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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 11 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
Reflect logo

How Reflect Grew

AI-powered note-taking app for deep thinkers

How did Reflect grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Reflect grew primarily through organic social media and word of mouth, with the majority of inbound leads coming from Google search. They also expanded their growth channels by building a YouTube channel focused on note-taking practices and maintaining an active online community via Discord where customers can submit and upvote feature requests. Launching significant features on Product Hunt and Twitter contributed to growth, although they seek more sustainable channels for the future.

Channels

13 channels · grouped by how Reflect grows

  • SEO

    · 3 mentions · 2 sources
    “You have to get into content, and SEO, and making free tools. And seeing if there's ways of adding some virality to your app without kind of destroying the essence of your app.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “If you look at our inbound leads and which convert, the vast majority come from Google, essentially word of mouth.”
    high
    “If you look at our inbound leads and which convert, the vast majority come from Google, essentially word of mouth.”
    high

  • Online Community

    · 3 mentions · 2 sources
    “Listen to our customer base, put together a public roadmap, get input on it from our customers, create a Discord, create a community, and create a way where customers can submit feature requests and get upvotes on them.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “And so with Reflect, I love our nerdy customer base. Like, they are my people. These, you know, Node-taking enthusiasts. And I get to hang out with them and we've got a fun community. We've got a great Discord and it's so much fun.”
    medium
    “Listen to our customer base, put together a public roadmap, get input on it from our customers, create a Discord, create a community, and create a way where customers can submit feature requests and get upvotes on them.”
    high

  • Organic social media

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “I've built up a large following on Twitter over the years. I have about 30,000 people. And it was easy to see if products resonated with them. I just send a tweet out and I can pretty much feel if there's some kind of product market fit there.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Sean Rose@seanroseReally, really liking @reflectnotes so far…Ryan Delk@delkDon’t take it from me: @reflectnotes is magic…Demetria Giles@drosewritingsPlaying around with @reflectnotes…Flour storm@adnan_wahab_@maccaw holy shit reflect app design is so good…”
    medium

  • Video content

    · 2 mentions
    “Lastly, we've been building up our YouTube channel. We have about a thousand subscribers to that now. And we've invested in content. We have someone full-time building out videos for that channel around note-taking practices.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “We've been building up our YouTube channel. We have about a thousand subscribers to that now. And we've invested in content. We have someone full-time building out videos for that channel around note-taking practices.”
    high

  • Email marketing

    · 2 mentions
    “We have a whole email drip campaign we send you when you sign up, showing you the different features, and then we'll dynamically change that campaign depending on which bits of the products you've used or which bits you haven't.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “We have a whole email drip campaign we send you when you sign up, showing you the different features, and then we'll dynamically change that campaign depending on which bits of the products you've used or which bits you haven't.”
    high

  • Email List Growth

    · 1 mention
    “We had thousands of people sign up for our mailing list before we launched. And then when we finally did launch, we got hundreds of paying customers.”
    high

  • Word of mouth

    · 1 mention
    “If you look at our inbound leads and which convert, the vast majority come from Google, essentially word of mouth.”
    high

  • Newsletter

    · 1 mention
    “I put newsletters in that as well. So we started sponsoring newsletters. And some of them worked quite well. But the problem with newsletters is it's not scalable. You saturate these newsletters really quickly.”
    high

  • Product Hunt

    · 1 mention
    “That works, but what works is launching a significant feature on Product Hunt and Twitter. That is the only thing we have found so far, but we need some more sustainable channels for the future.”
    high

  • Content marketing

    · 1 mention
    “your initial customers are going to come from these one-off campaigns you do. Things like launching, and then relaunching, and launching new features. And then also product launches.”
    high

  • Viral growth

    · 1 mention
    “And seeing if there's ways of adding some virality to your app without kind of destroying the essence of your app. But you know, for example, like with Reflect, we've been very careful not to add a bunch of team features and turn Reflect into a wiki. ... But there's other features that we've adde...”
    high

  • Original research reports

    · 1 mention
    “I've built up a large following on Twitter over the years. I have about 30,000 people. And it was easy to see if products resonated with them. I just send a tweet out and I can pretty much feel if there's some kind of product market fit there.”
    high

  • Advertising on social media

    · 1 mention
    “And then we thought about paid advertising. But the thing is, paid advertising is really difficult to make work in B2C these days. Because you have churn. You don't have net negative retention. Because you don't have expansion. And you don't have that high ACV.”
    high

How 2,994 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Reflect’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    67% ◀
  • Social media
    63% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    58% ◀
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    37% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    35% ◀
  • Partnerships
    33%
  • Events
    25%
  • Paid ads
    24%
  • Outbound/Sales
    19%
  • Press/PR
    18%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    11%
  • Podcasting
    4%
  • Building in public
    3%
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