Show Notes
Today we talked about how building free tools (aka - side projects) for your company can help drive major growth.
Building these tools helps you a few ways:
- People who use your free tool may directly sign up for your paid product when they see you made the free tool.
- People using your free tool may give you their email address, which you can market to later.
- Others will link to your free tool, boosting your SEO through improved backlinks.
Michael shares a lot wisdom and experience doing these, and the most important tips are:
- Build a portfolio: You need to launch many (ideally 4-5 or more) so that some will hit, and others won't. If you only launch one, the odds work against you on the moon and stars aligning for you.
- Build in public/test with your community: To increase your success rate, validate and test the ideas you have for tools to see if they resonate and what are the most important things it needs to do to provide value.
- Use low and no-code tools: You can build and launch a lot faster using these tools, and since it doesn't touch your core product, it doesn't need the perfect architecture.
Links to Products, Case Studies & Tools Mentioned in this episode:
- Case studies and examples of Free tools:
- No Code and low code tools to help you build your free tools:
Learn more and connect with Michael Novotny:
Learn more and connect with Jason Evanish:
Topics from the show:
(
0:56) - Introducing Michael
(
2:04) - How did you discover the power of free tools to drive sign-ups for another product?
(
5:02) - Were you seeing sign-ups as just blips or were there signs of sustained traction via this method?
(
9:19) - How many ideas and tools made it out to the public?
(
11:46) - What are a couple of your favorite examples of these tools?
(
16:31) - What are some cases where you’ve seen free tools not working out?
(
21:55) - Are there businesses that shouldn’t be creating free tools?
(
29:05) - What is the Side-Product Framework?
(
30:22) - Do these side products need to be put on the core domain?
(
34:56) - How should PM’s think about budgeting for Side-Products?
(
37:47) - How do you think about how robust a tool needs to be in order to be effective?
(
42:08) - Do you have any stories on how you became inspired to build some of these tools?
(
47:55) - How can you start to validate some ideas for tools to see if you’re on the right track?
(
54:09) - What should people do to make these free tools successful?
(
58:05) - What are the best ways to tie a free tool to your product?
(
1:00:43) - Is it acceptable to ask for an email address to access a tool?
(
1:03:32) - How much do you see these tools needing ongoing maintenance?
(
1:09:18) - What are your favorite tools that help you piece this process together?
(
1:10:24) - What are your thoughts on Bubble vs. Webflow?
(
1:12:16) - Making sure this work doesn’t compete against working on the core product
(
1:13:58) - How to pitch working on free tools
What is Practical Product w/ Jason Evanish?
Practical Product is the most actionable and practical podcast for B2B and SaaS Product Managers. This show is hosted by Jason Evanish, a Product Manager for over 12 years as a Founder, coach, and early-stage Product Leader.
Practical Product will talk about building a great strategy, avoiding pitfalls, balancing the many demands of a career in product management, and so much more.
We have many awesome guests lined up, some you've heard of in the Product Management space and some lesser-known, yet very talented PM's that you should get to know.
Follow the show and get ready to learn the practical product advice you've been dying to hear.
Get more product advice on Jason's blog: https://jasonevanish.com
Follow Jason on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Evanish
Get coaching from Jason or take his course: https://becustomerdriven.com