Adrian is back and alive with exciting news

Hi Everyone 👋I'm back and alive! Sorry for the extended silence.  I have been working hard on GatherIn and am excited to share exciting news but also mistakes I made in the last 10 months.

So what has happened so far? It has been a roller coaster ride 🎢In this newsletter, I'll walk you through what has happened so far and where we're headed next.

1. I burned my fingers with Amazon Web Services (AWS)My first experience with AWS was a disaster. Never launch an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with AWS unless you have a lot of DevOps skills under your belt or know someone who can set up the infrastructure for you. 

How does one explain AWS ?Imagine you need to mow your lawn at home. The grass is high, so you need to trim it somehow. AWS is like building a satellite in orbit that projects a massive laser beam that then somehow gets reflected off a building at the right angle to trim your lawn.....ahhhhhh overkill 😫!

Alternative solution: Google Cloud aka FirebaseAfter months of despair, I decided to let go of AWS and started to search for an alternative solution. Luckily, Afrolabs came to the rescue and helped me build an MVP using Google technology instead. Afrolabs initially developed the front-end of the product, so for them to build the brand new back-end was not an issue. With Firebase, you can focus on building the product and not get distracted by complex infrastructure and costly server setups. AWS is one of the most powerful hosting technologies on the market, but more expensive and complex to maintain. 

What makes Firebase so awesome?It's easy to setup up even a junior developer with barely any DevOps skills can set up the infrastructure within a day. The interface is easy to navigate, similar to accessing your Gmail settings. Especially for non-technical founders and product managers, Firebase is easy to administer and manage.  

Now imagine searching online for a very basic lawn mower. And here is one...

2. Launched GatherIn in stealth mode

In September, we launched GatherIn in beta and sent out invites to users on the waiting list. In September and October, the app was full of glitches and bugs, but we managed to improve the application to a more stable beta version. Good news: People are signing up to GatherIn 😁 and our first users are happy with what we're offering so far. We'll be rolling out new features over time as they're developed, but right now, we're focused on marketing efforts.

If you want access 👉 please sign up here using your Discord profile

3. Focus on marketing and not just product  

I have decided to focus on marketing going forward. While I enjoyed my time building the initial steps of the product, I love marketing and feel like it fits my personality better. So that's what I'm going to do full-time starting next month: focusing on brand awareness and creating a community around the brand. Building a loyal community is super important, even if it's just 20 users. A common mistake many first-time founders make is focusing too much on product development. In other words, they are constantly building new features but not doing any marketing at all. Most people love building and developing products but when it comes to marketing, so many are shy or want to avoid rejections. Marketing also includes having to deal with rejections and haters.

The most important thing I learned: don't take it personally.  

Here are a few items I think are super important:

1. Build a proper blog and CMS (=Content Management System) for your website.

2. Make sure it's SEO optimized.

3. Create regular blog posts in order for SEO to kick in.

4. SEO takes time. Assuming your website is SEO optimized, it takes at least 6 months or so for your website to rank for specific keywords. For instance, a blog post I published back in June 2022 took until November to rank on the first page of a Google search. Below is a screenshot of a few keywords GatherIn has started to rank for:

SEO is like a public stock market, share prices go up and down every day. Keyword rankings change daily and can be very volatile at times. This means you constantly have to update and improve your blog posts to remain on the first page of a Google search result. This is not an easy task and requires a lot of patience and work. 

Luckily there are SEO tools out there that help you analyze keywords for your website. A very beginner-friendly app I use is called Ubersuggest. I took a basic SEO online course, and after 6 months of hard work and can start to see results 😁

In a nutshell: SEO is like building wealth - it takes years: putting money aside for your savings account, buying shares, re-investing dividends etc. you don't become a millionaire overnight. 

4. My first Youtube channel

I'm experimenting with new marketing channels and launched a Youtube channel called GatherIn FM.Why? Most gamers listen to music while gaming. In order to increase brand awareness on other platforms, like Youtube, I think it's a cool idea to give gamers free music to listen to. Even if you're not a gamer, take a moment and listen. If you like the channel don't forget to hit that subscribe button 😉 

5. GatherIn swag 

You know what they say: if you want to make a difference, you have to look good doing it. It's the season to be swaggalicious 😎 👚👕

If you want to support GatherIn and stand out from the crowd (OfferZen is so pre-covid times 🙄), please fill out this form, and I'll send you swag 🎁

What have you learned so far? What's your opinion on SEO? Do you have experience with AWS or Firebase?Please feel free to reach out 😁P.S Moving forward, I'll try to release a newsletter every two weeks on a Friday.