What should a small software team keep doing after the launch? A useful perspective comes from James Fleischmann's August 9, 2023 interview with Plausible co-founder Marko Saric.
This is ShipFeed's analysis of that public interview, with supporting context from Saric's own writing. We did not conduct a new interview, and the observations below describe historical accounts rather than Plausible's current operating metrics.
The product and its explanation have to work together
In the interview, Saric described a division of work: Uku Täht focused on developing the product, while Saric added educational and opinion-led content about analytics, privacy, and bootstrapping. He also cautioned that timing and luck mattered, and that the result would not necessarily be repeatable with another startup.
“The product needs to deliver. The communication needs to be clear.” — Marko Saric, in the interview linked above.
Our takeaway: product communication can be evaluated as part of the user experience. A release may be useful, but someone still needs to understand whether it applies to them and how to try it.
Take a recent feature and ask a person unfamiliar with it to explain what the announcement promises. If their answer differs from the actual capability, revise the message. This is a practical exercise in clarity, not a test that guarantees conversion.
Write about the questions your audience already has
Saric's interview described expanding public progress updates into educational content about the surrounding problem space. His July 31, 2020 account of the team's early marketing adds context: the team worked on clearer positioning and supplementary pages addressing its intended audience's needs.
Our takeaway: a product update and a useful guide have different jobs. An update explains a change. A guide helps someone make a decision or complete a task that matters whether or not they become a customer.
Consider a fictional invoicing tool. Its update might explain a new saved-filter feature. Its guide might show how a small team organises month-end invoice review. The guide can demonstrate the workflow without making every paragraph a sales pitch. The product becomes relevant at the point where it helps with the task.
Use questions you have evidence for: support conversations, onboarding confusion, or a repeated request. Keep the examples concrete, and distinguish what you tested from what you recommend.
Make distribution a choice you can sustain
In the 2020 account, Saric explained that the bootstrapped team concentrated on a selected set of channels and content work rather than implementing every available marketing tactic. He presented this as a response to limited time and capacity.
Our takeaway: choose a distribution routine you can carry out alongside product work. For a small team, that might be a public update for a meaningful release, one useful guide each month, and participation in a community where the audience is already discussing the problem.
Write down the work each channel requires. A channel that needs daily posting, a new video, and constant replies has a different cost from an occasional well-supported article. Decide which commitment you can maintain, then give it a defined evaluation period.
Consistency is work, not a promise of a growth curve
Saric credited years of sustained coding and writing in the interview, alongside the other factors he discussed. The story is useful precisely because he did not present a universal shortcut.
Our takeaway: measure the work and the outcomes separately. Publishing three posts shows that you completed an experiment. It does not establish that the experiment generated customers. Track what relevant readers do next and review the quality of the conversations the content creates.
For a product's public history, a useful question is whether the next update adds something a reader can inspect: a capability, an example, a documented improvement, or an honestly described milestone.
A worksheet for your next month
- One audience: Who is this month's communication intended to help?
- One change: Which product advancement can you explain with evidence?
- One question: What recurring audience question could become a useful guide?
- Two destinations: Where will existing users see the update, and where could relevant new readers discover it?
- One review: Which useful actions will you inspect at the end of the month?
Use our product-update template to turn the change into an announcement, then choose a manageable distribution plan. The point is to make your next step concrete enough to carry out and honest enough to learn from.
Read the original sources
The original conversation is James Fleischmann's 2023 interview on Indie Hackers. The supporting firsthand account is Marko Saric's 2020 Plausible marketing post. Our practical exercises and fictional invoicing example are ShipFeed's editorial additions.