# CARDIER — Launch Pitch Kit A working document for outreach to press, communities, and social. Everything here is a draft — substitute the [bracketed placeholders] and adapt voice before sending. **You must do the actual sending.** Nothing below is automated. --- ## 1. What to fill in before sending anything - `[LAUNCH DATE]` — the actual launch date - `[FOUNDER QUOTE]` — see the press release on `/press`; replace the bracketed suggestion with your own line in your voice - `[APP STORE LINK]` — only after the App Store URL is live - `[GOOGLE PLAY LINK]` — only after Play Store URL is live (post-launch) If `[APP STORE LINK]` is not yet live on a given day, **do not pitch press**. The story is hollow without a live download. Communities (Reddit/Twitter) can pre-tease the waitlist, but reporters need a shipped product. --- ## 2. Cold email — press / outlets ### Subject line variants (pick one per outlet) - **Tech outlets:** `Launch: a credit-card benefit tracker that doesn't ask for your bank login` - **Personal finance outlets:** `New iOS app: see whether your $695 Platinum is actually earning its fee back` - **Founder-story outlets (Indie Hackers, Hustle):** `Solo founder ships CARDIER — a benefit tracker for premium cardholders` ### Body template ``` Hi [REPORTER FIRST NAME], I'm Mauricio, founder of CARDIER — an iOS app launching [LAUNCH DATE] that helps premium credit cardholders track expiring statement credits and see, per card, whether the fee is actually earning its keep. Two things I think might be worth your readers' attention: 1. Most "$1,500 in annual credits" is fragmented across calendar-year, cardmember-anniversary, and monthly resets — by design. We map every reset for every card and surface what's about to expire. 2. Unlike aggregator-based finance apps, CARDIER asks for zero bank credentials. The work doesn't need them, so we don't collect them. Press release, fact sheet, and approved boilerplate are at https://cardier.app/press. Available for interviews or screenshots if useful. Mauricio Guerrero press@cardier.app [PHONE OPTIONAL] ``` ### Outlet target list | Outlet | Beat | Pitch angle | |---|---|---| | TechCrunch | Consumer apps | Privacy-first launch (no bank login) | | The Verge | Tech / money | The benefit-fragmentation design problem | | CNBC Select | Personal finance | ROI dashboard for premium-fee cards | | Bankrate | Credit card editorial | Honest annual-fee math | | NerdWallet | Card recommendations | Independent tracking tool, no affiliate angle | | The Points Guy | Premium card audience | Mature framework for evaluating cards | | Doctor of Credit | Churning community | Welcome-bonus and reset tracking | | Indie Hackers | Solo founder stories | Build-in-public origin | | Product Hunt | Launch surface | Launch day same-day post | **Send sequence:** Send 5 at a time over the launch week. Personalize the first paragraph of each. Do not BCC. Do not send mass — outlets ignore them. --- ## 3. Product Hunt launch — same day ### Tagline (60 char max) `Capture every premium card benefit before it expires.` ### Description (260 char) `CARDIER tracks the fragmented statement credits, monthly micro-credits, and anniversary perks on premium credit cards — and shows the real ROI per card. No bank login. iOS. $99/yr or free tier.` ### First comment from you ``` Hi PH! I'm Mauricio, the maker. CARDIER exists because I kept watching my own $200 airline credits expire on December 31 — and realized the credit catalog for a typical premium cardholder is structurally too complex to track in your head. The product is a calendar problem and a catalog problem, not a transaction-data problem, so we deliberately don't ask for bank logins. Asked some hard questions about whether the narrower surface is what people want — happy to discuss. Free tier covers core tracking. Pro is $99/year for ROI dashboard, overlap detection, and Card Advisor (best card per purchase). Would genuinely value your feedback on the model and the UX. ``` ### Launch-day logistics - Launch on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday (best traffic) - Post at 12:01am Pacific - Have 5-10 PH users primed to up-vote in the first hour (do not buy upvotes; ask actual people who use the app) - Be in the comments all day --- ## 4. Twitter / X ### Launch tweet ``` CARDIER is live. Every premium credit card promises "$1,500+ in annual credits." Almost nobody captures it. The reset calendars are deliberately incoherent. We built a tracker that watches every credit on every card — and tells you the real ROI per card. No bank login required. [APP STORE LINK] ``` ### Thread (use after launch tweet) ``` 1/ Why this app exists: A $695 Platinum charges you a fee on day one, then makes you fight a 12-month fragmented credit calendar to earn it back. Monthly resets. Cardmember-year resets. Calendar-year resets. All on different clocks. The fragmentation is the product. 