Where to promote your pre-launch startup

prepare your startup for take-off

The best platforms to gain early user traction

What are effective ways to get user validation, boost sign-ups to our beta program and promote our pre-launch startup (without virtually any budget)? That’s the question we asked ourselves and many other startup founders might ask themselves, too. Here we’ve collected a list of places where you can promote your startup for free.

The Startup Pitch:

Submit your startup pitch on The Startup Pitch to get valuable customer feedback and drive traffic to your website →

NomadApp.co’s startup pitch

Producthunt

Producthunt is one of the largest platforms to showcase your product or startup and has more than 90k subscribers. New products, books or apps are signed up on the platform and can be voted up in the ranking by users. Thus, you have a chance of getting featured on the front page and get viral attention. Many startups like Bram Kanstein’s StartupStash successfully supported their launch with Producthunt and went viral (here’s a good article about how they did it). It’s definitely the place to promote your startup. However, its focus is more on products that are just about to launch or are already on the market. So we’re still waiting to put NomadApp on there, but as soon as we’re ready to launch → see you Product Hunt

Betalist

BetaList is a list of beta-phase startups to come. It has about 25k users and already some famous startups like Pinterest fledged from it. The sign-up is free, however, until the request is processed it can take up to one month. If you want to get featured faster you can jump the queue by supporting the platform with a 99USD contribution.

EDIT: We just got featured on BetaList and are quite amazed by the impact. 200 new users and 100 new beta-program sign-ups in just 1 day. Our Google Analytics stats are going nuts after this small feature

Reddit

Reddit is a great social network; free to sign up and the place to spark discussion about nearly everything, including your startup. This is the place to ask questions and get feedback from potential users. But NOTE: do not SPAM. The community hates self-promotion. Engage and build long-term, real relationships in the community. Check out subreddits like /r/Entrepreneur

Angellist

Sign-up, create a profile, connect with investors, get the big money → that’s AngelList

Launch Sky

Get your startup on Launch Sky for customer feedback, validation and early adopters. There’s a cost of 19USD to sign up unless you have a promo code ;) Lucky you if you’re reading this → we can help you get the sign-up for free. Just get in touch. (And yes, Launch Sky allowed us to pass on the Promo Code to promising startups).

Launch Sky’s front page

Launching Next

A bit similar to Betalist but no less useful. Sign-up is free and processing may take up to two weeks. Cool: you can find a lot of resources to help you launch your startup e.g. interviews with founders.

Makerbase

Newcomer-platform sponsored by Mailchimp, Slack and Hover. The space to feature projects and their makers.

Springwise

Springwise features innovative projects and businesses. You can tip the platforms owners on a startup you might wanna see on there via this formular for free http://www.springwise.com/tipus/

Feedback Army: have experts test your startup from a technical perspective

Startupli.st: describes itself as a place to find, follow, and recommend startups.

We hope this article will help you promote your pre-launch startup! Anything to add? Let us know and discuss strategies! And if you like what you’re reading about NomadApp don’t forget to → SIGN UP TO OUR BETA-PROGRAM← and be one of the first to get informed as soon as we’re ready to take off!

NomadApp.co: the app that helps you find your travel destination based on your budget. Click here for → NomadApp.co’s startup pitch ←