Feather is a rebrand of my previous product MDX.one. It was not the first product I worked on after quitting my job. MDX.one is the second product.
While working on my first product, I started learning many new things and explored a lot of new technologies. So, I started writing them down as blog posts so that they can be helpful to others. My workflow was always the same. I write it on Notion, I copy the content from Notion to my blogging platform and adjust and format things there and reupload all the images.
That was a very tedious task. So, I decided to build a blogging platform that uses Notion directly as a CMS. That was how I started with MDX.one (in May 2021).
After a few months of launching MDX.one, my hosting costs went to thousands of dollars to maintain it. So, I decided to stop new sign-ups and rebuilt everything from scratch.
The resultant product is so different from MDX.one, I decided to launch it as an entirely new product and named it Feather. I finally launched Feather in May 2022.
MicroFounder
How did you find your first customers?
Bhanu
All my initial customers came through Twitter, because I was building everything in public.
I used to spend hours and hours migrating a user's existing blog to Feather and showing it to them. If they like it, they end up becoming a customer. Many of my initial customers came like that.
MicroFounder
How are you finding your customers today?
Bhanu
Even today, my primary source of getting customers is through Twitter, by building in public. Also, many of my happy customers started spreading the word about Feather.
That's how I am getting customers currently – Word of Mouth and Twitter.
MicroFounder
What's your advice for other microfounders who want to get started?
Bhanu
I think it's better to launch as early as possible. I can spend months building the product before launching it. I actually did exactly that. But only after launching and getting the first customer, we will actually know what features to build and what features to not build.
So, if I were to do it again, I will launch the product as early as possible, with just the core feature, and get that first customer. Once you get that initial customer(s), the product builds itself based on their feedback.
Notion