Jen launched via a Show HN post on Hacker News in late August 2019.

“We launched via Show HN on Hacker News in late August 2019.”

The post held the Hacker News front page for a full day, generating far more signups than she expected.

“It reached the front page for the entire day and I received well over 1,000 signups during that time.”

A tweet from a Dutch tech influencer, alongside her Indie Hackers podcast appearance, drove a wave of new users, particularly from the Netherlands, during Lunch Money's fastest early growth stretch (200 to 300 users).

“I would attribute this to my Indie Hackers podcast and this iconic tweet from a Dutch tech influencer”

For roughly the first two years, growth came organically from Jen's own blog posts and personal tweets rather than any deliberate marketing plan.

“For the first 2 years, Lunch Money grew organically, mostly through blog posts and personal Tweets (@lunchbag).”

Being transparent about her journey, including the hard parts, made people relate to and talk about the product.

“We have mostly grown by word of mouth and have spent very little on marketing in the past five years.”

Jen's newly hired marketing manager researched competing pages for each feature and built a real SEO strategy, replacing her prior guesswork approach to the marketing site's copy.

“my marketing manager conducted thorough research into competing pages and in the end presented a solid strategy for Lunch Money's SEO”

The SEO groundwork laid in early 2021 kept producing organic traffic years later.

“We did some SEO in early 2021 which has been fairly evergreen.”

When Intuit's Mint personal finance app announced it was shutting down, the biggest surge of new Lunch Money users came from Reddit.

“Mainly, we saw the biggest growth from Reddit.”

Former Mint users discussing alternatives on the Mint subreddit organically recommended and referral-linked Lunch Money to each other.

“There has been a lot of chatter on the Mint subreddit from folks looking for alternatives”

Jen negotiated a three-month, 15%-of-first-invoice affiliate deal with a fintech media site so she would only pay on actual conversions.

“I ended up suggesting a three-month affiliate deal for a 15% commission on the first invoice.”

Looking back over a longer stretch, affiliate and paid content placements broadly underperformed as a growth channel for Lunch Money.

“Affiliate marketing and paid content haven't yielded great results either”

During a slow growth period in mid-2020, Jen got help from a friend with digital marketing experience and tried Facebook ads.

“I started running Facebook ads.”

The ads cost close to a thousand dollars for very few conversions, and any benefit disappeared the moment spend stopped.

“Facebook ads were ultimately not worth it– I ended up sinking close to a thousand dollars for an abysmal number of conversions.”