#30 Days Of Growth

As a developer the less enjoyable part of running a site is to stop coding and do actual "marketing", like sending "cold" emails to get interviews, tweet about the improvements we've made, or write new blog posts or guest posts on other sites.

Starting tomorrow I decided together with one of my best friends who runs a crypto publication in israel, to do a #30daysofgrowth challenge: we have to perform at least one marketing related task every day, for me it can be as small as tweeting about API List, publishing a new blog post, contacting companies to sponsor us, or publish new APIs. But it has to be something that will grow the site in the long term, and it is helpful for API List users. I will update this post every day with the marketing tasks performed to keep track of the challenge and hold myself accountable in public.

Day 0

The challenge starts tomorrow! but since I wrote this post today I decided to add day 0 as a bonus!.

Today we published an interview with Pocket Network about their API, and also got 2 big companies to agree to be interviewed for API List. 😊

Day 1

Wrote a post for Growth Hack List, it is the first time I write for their site, we'll see how much traffic it brings but I've been planning to write a post there for a while, finally got it done. 😽

Day 2

Today added a subscribe form with Mailchimp, and also cold emailed some companies to get sponsored

Day 3

Today was slow and didn't have many growth/marketing ideas. I added descriptions to some of the API collections and improved SEO titles.

Also soft launched company pages, a feature that I've been working on for a while: users can see big companies descriptions with the APIs the specific company use. Hopefully the company profiles will be generated by the community,  if not I will need to hire a VA in the near future to submit companies and create descriptions.

Day 4

Added 1 API and emailed 3 companies to interview.

Day 5

Added API List to Product Hunt, scheduled to go live on Monday. Also paid for a 10 minute video SEO audit from an SEO guy I trust his experience.

Day 6

Did an interview for Oye Startups (not published yet).

Day 7

Added 5 new free APIs and sent emails to potential interviewees.

Day 8

Today closed an interview, implemented all the SEO tactics from the audit I paid for on day 5, and added an exit-intent subscribe form (will test this for a week)

Day 9

Today added 1 API, updated the FREE APIS collection and implemented more imrovements to the on page SEO.

Day 10

Published 3 new APIs,  a new interview with IP Info, and sent "cold" emails to potential interviewees.

Day 11

Closed a new interview and posted a litle blog post

Day 12

Today didn't have much time or ideas, only posted 1 new API

Day 13

Sent email to latest inerview to share about us with their audience and promote the interview.

Day 14

Today added an email subscription form to the category pages,  eventually I want to add the subscribe form also to the API pages, but for now it looks to spammy, need to design it better.

Also added 2 APIs, and cold emailed companies to be interviewed (no response so far).

Day 15

Sent emails for potential sponsors, added 2 new APIs and improved the questionnaire for interviews.

Day 16

Today I wasn't very productive, mostly sent follow up emails to interviewees lined up.

Day 17

Edited and scheduled interviews to publish on Monday, and sent emails for interviewees to finish their interviews with additional questions.

Day 18

Finished editing 2 interviews to post next week.

Day 19

Closed an additional interview!. I learned a ton from doing manual outreach in the last month, now started thinking  how to automate the process of getting interviews and will start implementing in the coming month.

Day 20

Today published an interview with Dan from Scraper API, and added one new API.

Day 21

Made a list of companies I use and like to reach out and sponsor the site. Contacted some of them already.

Day 22

Sent a bunch of cold emails for potential sponsors, have a phone call with one tomorrow on Friday! 🤞

Day 23

Published an interview with Wolfram|Alpha and someone mentioned API List in Scotch IO site organically!

Day 24

Got one of the companies to agree to sponsor the site!, sent them the invoice and waiting for it to be paid :). Also today 3 APIs got submitted, emailed several companies for potential interviews.

Day 25

Closed 2 additional interviews and created a system to track outbound clicks to APIs.

Day 26

Published QR Code Monkey's Interview

Day 27

Emailed QR Code Monkey about promoting our  interview with their audience.

Day 28

Added about 20 new APIs!

Day 29

Added 10 new APIs and added text to the top categories on the site for besides just listing the APIs in the category (hopefully it will improve the SEO)

Day 30!

Started cross posting all interviews with top API providers to Hacker Noon, we will see if they approve them :).