How to launch and promote a Micro SaaS app

At least 30-60 days out from your Micro Saas app launch, you’ll want to start to build up an audience to launch to. Alongside this, you’ll need to be planning out your launch channels. But that’s far from everything. You should be actively trying to do the following things when getting ready for the exciting day:

Here are the topics I'll be touching on in this chapter:

- Commit To Writing X Blog Articles Per Month
- Don’t Delay Your Launch
- Gather Reviews From Beta Users
- Build Up The Pre-Launch Hype
- Launch Your Micro SaaS!
- Treat Your Early Adopters Well
- Failure Minimisation
- My Multi-5-Figure Micro SaaS App Launch

Commit To Writing X Blog Articles Per Month

When in the pre-launch phase and you’re still building out your website, it’s easy to forget to focus on other content.

It may seem like devoting time to writing blog articles isn’t worth it at this stage. However, these search engine-friendly posts will give you a great long-term ROI, so it’s worth planting these seeds nice and early. With better Google Rankings comes more traffic, with more people finding your website due to the well-written blog posts.

With that in mind, commit to writing a number of blog posts that you’ll publish per month. This could be anything from one a month up to several each week to get the blog bulked out at the start. The main thing is to commit to a regular schedule so that you don’t end up with an outdated-looking blog.

It’s important to attract an audience and keep your audience engaged with relevant content. Make sure your articles are well crafted and give value to your target audience. These articles will provide you with a steady stream of (free) leads for your app every single month. You can also use these blog posts as lead magnets so potential users can opt-in to your email list.

Articles should answer questions around the problem that your app solves. You should also aim to cover the full spectrum of intent from informational through to commercial and transactional intent.

You might think you need to wait until you have the app ready to launch before announcing it to the world but as long as you’re ready with your marketing efforts, you can start showing people what you’re going to offer well before you launch your app.

Don’t Delay Your Micro SaaS App Launch

So, you’ve (hopefully) kicked your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) into shape, and it’s ready to make its debut.

Please resist the never-ending temptation to “add just one more feature before I launch”. We all know that once that feature has been built, there’ll be another one, then another one 🔁

You don’t want to fall into the trap of going round in circles adding new features, constantly delaying the launch for one more week or even months at a time 😱

Start Gathering Reviews

If you’ve been through the beta testing phase, then now is the time to ask them to gather reviews which you’ll put on the sales page/website as testimonials.

Any social proof will really help build trust and in the early days this is essential! Disclosing that they’re a beta tester will add to the authenticity of their reviews.

Get consent from them to use their profile pic/social avatar to add a further aspect of social proof to their reviews. Below you can see some reviews of one of my Micro SaaS apps - Merch Wizard.

In the early days, I had automated email sequences that culminated in a request for a review from the user that proved to be quite effective.

Build Up The Pre-Launch Hype

On to the actual micro SaaS app launch itself! Set a realistic date and then start to build up some excitement for the launch 🚀

Starting from T-minus 30 days, every few days you should be providing some fresh content for your potential user base. This content shouldn’t just be the “X days to go” style mundane countdown email sequence.

Build up a content calendar in which you’ll drip feed them each feature’s description and the benefits of it to them. Believe it or not, people will genuinely get excited for your app launch if you're drip feeding them solutions to their problems.

Here’s an example of a simple post I made in the KDP Wizard Facebook Group showing a searchable treeview control I’d been working on to replace the clunky native treeview control. Despite its simplicity, the group’s users loved it because they knew it’d save them so much time every time they listed a book:

Houston, We Have Lift Off 🚀

Needless to say, your beta users should have tested the go-live version ahead of you starting to promote the app. Once they’ve given it the green light, it’s time to push the big red button and get this Micro SaaS rocket launched.

You can start small and launch through one platform at a time to ensure there aren’t any teething or unexpected load issues. As your confidence builds, you can expand out to the bigger platforms.

Some users may struggle to get your app up and running, so you will need to be on hand to help support this influx of new users.

Treat Your Early Adopters Well

Your first users will be the seeds of your customer base, so it’s important you treat them well. Be transparent in your pricing, provisional roadmap, and your passion for making the best possible app to solve their problem(s).

