Table of Contents
- Tell us about your product and what inspired you to start it?
- How long did it take you to acquire your first 50 customers, and what was your growth strategy?
- Which technology stack are you using and what challenges and limitations does it pose?
- What are some of the most essential tools that you use for your business?
- What have been some of the biggest insights you've gained since starting your entrepreneurial journey?
- Your recommended books/podcasts/newsletters etc.:
Koushik Marka is the co-founder of Supademo - helps to quickly and easily create interactive product demos that can be embedded anywhere on the web.
Tell us about your product and what inspired you to start it?
Supademo helps anyone create interactive product demos (in minutes) that can be embedded anywhere on the web.
For companies looking to tap into product-led growth (PLG), letting users experience the product before they signup is becoming critical.
Supademo does just that - it provides an interactive experience of the product.
Before starting Supademo, I was a video agency founder, where we created product explainer videos for brands such as Facebook, Xiaomi, Swiggy, University of Cambridge.
I spent most of my agency time(2017 -2022) speaking with product managers & marketing executives who wanted to present their products in the most effective manner possible.
What I learned about product demo videos:
- They are time taking and expensive to make.
- They quickly become stale if the product changes frequently.
- And most of all, In these PLG times, users are looking for something more than visuals; they want to interact with the product before they even signup.
There has to be a better way to showcase your product. That's why I created Supademo.
In order to test whether users need this product, we developed an MVP and sent it to old customers of my agency.
Some of them tried it and started complementing the product - "Thank you for creating such a simple and intuitive tool for creating demos".
No fancy videos, complex software, and learning curve are needed.
Add our extension, hit record, and execute the product flow. And voila! your product demo will be ready in minutes.
How long did it take you to acquire your first 50 customers, and what was your growth strategy?
We launched as a closed beta in October 2022, and released our product to the general public at the end of Nov 2022. It took us around 5-6 months to surpass 50 paying customers. Now, as of April 2023, we have 1600 happy users across the globe!
Our early go-to-market has been centered around:
- posting on Hackernews
- talking on Reddit
- sharing on Indiehackers
- launching on Product hunt
- Sharing in closed communities
- posting build in public updates on Twitter and LinkedIn
Also, our existing users' referrals and word-of-mouth are currently excellent factors for our product growth.
We used manual organic methods (’do things that don’t scale’) to test whether the product solves a pain point. Now that we have conviction, we plan to grow with organic and influencer marketing in 2023.
Which technology stack are you using and what challenges and limitations does it pose?
We are building our platform using NextJS + Prisma + PlanetScale DB + TailwindCSS.
So far, this stack is fine; I recommended this to any Indie hacker who wants to ship things faster.
What are some of the most essential tools that you use for your business?
- Postmark - Transactional emails
- Intercom - Support and In-app communication
- Canny - Feature requests and Changelog
- GitBook - Help centre
- Stripe - Payments
- Slack - Team communication
- Notion - Internal Knowledgebase and Team tasks
- Digital Ocean - Hosting
Most of them are free for the first year if you know where to look for the perks :)
What have been some of the biggest insights you've gained since starting your entrepreneurial journey?
First - we have learned that starting and scaling a business is a marathon - not a sprint. It's easy to be blinded by excitement during the initial stages and have unrealistic expectations of rapid growth and progress. But most businesses aren't built this way. You may not be growing as quickly as you'd like and it's hard to see progress when you're in the thick of the weeds, but when you zoom out, it's amazing to see the progress and change you can evoke in others' lives.
Second - one of the most important parts of building a company is embracing failure. Every entrepreneur encounters setbacks on a daily basis, and it's essential to learn from them, become adaptable, and proceed forward.
Finally- network and communities are more important the novelty of your product or functionality. Finding the right problems to solve in the right community is paramount to building a group of supporters, referrers, and advisors.
Your recommended books/podcasts/newsletters etc.:
- Newsletters:
- The hustle
- Indie hackers
- Ui.dev
- Growth Unhinged
