We have a strong experience with building high quality software. Unfortunately, we don't have any experience with marketing and sales.
We have core of our product ready after speaking with initial users. But, they have not converted to customers. We applied for VC funding but could not secure any.
We don't see any response to cold emails fromc customers. We don't have a strong network to bring in new customers
We are blogging, adding social media presence but we think it will take 6-9 months to see returns.
What are other ways for marketing and sales? How can we make our product gain traction?
Also, I will appreciate if you can talk about how to manage personal finances diligently when you are boostrapping. Biggest expeneses are rent, healthcare, and food.
Love this community.
Do you have local business schools (eg within a university) or accelerators? They might have people with marketing nous that could help and are looking for others to partner with, even if only for days/weeks/months. Last weekend I was helping my uni run a hackathon, which again might point out to you some sparky people that you could work with.
Also, I have had small marketing/etc support grants from local government enterprise groups in the past.
It may be that you just need to start hitting that phone and talk with potential customers. Validate they want to talk with you.
Also a waitlist and building an email marketing can be very strong from the start. And it will help having that list when for instance you launch on ProductHunt.