Marketing experiments that got our bootstrapped SaaS to $44,000 MRR

Here's a summary of everything we've experimented with, ordered by success:

(We're product-led)

Big success
→ Word of mouth and Powered By
→ SEO
→ Google Ads

Some success
→ Affiliates
→ Build in Public / communities
→ Cross-marketing from RMLP

Little success
→ Outbound v1
→ Side projects / launches
→ Integrations / crossmarketing with other cos

Fail
→ Social selling
→ Newsletter sponsorships

Testing
→ Outbound v2
→ Lead magnets + paid sponsorships / Meta ads

Notes

The big success experiments are pretty logical: they are all higher intent.

SEO / Google Ads
Person is searching right now for the problem, or solution we offer

Word of mouth
Strong recommendations drive higher conversion through the funnel

Powered By
Visitor experienced our product (forms / widgets) before landing on our website

This is for my SaaS Senja.io, I highly recommend you run your own experiments to find what works for you, your product, and your buyer. I know other startups seeing great results with channels not working for us.