Introduction:
In this post, I (Tariq) will share the story of my journey to create Prodify, a business that provides “ Productivity solutions for your Personal and Professional life with Notion”. This has so far been an exciting journey of stepping out of my comfort zone and learning new things. I will cover everything from how I got inspired to start this venture to our journey in product development, launch, and marketing.
How We Got Inspired to Start Prodify:
It all started when my friend Anas visited me in Pakistan in January 2023. We are both software engineers, and we wanted to start something for passive income. Anas had already started writing technical blogs on Medium and earning some money, but we wanted to do something better. I had been using Notion for a year and realised its potential in productivity. We saw some inspiring creators who created amazing templates and later on after developing user trust, people actually paid them for their templates. We got inspired from them to start selling Notion templates and providing notion consultancy.
The Journey Begins - From Research to Product Development:
We spent the first month researching what we should do to kick-start. We agreed to create a brand, Prodify, to keep ourselves consistent in approach and design. We chose some design themes for our templates' consistency, like colors, fonts, and the way we present them. We didn't know we had to put in such effort in design, market research, marketing, and sales, which we realized is more important than just developing the notion template. We realized that we were just talking with each other on weekends from January till the end of February and doing zero work. In the beginning of March, we realized that if we didn't start and just plan, it is of no use. So we thought to go lean, publish, and get feedback. By the end of March 2023, we developed our first template, 1:1 meetings.
Tools and Techniques used so far:
Work | Tool |
Blogging | Medium |
Design | Canva |
Product Management | Gumroad |
Marketplaces | Gumroad, Notion |
Website | Zaap.ai |
Task Management & Planning | Notion |
Data | Google Analytics |
Communities | Slack, Facebook Groups |
Marketing | Facebook Groups |
Guides | ScribeHow |
Insipiration | Easlo, Pascio, Thomas Frank, Temply, etc |
The Launch - Getting Our First Notion Template Out There:
We explored Gumroad and understood how it helps in managing and distributing the product. We somehow published the notion template, and now we had to figure out how to sell it. We had the intention to showcase our work first for FREE, at least for a few months, and build the audience first. We enabled the option (pay whatever you want $0+), and we started getting $0 sales after posting on Facebook groups on 2nd April 2023, as the product was for FREE. This gave us some confidence that some people will buy.
The Marketing Efforts: Showcasing Our Work and Building Our Audience:
We had to figure out how to market our Notion templates. We found Facebook Notion groups to be the easiest place to market them. We’ve kept the template for free and enabled the option (pay whatever you want $0+). We started showcasing our work, building our audience, and getting feedback.
Conclusion:
Creating Prodify has been an exciting journey for me and Anas so far. We realized that the journey of starting something is not easy, and we had to step out of our comfort zones and learn new things. We are still learning and improving our product and services. We hope to inspire others to start their own journey and create something they are passionate about.
Our Website: https://zaap.bio/prodify
Our Products : http://prodify.gumroad.com/
Our Blog : https://medium.com/@weprodify