SEO elements, etc.).
Right now he is working on being able to have a website on a subdirectory/blog.
👨‍👨‍👦‍👦 Who is Potion’s target audience?
75% of users are solo entrepreneurs. They use it for their personal website or portfolios.
Essentially these people just want to easily have a place on the internet to point people to, whether it’s a blog or a product landing page.
The other 25% are smaller companies of up to 20 people. They’re mostly using it for career pages, help docs and FAQ’s.
đź“ť Briefly describe how you grew
In the early days, most of Noah’s growth came from Twitter. Building in public, posting and participating in conversations, etc. He did this mainly because the thought it was fun and motivating, not because he thought of it as marketing. But it worked well, because most people interested in “building in public” stories were in his exact audience. To this day it remains his biggest channel.
These days, Noah gets more traffic from Google. Although he admits these are mostly branded searches, meaning they’re coming from somewhere else and then searching for the tool. He’s working on adding non-branded keywords to his strategy.
He’s also been experimenting with posting in communities. There’s a Notion community on Twitter that’s 4k people, and a Facebook group of 80k people he posts in. The kind of content he creates usually looks something like a demo or speaking event (there’s lots of Notion meetups), but he’s not yet sure this will be a real growth channel.
How Noah recommends growing on Twitter
First off, he thinks it’s getting harder. When he started doing this years ago it wasn’t “normal”. He was on the early end of doing it. Nowadays it seems like everyone jumped on, so it’s not effective. This is unfortunately how most new growth tactics go – there’s always an early adopter advantage. Still, there are always ways to grow on social media, you just have to adapt.
When Noah started Potion he had about 1500 followers. He wrote a launch tweet about how he was starting a SaaS the next day, and would share each step of how he did it. Within 24 hours he got 1k followers. His statement was big, bold, and resonated well. If you’re trying to replicate this, don’t just be building a product. That’s been done. Think of something new.
One uniquely beneficial side effect of this channel is that there is a pretty instant feedback loop. The better your product does, the more people will follow you (Noah now has over 12k followers). You instantly learn what about your product resonates, and what doesn’t. At the same time, you build up a personal brand.
Tips for doing it today:
- Don’t be afraid to share failures. People like to see you are a real human. A lot of people only share the highlights on Twitter and that’s not a true picture.
- Be authentic! People can relate to it more. Ask for help and input.
- These days you’ll have more success if you lean into the networking aspect of Twitter Don’t just build in public to get new customers, do it to get new credibility and work with the right people. For example, he was looking for a light side job to help support his stability while building Potion and found one within a day on Twitter
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