Here’s an honest post. I think I’ve reached a point where I have to admit something: I’m much bet...Here’s an honest post. I think I’ve reached a point where I have to admit something: I’m much bet...
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Here’s an honest post.
I think I’ve reached a point where I have to admit something:
I’m much better at designing and building products than marketing them.
I know a lot of the things I should be doing, social media, community participation, outreach, UGC, SEO, partnerships, talking to users consistently, etc.
But knowing what to do and actually doing it consistently are very different things.
I run a service business, work on a few products, manage projects, and usually have a lot on my plate. So marketing gets some attention for a few days, then something else becomes more important, momentum breaks, and I’m back at the same place.
And sometimes I genuinely wonder: Is the product not working, or am I simply not giving distribution enough attention?
I built a tool called Mably, a client experience tool for freelancers and service businesses that helps keep client communication, files, feedback, approvals, project updates, payments/links, and everything around a client project in one clean place.
And I genuinely believe the product is strong.
Mably wasn’t something I threw together over a weekend because AI made it easy to build another SaaS. I’ve spent a lot of time researching how freelancers actually work with clients, designing the experience, building it, improving it, and thinking deeply about the problems it should solve.
But there’s one part where I know I’m weaker:
Marketing.
I’ve tried marketing Mably here and there, Google, communities, outreach, affiliates, content, etc., but I haven't been able to stay consistent with any of it. Part of that is simply time. I run a service business, work on products, manage projects, and usually have quite a few things on my plate at once.
And part of it is probably that I'm just much better at designing and building products than I am at marketing them. Sometimes I know exactly what I should be doing, social content, community participation, outreach, UGC, partnerships, SEO, talking to freelancers every day, but knowing the strategies and actually executing them consistently are two completely different things.
Right now, Mably has only 4 paying subscribers. That obviously isn't a huge number. I didn't personally know or reach out to any of those 4 people. That didn't worked out so far. They found Mably organically, mostly through Google, signed up, paid, and then I started talking to them.
And their feedback has honestly surprised me. One of them basically told me, *“You can count me as a lifetime customer.” *Another rated Mably 9/10, while also giving me a few features they'd love to see added. That means a lot more to me than getting 100 free users through people I personally convinced to try it. It tells me there might actually be something here.
I've also tried affiliates, but I think Mably is simply too early for that. Affiliate programs become much more interesting when there's already momentum, customers, proof, and enough conversion data behind the product.
And I can't afford to throw a huge marketing budget at it right now either.
So I've been thinking about something different:
Finding a partner.
Someone who genuinely understands marketing/growth/distribution and enjoys that side of building a company as much as I enjoy product and technology.
I'm not coming here with a predefined arrangement.
If Mably looks interesting to you, let me know, what can you bring to the table? What would you actually want to work on? And your offer. I'm open to hearing different partnership structures and ideas. I can handle the product, design, development, infrastructure, improvements, and technical side.
What I really want is someone who looks at Mably and thinks:
“I know how we can get this in front of the right people.”
If that's you, or if you know someone like that, I'd genuinely love to talk.
Benjamin's avatar
TRUEFRAME logo
mably sounds handy. the client updates part is cool.
Pradyumn's avatar
Thanks!
Nagaraj's avatar
Snapzoom logo
It's really good product I'm interested happy to discuss in DM
Pradyumn's avatar
Hey @Nagaraj M, thanks for your interest! Could you share a little about what you’d bring to the table and how you think you could contribute?
Nagaraj's avatar
Snapzoom logo
Thanks, Pradyumn! I’m a developer and product builder, so I can help with both the product and growth side.
For Mably, I’d be interested in identifying the right customer segments, doing targeted outreach, testing content/community ideas, and talking to potential users to...
Eric's avatar
Those four strangers who found you through Google are the part I'd build around. I'd ask each one what they searched and what made them pay, then use their words to focus the next month of marketing.
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