Robin joined multiple niche Facebook groups and posted directly asking members for feedback on ManyPixels and its value proposition, offering a promo code to anyone who commented.

“I joined many Facebook groups and wrote a post asking for feedback on ManyPixels and our value proposition.”

The feedback-for-promo-code post generated a lot of comments and buzz, and it became the first of several channels that converted into paying customers.

“This worked well — lots of people commented, and this was a small hack that got us a lot of buzz.”

Robin called the AngelList outbound email conversion rate unusually high, though he did not explain the mechanism beyond the message-market fit he describes generally.

“We had a 25% conversion rate on Angel List outbound emails, which was absolutely ridiculously high.”

He posted case studies about ManyPixels on Reddit as part of his early self-promotion efforts.

“posting case studies on reddit”

Reddit hits translated directly into a steady stream of new paying customers, which he found easier to land than Hacker News.

“I also had a few hits on Reddit (which is easier than Hacker News). These got us tens of new customers per day.”

Robin wrote and submitted his own ManyPixels origin-story article, which reached and held the Hacker News front page for most of a day.

“I posted an article on how I started ManyPixels which reached the first page of Hacker News and stayed there most of the day.”

ManyPixels launched on Product Hunt and landed the third spot for the day.

“We got featured on the third spot of Product Hunt”

Robin built his own audience by starting and running a "Productized Startups" community and sharing free lessons with members, positioning himself as a niche influencer.

“I did that by creating the group "Productized Startups" and giving free info / learnings to the members.”