How WhatsGoodATX Hit 10,000 Users Without Spending a Dollar on Ads

Howdy, Austin.

This week’s Founder Friday is about an Austin events platform built around one simple question:

What’s fun to do in Austin?

Michelle built What’sGoodATX to help people discover the city beyond the obvious events through weird hobby groups, local music, spiritual markets, creative meetups, and the kind of Tuesday night gatherings you only find if someone points you there.

Here’s everything that’s happening this weekend:

Let’s get to it.

— Ken & Warren

This edition is sponsored by Austin Founders Feed.

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​On July 8th, Ken and I will be hosting Beans & Builders: a relaxed, informal meetup, bringing local founders together to connect, swap stories, and learn from each other over some good coffee.

​Real conversations about the wins, the problems, and everything in between. To keep things flowing, we'll have a few light prompts and topics on hand so the conversation never gets stale, covering Marketing & Growth, Product, Systems & AI, and Funding (bootstrapping vs. raising money).

​The first few to arrive get a little something from us, so it pays to be early. See you there.

This week’s Founder Friday is about an Austin events platform that grew by answering one question over and over:

What’s fun to do in Austin?

Michelle built What’sGoodATX to help Austinites find the city’s most interesting events, from weird hobby groups and local music to spiritual markets, creative meetups, and Tuesday night things you’d probably never find on your own.

The platform now includes a map view, personalized event recommendations, and a local radio feature that only plays Austin musicians with shows happening that week.

But the growth story may be the best part.

To grow the newsletter behind it, WhatsWeirdATX, Michelle built an organic marketing tool that lets her jump in and be helpful.

Almost 10,000 users later, the platform has grown organically without a single dollar of ad spend.

What founders can steal from this:

Where to learn more from Michelle:

Here's what Michelle shared…

WhatsWeirdATX is the newsletter, and it lives under a broader platform called WhatsGoodATX, which I'm hoping will be the place Austinites go to find awesome, fun things to do. The newsletter has been an amazing ride. I focus on finding the most unique and interesting events in Austin every week. I think it's actually getting people out, which means everything.

Austin is a very special place. I've lived in a lot of places throughout my life, and this is the place I decided to make my eternal home. Whenever I talk to someone here, they're usually very smart, with a unique story and a unique way of seeing the world. There are so many creative people here, and one of the biggest challenges is connecting them. People are doing really cool stuff, but it's hard to find the things you'd actually be interested in checking out. The Keep Austin Weird ethos is a short way of describing all of that, and it was the perfect thing to build a newsletter around.

It's not so much that they don't get attention, it's that people don't know where to find them. There are so many. Woo Austin bridges the creative community and the business community. There's a huge spiritual scene. The Austin Witches Market happens every month, plus little satellite witches markets. The musician community is very vibrant. The improv community is active, and there are people working on little theater projects. Discovery is just difficult.

There's also a lot of crafting and hobbyist activity happening. This is a call to anybody listening: if you have a passion about something and you're not an expert, maybe you just took up carving or sculpting and you're passionate about it, think about getting a group of people together and teaching them 101. You don't have to be an expert. I will help you get the word out. Just contact me.

People talk a lot about whether the weird has left Austin, and I don't think it has. New York is a city of transplants, but Austin is also very much a city of transplants. People come from all over looking for something they haven't found anywhere else. There's a vibe here, and once you feel it, you're going to want to come back, stay, or never leave. That vibe of curiosity, openness, maybe even a little spirituality, is threaded throughout the city. You can't talk to anybody here without learning they're a blacksmith, or they do gastronomy, or something really weird.

It's also very collaborative. People here are friendly. People brush that aside, but it's so important to live in a place where you feel welcome. You can learn something new here without feeling like people are going to look down on you for not already knowing everything about it. That's so valuable. You can become a different person here. You can grow. You can change.

Patience is the most important thing. If you start something, it's very possible that the first time, or the second, you'll have very few people there. That's okay. Keep doing it for the love. That's why it's great to do something around something you're passionate about, because you're going to want to keep doing it anyway. Don't get discouraged if the first time doesn't go well.

Reach out to other people in the community who want to help encourage this. Reach out to people like me. We can talk about your event for you. TikTok is also great right now. It's a great place to get on and tell your story, and people will be drawn to that.

I really want to make sure people are able to discover things. You kind of already know what you're interested in, but there might be stuff out there you'd never have thought of. WhatsGoodATX asks you a few questions about yourself and recommends events accordingly. Because you're a curious person, you might find yourself interested in something like the caching community, trying to find little treasures around the city. The goal is to introduce people to things they didn't already know about but might be super into.

Loneliness really affects people, and we have to do something about it. People are trying to address it through dating apps, which is fine, and lots of folks are doing great work in that space. But we can also meet people the way we used to, around our interests. The third space concept, being part of community, joining a group you come back to every week or every month. That's how you strengthen a community.

I just did a revamp. You can find all the things happening on any given day on a map, so you can see what's near you. It keys off questions I ask up front to recommend events you might find interesting. It also has a radio, which I'm super excited about. It plays the local musicians who are out doing shows this week in Austin. You can press play, listen, and think, "That's a really good song, I want to go."

I really believe in organic growth, because that's how you find out whether people are actually interested in what you're building. To start growing the newsletter and the app, I of course had to make another app to help me spread the word :) It helps connect me to people who are asking for WhatsGoodATX. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to try it for your own busness!

The platform as a whole now has almost 10,000 people, completely organic. I still need to get it onto Facebook ads and all that, but I haven't done it yet. Organic growth is an amazing lever and you should use it as much as you can.

Organic is the way to go. TikTok and Instagram are both great, but you have to keep at it and be patient. I don't do it as much as I should.

Reach out to other people in the community. Lead with value. See if you can help other people, and people will want to help you back. You'll grow connections in the community, which is what's super valuable: making friends and having people in your corner rooting for you.

Michelle wants to connect with Austin’s event hosts, creators, and community builders: musicians, artists, makers, hobby group leaders, spiritual communities, creative business owners, workshop hosts, local venues, and anyone trying to bring people together around a shared interest.

Whether you're trying to grow a community in Austin or you're a brand/local business looking to get in front of engaged Austinites, Michelle wants to help!

Connect with Michelle and explore Austin with WhatsGoodATX.

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