Build and launch a free SaaS micro-product as an addition to your paid software, to increase brand awareness and acquire new users.
📓 Free SaaS micro-product: Some SaaS companies with well-defined paid products will release micro-platforms or tools offered for free. Usually, these SaaS companies will build free micro-products aligned with their target audiences’ needs.
► Quick note: Do not confuse a free SaaS micro-product with a free plan SaaS companies may offer. The latter is a gateway to acquiring new software users and then working on converting them into paying customers. On the other hand, a free SaaS micro-product aims to solve a micro-niche problem target audiences have, serving as an introduction to the brand and the major solutions the main software can provide.
In June 2022, Tweet Hunter released a free micro-product called Twitter Streak.
Twitter Streak is a straightforward tool helping Twitter users to get consistent about their publishing efforts.
Users must simply sign up for the platform and start tweeting, while the tool will count their streak. Twitter Streak invites users to reach a 100-day streak of publishing on Twitter.
Apart from counting the streak, the product allows users to visualize a couple of graphics, such as a timeline that includes:
Also, Twitter Streak is based on gamification. People who continue publishing daily tweets will receive rewards, such as:
The company offers a Twitter Streak Leaderboard to make things more interesting, making public the success people achieve with publishing daily on Twitter.
Tweet Hunter released a straightforward product, fully aligned with one specific need (keep publishing consistency) Twitter users (the company’s target group) have.
Moreover, Tweet Hunter released its new free micro-product on Product Hunt, receiving over 400 upvotes and dozens of comments.
At the moment, Twitter Streak has hundreds of users. Some of these people may later become Tweet Hunter’s paying customers.
► Quick note: On the 25th of May 2022, the Tweet Hunter founders announced reaching $1M ARR after only one year of the company’s existence.
✅ What’s great about this growth practice is that you don’t have to start from scratch. You already have the necessary insights and resources to build a free micro-product.
Just think about it: First, you have access to an audience, including your users and customers. By talking to these people, you can easily identify a micro-challenge they have. Subsequently, you can build a micro-product around this specific problem, which your software normally doesn’t solve.
Second, you already have a product team that can develop a small tool based on your existing platform.
✅ To make things easier for your team, you can ask people to consider this free micro-product as another feature. But instead of incorporating it into your software, you’ll offer it as a separate micro-product.
✅ In some cases, you may want to provide early access to your free micro-product to beta users. This way, you can gather valuable feedback and build a small community that will later help you promote the micro-tool.
✅ Build the micro-tool and create a small landing page for it.
✅ If you or your team members have a strong audience on Twitter, announce that you’ll release a new, free micro-product on Product Hunt. Make sure to announce the day and the hour of your free micro-product launch and ask for people’s support with upvotes and comments on Product Hunt.
✅ Release the product, and start following KPIs, such as the number of:
By analyzing this data, you’ll understand the real impact your free micro-product has on your overall business growth.