👋 Hi. It's Dan, the author of the newsletter.

Several days ago I launched my pet product, and in this post, I'd like to share some moments that I find helpful. Valuable insights, information on how to get the first free (potential) users, and what tools I used.

So, the project itself - Pomotastic . It's a Pomodoro timer online that works right on your desktop or mobile browser. The aim of this web app is to help you focus on your work or study in a more productive way. The Pomodoro Technique is used for that.

âš¡ Valuable insights:

⭐ Simplicity. People really like simplicity. So, my primary goal was to make it as simple to use as possible. I tried to make it very simple, intuitive, and useful. Nothing extra.

⭐ Concentration on the primary thing. The primary thing of the product is the Pomodoro timer itself. So, I decided to make it fully available on "the first screen".

⭐ Be real. People like to interact with real people or real teams. So, I decided to write my real-life story about why I created the product and what goals I pursued. You can read the story on this page .

⭐ You're your first user. If you're not going to use your product yourself, then something is wrong. I wrote about this here .

⭐ How to use. It's important to provide FAQ or "How to use" in a very convenient and compressed way.

Since I wanted to make it simple, I placed "How to use" on the home page, but on the "second screen". So, visitors first see the primary thing (the Pomodoro timer), but then they can go down a little and get information on how to use the timer. Also, I added some tips and best practices. It's important as well.

😉 How to get the first free (potential) users:

⭐ Your Twitter (and other social media). Post a Tweet about the launch. Add the corresponding hashtags (it's important). In my case, it was:

See the original Tweet here .

After the publication, I got some likes and even new followers.

⭐ Product Hunt. It's obvious but you should post your product on PH. Make beautiful images! Describe the product wisely! See how I did it here .

⭐ Reddit. Use thematic subreddits to let know about your launch. In my case, it primarily was two subreddits - Vue.js and Entrepreneur Ride Along.

Since I used the Vue.js framework for creating the timer, I decided to share it with the community. The post got over 8k views.

But the most important thing is providing useful information about what you used and how. See my post here .

⭐ LinkedIn and FB. The same. Choose thematic groups and let them know about your launch. Don't forget about some valuable data you want to share with the community you interact with. It must not be like you're selling something or you're just promoting yourself!

See an example here .

⭐ Your friends. Don't be afraid to share what you did with your friends and ask them for feedback. 

💻 Used tools:

- Vue.js + Bootstrap for the front-end part

- Slim framework for the back-end side

- ChatGPT proposed different names for the project + I used generated texts as the starting point

- mobcup.net was used for getting free audio files

- favicon.io was used for generating favicon(s)

- metatags.io was used for previewing meta tags

- xml-sitemaps.com was used for the sitemap.xml generation

- Google Fonts. I chose the Lato font after reading this https://www.justinmind.com/blog/best-google-web-fonts-website/ and this https://webflow.com/blog/google-fonts

- Google Analytics

🤔 What's more?

- For the moment the state of the app is not saved after page reloading, but I'm going to implement this feature soon. Also, I'm going to add some additional functionality in future updates.

- Sometimes (in fact, very often) things can be harder than you expected them to be. I thought that doing a timer in JS it's an easy thing but it turned out not to be... I faced a problem that browsers slow down JS functionality in inactive tabs. But for the project, it was a crucial thing.

- Right now, writing this post, I'm using Pomotastic .

That's all I wanted to share. Thanks! 🙏