Forem: Ankur Tiwari

I have made a chrome extension for unwavering focus and deep flow

Ankur Tiwari — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:27:24 +0000

An important part of my morning ritual is reading my affirmations everyday. They have helped me stay focused on my long term goals and not fall for mediocrity. But on somedays, I forget to repeat my affirmations and then tend to lose the momentum.

So I have made a chrome extension called Affirmations Flow. It replaces new tab with your custom affiramtions. You can add as many affirmations as you want and it shuffle plays them on the new tab, one affirmation at a time.

Here is a quick demo, take a look and let me know how you find it :)

In-depth Review: Should You Host Your Python Web App On PythonAnywhere

Ankur Tiwari — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 17:39:06 +0000

Back in 2016, I was doing a bit of Embedded C and PHP, when internet’s high decibel machine learning rush hit me. Realizing the limits of my skills, I pivoted to Python. One thing led to another and I decided to follow Lean Development Methodology to quickly launch a website and then improve it gradually. Flask was selected and I started with Flask Mega Tutorial.

Next came the search for Python web hosting service. After a few days of researched, I couldn’t really made up my mind. But since I really wanted to get started, I chose and signed up for PythonAnywhere.

Even after significant research on Python website hosting service, I could not understand various moving parts clearly. I selected Pythonanywhere based on a hunch.

PythonAnywhere is a web hosting company which offers hosting solution for Python web applications. One can use it to host Python wen apps and scripts. It’s a 7 years old company based in London.

I’m reviewing PythonAnywhere for following reasons:

I’ve been its user for three years.
When I started with Python-Flask web apps, I had to spend many days searching “Hosting services for Python website”. When a service is finally decided, I went in with a leap-of-faith, in-spite of all the research.
There are many people who keep asking in forums “where should I host my Python website and Python applications”.
A wrong decision in hosting a Python app, costs dearly, in time, performance, project growth and energy.
Internet’s signal/noise ratio is going down everyday. If I can help put even one thing in perspective, it will be a success.

The goal here is to simplify and present enough information so that you can take a well-informed decision, instead of relying on hunch or PR articles.

So if you are wondering “is PythonAnywhere good?” or “should I use PythonAnywhere for web hosting?”, sit tight, we are about to discover the truth.

What you can do on PythonAnywhere?

Code, run and host python app and scripts
Build & host Django web applications
Build & host Flask web applications
Build & host web2py web applications
Build & host Bottle web applications

These are the core offerings of PythonAnywhere. “Code, Run and Host” are the words they focus on.

This word-set means that you can open PythonAnywhere.com on any web browser to:

Write code for Python Applications in a web-based editor there [or in a console],
Save and run the code, validate its output,
Host the code on PythonAnywhere for ever.

What are PythonAnywhere’s big promises?

Start hosting quickly
Develop anywhere
Amazing support

In this review, we will see how PythonAnywhere fares on these promises among many other things.

Here is the link to complete in-depth review: In-Depth Review: Should you host Python website on PythonAnywhere?

Let me know if you find it helpful. If you find it helpful, clap and share!

Organic SaaS Growth: The quest for immortal SaaS

Ankur Tiwari — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 11:21:21 +0000

It took me over 3 months to develop a website.

And 7+ months to get 500 registered users. Registered, not active.

Over the course of next few months, I tasted my first success with Facebook ads. I grew sales and solved some pressing issues with the growth.

But I only had one growth channel, and relying 100% on it was not something I felt comfortable with. So, I asked Google and YouTube “how to build new growth channels”.

A day spent only to realize that most of the top ranking blogs and videos are just noise. They are either based on top-level strategies or are pure PR garbage.

Nothing actionable there! Spend days reading them and you will not be able to execute a single thing to attract new clients.

For example, look at this screenshot:

Google search result for 'how zoom grow'

This top result tells three things:

Being customer driven

Great product

Zoom spent huge money on billboards

Now, which of these insights you can actually use today to build your audience tomorrow?

None.

And this is not a lone case. Internet is filled with such ‘top results’.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of top-level strategic insights. But if you are a Founder or CMO trying hard to gain traction, build audience and grow revenue, what you need are actionable strategies, not the ones from boardrooms’ slides.

So I started my research again, this time little differently.

I started researching the growth strategies that some of the most successful companies adopted. I didn’t go to blogs this time.

Rather I used analysis tools, interviews of founders, experienced free trials and dug deeper into their campaigns.

Though every company built its engine of growth differently, but I found one common thread among all success stories:

“Every successful company’s first and most reliable growth channel was organic.”

No exceptions.

No paid ads.

And you know, this is not even the trickiest part.

Trickiest part is that you will find people teaching about Google ads or Facebook ads. But almost none to talk about organic growth strategies. At least not on google’s first page. The world of Internet is the world of low signal / noise ratio today.

So, I have decided to research and write about organic growth strategies. Not top-level boardroom’s talk, but real actionable strategies and tactics.

I am writing Organic SaaS Growth newsletter on substack.