If you can do a great job for these early customers, they will likely help spread the word of your app to other potential users in your niche. This chain reaction is only likely to come from delighted users rather than just satisfied.

The MVP of my app Merch Wizard was very “basic” (to put it kindly), but it did what it needed to do. It proved that there was an audience willing to pay for an app to fix their problem. Many of those early adopters are still paying their monthly subscription several years on as they locked in the low monthly launch rate.

My Multi-5-Figure Micro SaaS App Launch

My apps (Merch Wizard & KDP Wizard) were launched using purely organic traffic. Here are the sources of that organic traffic that I leveraged when launching my apps:

• Email list (built-up initially by my earlier smaller chrome extensions)
• Facebook Groups (my Wizard ones plus affiliates ones)
• YouTube Live demos & Q&As with affiliates/influencers
• Facebook Live demos & Q&As with affiliates/influencers
• Podcast appearances

[FYI, I will shortly be compiling a short case study on my KDP Wizard launch detailing how I achieved a 5 figure launch using purely organic traffic. Let’s not forget that I started with zero audience and I was able to generate this for a micro-niche chrome extension.]

Start As You Mean To Go On

Even though we’re just starting on our app development journey, it’s important to set off on the right foot with the future in mind.

Yes, you can hack your way to an MVP and then address that technical debt later on - I’m ok with that.

However, from a billing perspective, subscribers to your MVP should be paying your business stripe/paypal account rather than your personal stripe/paypal account which would be way harder to transfer during a future sale (albeit a long long way off).

Having been through the sale/exit process, I have learnt that subscription income that can’t be easily transferred can sometimes be written off the valuation. 😲

Failure Minimisation

Nobody wants their app launch to flop. If you’ve done your best to validate your Micro SaaS idea, then you’re already on the right track.

In any case, you’re better off finding out the truth sooner rather than later to avoid unnecessarily wasting additional weeks/months developing a product nobody wants.

If your initial micro SaaS app launch does fail, don’t be disheartened! It’s most likely due to a lack of genuine demand for the solution you’re aiming to provide, rather than a reflection on yourself. You can learn from this experience, finding a better problem to focus on for next time.

In order to come across a better idea, make sure you check out my chapter on the characteristics of a solid Micro SaaS app idea. This will walk you through the whole process and make sure your idea is certain to be a hit!

In case you landed on this page directly from a search engine, then you’re reading chapter 8 of my 12 part guide to Micro SaaS.

Download the entire 12 chapter guide as a PDF eBook for free so you can read it where you want, when you want.

Final Thoughts

This has been an exciting chapter, actually launching your app into the big wide world! Let's remind ourselves of the key takeaways for this chapter before we move on:

• Don't delay your launch - you'll always want to add more features, there will never be a right time, the fear of failure etc .... ship it as soon as it's working and functional and get that early feedback!
• Commit To Writing X Blog Articles Per Month - this early time investment can provide you with a steady stream of new leads for your app on an ongoing basis.
• Gather Reviews from beta testers/early adopters - in the early days, social proof will really boost your conversion ratio as more potential customers read the benefits other similar users are experiencing.
• Build Up The Pre-Launch Hype - engage with your audience, drip feed them whatever you can, no matter how small to build up anticipation of your launch.
• Launch! - start small and build it out as your confidence grows that you're able to support the growing user base.
• Treat Your Early Adopters Well - ensure support is rapid and timely. Try to overdeliver where possible to leave early adopters with a glowing feeling about your app and the person/team behind it.
• Start As You Mean To Go On - make sure you're billing users via an appropriate payment processor that connects to your business account, not your personal account! You don't want to have to try to migrate these users later on as many might drop off. Similarly, you'll struggle to have revenue from these users taken into account during a valuation.
• My Multi-5-Figure Micro SaaS App Launch - whilst it's too much to include on this page, I'll create a cheatsheet on how I achieved a multi-5 figure launch using purely organic traffic. Coming soon ...

In order to successfully scale your app’s user base, you’ll need to go through a short period of consolidation to sure up the foundations first. These are important prerequisites to ensure that when you do scale your Micro SaaS, it goes smoothly.

Take a look at my detailed chapter on preparing a Micro SaaS app for scaling before you move on!

Preparing to scale up a Micro SaaS