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# MobileCLI Growth Playbook
*Created: March 14, 2026*
*Current: 200 impressions/day on App Store, 3 blog posts, zero social presence*
---
## THE HONEST TAKE
ProductHunt is overrated for dev tools. The audience is founders, marketers,
and tool collectors -- not the developers who actually use CLI tools. A "great"
PH day gets you 2-5k site visits that evaporate in 48 hours.
**Hacker News is your #1 launch event.** HN readers ARE your users: terminal
power users, Rust enthusiasts, AI coding agent users. A front page Show HN
can drive 10-50k visits and the audience actually TRIES things.
**Twitter building-in-public is your #1 ongoing channel.** Not a one-time
launch, but a sustained presence.
Here's the plan, reordered by actual impact:
---
## PHASE 1: PRE-LAUNCH (Now → 2 Weeks)
### 1.1 Polish the GitHub README
Your README is already solid but make sure it has:
- [ ] 60-second demo GIF at the top (the magic moment: phone buzzes, approve, agent continues)
- [ ] Clear install command front and center
- [ ] "Star this repo" CTA
- [ ] Badges: stars, license, latest release
### 1.2 Start @mobilecli on Twitter (THIS WEEK)
Don't wait for launch. Build in public NOW.
**Week 1 content:**
- Day 1: Intro post + promo-v3-square.mp4 video
"We built MobileCLI — approve Claude Code tool calls from your phone.
Self-hosted Rust daemon. No cloud. No accounts.
Your terminal, in your pocket. [video]"
- Day 2: Problem tweet (relatable pain)
"The #1 productivity killer with AI coding agents: kick off a task,
walk away, come back 20 min later... blocked on approval since minute 2. 🙃"
- Day 3: Demo GIF of approval flow
- Day 4: Technical tweet (Rust angle)
"MobileCLI is ~7000 lines of async Rust. Tokio, WebSocket streaming,
PTY capture, push notifications. Here's how we detect agent wait states →"
- Day 5: Share a blog post
- Weekend: Engage in AI coding threads
**Ongoing cadence:** 3-5 tweets/week. Mix of:
- Product demos / GIFs
- AI coding agent commentary
- Technical deep dives (Rust, iOS, terminal)
- Blog post shares
- Reply/engage with devs frustrated by agent workflows
**Accounts to engage with:**
- @alexalbert__ (Claude Code creator)
- @swyx (AI engineering thought leader)
- @simonw (covers AI tools extensively -- if he amplifies, massive)
- @levelsio (indie maker community)
- @karpathy (long shot but massive signal)
- @theprimeagen (terminal/Rust enthusiast -- PERFECT fit)
- @indydevdan (specifically covers Claude Code workflows)
### 1.3 Write 2 More Blog Posts
Get to 5+ total before Show HN. Target these searches:
- "monitor AI coding agent remotely" (zero competition)
- "stream terminal to phone" (zero competition)
- "aider mobile monitoring" (target a popular agent you don't market to yet)
The weekly blog cron is already running but write 2 manually for speed.
### 1.4 Submit to Directories & Newsletters (Low Effort, Do Now)
- [ ] console.dev/submit (curated dev tools newsletter)
- [ ] theresanaiforthat.com (AI tool directory)
- [ ] futurepedia.io (AI tool directory)
- [ ] GitHub Marketplace listing
---
## PHASE 2: LAUNCH WEEK (Week 3)
### 2.1 Show HN (THE BIG ONE) — Tuesday or Wednesday, 9am ET
**Title options (pick one):**
- "Show HN: MobileCLI – Stream AI coding agents to your phone (Rust, open source)"
- "Show HN: I built a terminal mirror for AI coding agents so I can approve from my couch"
**What to include in the post:**
- What it does (2 sentences)
- Why you built it (the babysitting problem)
- How it works (Rust daemon → WebSocket → iOS app)
- Link to GitHub repo
- Link to demo video
**Rules:**
- DO NOT ask anyone to upvote. HN detects and penalizes vote rings.
- Be in the comments immediately, answer everything honestly.
- Share technical details -- HN devs love architecture discussions.
- Self-hosted + Rust + open source = HN catnip.
**Expected outcome if it hits front page:**
- 10,000-50,000 site visits
- 200-500+ GitHub stars
- Cascade to newsletters, Twitter, blogs covering it
- App Store downloads spike
### 2.2 Reddit (Same Day or Day After HN)
Space these out, 1 per day:
**Day 1 — r/rust** (~150k members)
"I built a terminal streaming daemon in Rust — MobileCLI"
Lead with the Rust technical angle.
**Day 2 — r/ClaudeAI** (~50k members)
"I built a tool to approve Claude Code from your phone"
Lead with the problem.