2/ Cardholders don't lose credits because they're careless. They lose them because the credit you missed in March doesn't roll into April. The Saks credit splits into two $50 chunks with different deadlines. The Uber Cash drips $15/month — miss a month, that $15 is gone. 3/ The honest math: A Platinum advertises ~$1,500 in credits. A typical cardholder captures $400-$900 of it. That's a $300-$1,100 swing on whether the card is worth its fee. CARDIER's ROI Dashboard answers that question per card, continuously. 4/ Why no bank login? A benefit tracker is a calendar + catalog problem. You need to know which cards you hold and when they reset. You don't need to know what you spent on groceries last Tuesday. The narrower surface is the design choice. 5/ Available now on iOS. $99/year Pro membership, or free tier with core tracking. No affiliates. No data sales. Just the subscription. [APP STORE LINK] ``` ### Replies-to-pin - "Why $99/year vs free?" → "Pro covers the ROI Dashboard, overlap detection, and Card Advisor (best-card-per-purchase). Free tier handles the calendar. Pick the one that fits." - "What about Android?" → "Coming after iOS finds its footing. Web version planned too." --- ## 5. Reddit **Do not post the same copy across subreddits.** Read recent rules in each sub before posting. Several subs have launch/promo rules that require explicit mod approval. ### r/CreditCards — discussion-first ``` Title: Built a tracker for premium card benefits because mine kept expiring — would love this community's feedback Body: I lost about $400 of Amex credits in 2024 because the airline credit, Saks H2, and Uber Cash all have different reset clocks and I couldn't keep them straight. So I built CARDIER. iOS app. Tracks every credit on every card, by issuer, with the reset calendar baked in. Also has an ROI per-card view (captured value minus fee) and overlap detection (e.g. if you have two Priority Pass cards). Free tier covers tracking. $99/yr Pro adds the ROI dashboard, overlap detection, and Card Advisor (which card to use for each purchase). The deliberate design choice: no bank login required. Doesn't aggregate transactions. Tracks the calendar, not your spending. Genuinely interested in this community's feedback — especially on what credits you've lost and would have wanted alerted. [APP STORE LINK] ``` ### r/churning — narrower, technical ``` Title: New tool: tracks welcome-bonus deadlines, statement credits, and per-card ROI Body: CARDIER, iOS, launched today. The Applications module tracks minimum-spend deadlines and pace; the per-card view shows captured credits vs fee. Doesn't replace AwardWallet or your churn spreadsheet — built for the calendar/tracking layer. Free tier handles tracking; Pro ($99/yr) adds ROI dashboard and overlap. If this sub has feedback on what's missing for churners specifically, please share — Applications module is still v1. [APP STORE LINK] ``` ### Other communities (check posting rules first) - r/PersonalFinance — typically no self-promo; participate in discussions instead - r/AmexPlatinum, r/ChaseSapphire — niche, can work if you contribute first --- ## 6. Anti-patterns — do not do these - Do not pay for placement on the "Top Story" sections of subreddits (against the rules, gets you banned) - Do not buy Product Hunt upvotes - Do not BCC press - Do not pitch outlets that compete directly with each other on the same day with exclusives implied - Do not over-claim metrics ("revolutionary," "first-of-its-kind") — you cannot back them up and reporters know it - Do not pitch before App Store URL is live - Do not respond defensively to critical comments — say "good point, here's what we considered" or "we don't have a great answer for that yet, working on it" --- ## 7. What to watch in the first 14 days - App Store downloads (vs. waitlist baseline) - Press release pickups (Google news alert on "CARDIER") - Product Hunt rank and comment thread - Reddit comment sentiment (the body, not the karma) - Inbound press@cardier.app email volume The success metric in the spec was "100+ app installs from press." That's a reasonable directional number but it's not the most important thing — the most important thing is whether the people who try the app *stay*. Track retention, not installs.