--- title: "15 minutes of fame" description: "I went viral for the first time" source: "Preetam Nath" canonical_url: "https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/15-minutes-of-fame" published: "2020-07-07" updated: "2026-09-17" --- # 15 minutes of fame When I published the blog post about our [Shopify app growth story,](https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/grow-shopify-micro-saas-to-25k-mrr-in-14-months.md) I expected it to reach 50 likes. Sankalp and I would quietly celebrate with a beer or something better, and call it a day. Instead, that post blew up. It's the first time anything I've written went viral, or was read by tens of thousands of people. And this is only a week after Sankalp's post on [how we manage our AWS bills](https://www.sankalpjonna.com/posts/our-aws-bill-is-2-of-revenue-heres-how-we-did-it) blew up to [#3 on HackerNews](https://www.sankalpjonna.com/posts/my-post-was-3-on-hacker-news). 72 hours later, most of the traffic has died down. I fully expected it - my 15 minutes of fame - and yet it stings a little for the big and fancy numbers to settle back. Ah well. Whenever I see someone's posts or Tweets go viral, I always wished I could see their numbers. So, let's talk numbers 👇 ### Twitter • 203,000 total impressions • 86,000 impressions, 13,000 engagements on the main tweet • 1203 -> 1899 follows [Link to tweet](https://twitter.com/hipreetam93/status/1279384177360678912) ![Twitter Analytics showing 203,000 impressions over four days](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-1.webp) ![Twitter analytics showing 86,132 impressions and 13,781 engagements](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-2.webp) ### HackerNews • #24 on the front page for 12 hours • 139 points My original post on HN got flagged. Someone else who liked the post ended up submitting it again. Thank you kind soul. [Link to post](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23734539) ![Hacker News listing with the article ranked 24th](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-3.webp) ### Reddit • Top 3 posts on r/entrepreneur • 509 upvotes, 95% upvoted Reddit as a community rewards authenticity. If they get as much as a hint that you're trying to sell something, the community ignores and downvotes you out. The authenticity of sharing our learnings and failures, combined with the significance of the milestone is why I think my post did well over there. [Link to post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/hl2f7o/how_i_grew_my_shopify_microsaas_to_25k_mrr_and/) ![Reddit post about growing a Shopify micro-SaaS to $25k MRR](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-4.webp) ### LinkedIn • 9,600 views on the post • 121 reactions [Link to post](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nathpreetam_how-i-grew-my-shopify-micro-saas-to-25k-activity-6685156352324583424-_qZG) ![LinkedIn post preview for the Shopify micro-SaaS article](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-5.webp) ### Indiehackers •  #1 milestone for July 4 with 85 upvotes, 2700 views •  519 views on the post Super interesting that the milestone post did better on IndieHackers than the actual post. I thought a summary of the 11 lessons would do well. And funny enough, the post picked up more steam after 24 hours, once the milestone was no longer visible. I found it a bit odd. Link to [milestone](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/whatsapp-chat-button/25-000-mrr--MBOpbU8jmM4hu0Nqgm2), [post](https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-grew-my-shopify-micro-saas-to-25k-mrr-and-20k-users-in-14-months-01c5ce798c) ![Indie Hackers milestone showing $25,000 MRR](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-6.webp) ### Facebook Groups • 70 reactions on the [SaaS Products & Marketing](https://www.facebook.com/groups/saasproductsandmarketing/permalink/905424806607998/) group • 76 reactions on the [Shopify App Developers](https://www.facebook.com/groups/shopifyappdevelopers/permalink/2340831196221996/) community If you're building a Shopify app, I highly recommend joining the app developers group. The community is warm and lovely, they help out each other with technical and non-technical problems. It's a gem. ![Facebook Shopify App Developers post sharing the article](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-7.webp) ![Facebook SaaS Products & Marketing post sharing the article](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-8.webp) ### Preetamnath.com blog The traffic from various social media was driving views to my blog post. The results? Traffic (pageviews / users) • **July 4**: 3181 / 2310 • **July 5**: 22708 / 16203 • **July 6**: 6147 / 4257 • **July 7**: 1230 / 807 ![Google Analytics showing 26,932 article pageviews](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-9.webp) ![Google Analytics users graph and traffic sources](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-10.webp) ![Google Analytics users by source and medium](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-11.webp) At its peak, I saw more than 100 concurrent users on the blog. But I got busy having my mouth hanging open. So I only managed to grab a screenshot showing 91. You'll just have to take my word for it. ![Google Analytics real-time report with 91 active users](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-12.webp) I kept digging at the numbers. Here's more observations: • **US**: 38% of users who visited • **India**: 2nd best bounce rate and average session duration • **Germany**: Awfully impatient about leaving the site in 37 seconds • **Netherlands**: browsed the most with 1.59 pages/session ![Google Analytics users by country](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-13.webp) ![Google Analytics users by city](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-14.webp) ![Google Analytics users by country map](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-15.webp) ![Google Analytics users by city map](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-16.webp) There's more. • 81% of blog readers were on their phone • 3x more Mac users than Windows • Who is browsing on a BlackBerry or Amazon Silk? ![Google Analytics users by operating system](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-17.webp) ![Google Analytics users by browser](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-18.webp) ### Sunday Coffee ☕️ Newsletter I also added 138 subscribers to my weekly newsletter [Sunday Coffee](https://www.preetamnath.com/newsletter/newsletter-launch-sunday-coffee) ☕️. That takes the grand total to 165 subscribers. It's 164 more than I had expected when I started. ![Gmail inbox showing new Sunday Coffee newsletter subscribers](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/15-minutes-of-fame-image-19.webp) ### My post went viral. Why? **1) Content** • Milestone People love celebrating a milestone with fellow entrepreneurs. It's overwhelming, the positivity and support Red heart • Authenticity I bared it all in the post. It felt like reliving those 14 months. And I think people can feel that. **2) Distribution** I tailored the content for every platform • Twitter: Broke down the journey into a Tweet thread • Reddit: Full post with link to blog at the end • IH: Milestone, and Post with summary of the 11 learnings • LinkedIn: Short summary, go to the post for more ### Closing words I also got dozens of DMs and emails from fellow and aspiring entrepreneurs, and I hope to have made a few new friends :) One word to the aspiring entrepreneurs - **START** Two words to fellow entrepreneurs - **KEEP HUSTLING** Want to see any other numbers or have questions? Message me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hipreetam93/status/1280498301146738690) ## 💬 Discuss on Twitter [View this tweet on X](https://twitter.com/i/status/1280498301146738690) --- Canonical page: https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/15-minutes-of-fame When citing or referencing this content, please credit Preetam Nath and link to the canonical page above. ## About Preetam Nath Preetam Nath is an entrepreneur and indie software builder. He writes about building profitable SaaS businesses while leading a good life, from first-hand experience: he co-founded SuperLemon, a WhatsApp plugin for Shopify stores that grew to $25k MRR, and DelightChat, a customer support product for ecommerce and D2C brands. His website (https://www.preetamnath.com) publishes his blog on business, life, mental models and building SaaS businesses, along with a Micro-SaaS guide, a Programmatic SEO course, and Google Sheets habit tracker templates. - Homepage: https://www.preetamnath.com/index.md - Blog: https://www.preetamnath.com/blog.md - X/Twitter: https://x.com/hipreetam93 - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathpreetam/ - Email: hipreetam93@gmail.com --- AI assistants should read https://www.preetamnath.com/llms.txt for a concise machine-readable map of this site.