Organic Traffic a Free Way to Attract a Massive User Base... But Startups Aren't Doing it Right 🌱

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So many startups treat organic traffic like the philosopher’s stone—it turns everything into gold for free. The only problem is it’s not that easy, and it doesn’t just happen.

It's easy to understand why many founders believe organic traffic will flow effortlessly in the early stages. However, the reality is far from simple. Gaining substantial organic growth from the outset is a formidable challenge. The initial stages of building an online presence are particularly daunting as algorithms tend to favor established networks and longer-standing entities, making it an uphill battle for newcomers to attract organic traffic.

But this Collabwriting shows that despite all the challenges it is possible to achieve if you focus on the right activities. We interviewed Gordona Laskovic, the Community Manager for Collabwriting. She helped build the company’s user base using an aggressive organic strategy.

The result? Well, Collabwriting has had 250k impressions over the past three months, they ranked 1st place on Product Hunt for April 18th and they’re now positioned as a leading app in the field of collaborative research.

What Is Collabwriting

Before we dive into how they used organic so effectively, let’s look at the product itself:

“Collabwriting is a research tool that helps users to collect, organize and collaborate around key knowledge online,” Laskovic says. “Whether you're collecting information from a web page, a single document like a PDF, or even a book or video, the tool lets multiple users join forces. Simply highlight, save, and collaborate on any content online. The tool allows users to gather quotes, ideas, and references with a single click.”

The idea began when another co-founder, Sandra Idjoski, “struggled with organizing her research and collaborating with her marketing team at a previous startup. She realized that while there were tools to track content performance after it was published, there were very few tools to help with all the preparation beforehand. So, she teamed up with Ivan Ralic and they started working on Collabwriting in December 2021.”

Today, Collabwriting “has been upgraded with various features, including integration with LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Quora, YouTube, and Kindle. Additionally, there's an AI Research Copilot that provides a complete overview of online information (websites, articles, PDFs, etc.), allowing you to determine what's important.”

How (and Why) Collabwriting Went Organic

Point in the Right Direction Before You Start

Collabwriting took the time to orient towards a goal before launching their voice on a million social platforms. As Laskovic says, “When it comes to marketing strategies that contribute to growth, I believe it's essential to make decisions strategically, not just operationally. This involves defining the target audience, understanding their interests, and identifying niches that aren't already too crowded for a startup to position themselves.”

Make Use of Your Small Team

The great thing about doing organic traffic growth is that you can actually use a fairly small team, and the per-click rate is entirely free. That makes it optimal for bootstrapped companies. Laskovic again, “With just three members at the beginning, we had to lift Collabwriting off the ground and start developing it. The key to this was the initial online research, where we identified current industry trends, ICP interests, and topics related to the product we were building.”

Don’t Focus on SEO - Focus on Quality

Surprisingly, Laskovic told us that SEO was not emphasized. Instead, “we focused on creating engaging content, all unique and without any AI-generated content. SEO took a backseat, but we still adhered to basic principles like ensuring fast loading speeds, good structure, and readability.”

This breaks with the keyword obsession that often haunts startups employing organic growth strategies. Instead Collabwriting utilized a content marketing approach and engaged their audience on platforms like Product Hunt, Appsumo, and searched for other PR opportunities.

Laskkovic emphasizes that SEO still played a role in their success, too, “Tracking analytics and engaging in discussions with individuals from the tech industry were crucial steps during this developmental phase. As we gained traction through organic search, we meticulously monitored which topics garnered the most clicks and views week after week. This helped us measure our progress and determine if any strategy adjustments were needed.”

When You Succeed… Succeed More

Laskovic’s team leans into their successes, always doing more of what works. Once they were really moving the needle, “[Collabwriting] began creating more content on the growing topics and identified our pillar pages based on both search data and user activity. This step proved pivotal, resulting in exponential growth, and we are now on the brink of reaching the impressive milestone of 250k impressions over the last three months.”

In a similar vein, product launch platforms worked well for them, so they didn’t stick to one. They hit it out of the park on Product Hunt and Appsumo.

So, while a single success is good, it isn’t the end of the story. You can always leverage it more.

But that doesn’t mean experimentation ends. Laskovic says that Collabwriting is ready to use the name they’ve built through organic to start promoting in new ways—“we've already started our affiliate program and are excited to see how it contributes to our growth in the future.”

Moving Forward

Collabwriting has hit a lot of critical milestones for a tech startup. They raised €1.1 million in seed funding led by Poland’s SMOK Ventures and received a €300,000 grant from the World Bank-backed Katapult Accelerator. They had massive success on product launch platforms. And this is all on top of the enormous interest they amassed in a short time thanks to organic.

Laskovic envisions a future where knowledge acquisition is seamless and instantaneous. Steering the company towards this goal, Collabwriting seeks to revolutionize how information is gathered and utilized across platforms. Their vision extends beyond accessibility to empower users to effortlessly save insights from any source, reflecting a commitment to convenience and efficiency.

With upcoming funding in late 2025, Collabwriting is poised for innovation and market expansion. Keep an eye on them for exciting developments ahead!

Want to follow the exciting future of Collabrwriting? Check out their website here.

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