**Day 3 — r/commandline**
"Stream any terminal session to your phone with MobileCLI"
**Day 4 — r/ChatGPTCoding**
"How I stopped babysitting my AI coding agent"
**Day 5 — r/SideProject**
Maker story angle.
### 2.3 Newsletter Pitches (Send Day Of or Day After HN)
**Tier 1 (biggest impact):**
- TLDR (tldr.tech) — massive dev audience
- Changelog Weekly (changelog.com/weekly) — dev/OSS focus
- Hacker Newsletter — curates top HN posts (auto if you hit front page)
**Tier 2:**
- Ben's Bites (bensbites.com) — AI tools
- Console.dev (already submitted in Phase 1)
- Rust Weekly — Rust community
- Alpha Signal — AI/ML newsletter
- The Neuron — daily AI newsletter
### 2.4 Tweet the Launch
Thread format:
1. "We just launched MobileCLI on Hacker News. [link]"
2. What it does (with video)
3. Why we built it
4. Technical stack
5. What's next
6. "Star us on GitHub: [link]"
---
## PHASE 3: POST-LAUNCH (Ongoing)
### 3.1 ProductHunt (When Convenient, Low Priority)
Do it, but don't lead with it. Spend max 1 day prepping.
**Checklist:**
- [ ] Create "upcoming" page to collect followers
- [ ] Tagline: "Your desktop terminal, in your pocket"
- [ ] Gallery: 5 screenshots + demo video
- [ ] First comment draft (your story as the maker)
- [ ] Self-hunt is fine for indie tools
- [ ] Launch any Tuesday-Thursday, 12:01am PT
**Realistic expectations:** 2,000-5,000 site visits, ~100-300 App Store clicks.
The REAL value: backlink for SEO + social proof badge for your site.
### 3.2 YouTube
- Upload promo-v3-wide.mp4
- Title: "MobileCLI — Control AI Coding Agents From Your Phone"
- But focus on getting FEATURED by creators, not building a channel:
**YouTubers to pitch (with your demo video):**
- IndyDevDan — specifically covers Claude Code workflows (BEST FIT)
- ThePrimeagen — terminal/Rust content, perfect audience
- Fireship — if he does a "100 seconds" it's massive
- Cole Medin — AI coding agent content
- AI Jason — AI tools and workflows
- Matthew Berman — AI tool reviews
### 3.3 Podcast Pitches
- DevTools FM (devtools.fm) — literally a podcast about dev tools
- The Changelog — major dev/OSS podcast
- Latent Space (latent.space) — AI engineering, hosts: Swyx + Alessio
- Software Engineering Daily
### 3.4 New Agent Integrations
MobileCLI works with ANY terminal but marketing specific agents = SEO:
- **Aider** (github.com/paul-gauthier/aider) — huge community, reach out to Paul Gauthier
- **Goose by Block** (github.com/block/goose) — newer, would welcome ecosystem
- **Amazon Q Developer CLI** — AWS's coding agent
- **Cline** — popular VS Code agent with CLI interactions
- **OpenHands/SWE-Agent** — autonomous coding agents
For each: write a blog post ("How to use [Agent] with MobileCLI"),
create an integration page, and add to the website.
### 3.5 Community Presence
- **Anthropic Community Forum** (community.anthropic.com) — be helpful there
- **Rust Discord** — share the project
- **AI coding Discords** (Cursor, Continue, etc.) — MobileCLI is relevant
### 3.6 Content Flywheel (Automated)
Weekly blog cron is running. Each post:
1. Auto-publishes to website (Vercel deploy)
2. Share on Twitter
3. Share on relevant Reddit threads
4. SEO compounds over time
---
## METRICS TO TRACK
| Metric | Current | Target (30 days) | Target (90 days) |
|---------------------------|---------|-------------------|-------------------|
| App Store impressions/day | 200 | 500 | 1,000+ |
| App Store downloads | ??? | Track this! | Growing MoM |
| GitHub stars | ??? | 500 | 1,000+ |
| Twitter followers | 0 | 500 | 2,000+ |
| Blog posts | 3 | 8 | 15+ |
| Blog organic traffic/mo | ??? | Set up analytics | Track growth |
---
## THINGS NOT TO DO
- Don't pay for PH launch services (gaming upvotes)
- Don't spam Reddit (space posts out, be genuine)
- Don't ask people to upvote on HN (they detect this)
- Don't build a YouTube channel right now (get featured instead)
- Don't over-invest in PH at the expense of HN + Reddit
- Don't launch on HN until README is polished + demo video exists
_Status: Work in progress_
1. [Overview](#overview)
You will need to decide where your entity should be located and how it will be structured. This is largely driven by tax considerations, but may also be driven by governance preferences.
This document aims to help you get started with profiling test suites and answers the following questions: which profiles to run first? How do we interpret the results to choose the next steps? Etc.