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Release and marketing strategy of our startup Plenum.ba

Mart 20, 2025
4 min read
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Each problem is unique in its own way. Sometimes you get stuck with some bug without having an idea what to do next except to use joker “call other dev”. Sometimes you miss an estimate for the new feature by a lot just because you haven’t planned it properly or you have missed some obvious points because you haven’t asked the right questions at the right time. 

As you gain experience, you probably start having your own way of approaching these problems, set of some unwritten. You formed these rules, by bleeding on some problems, basically from your mistakes and falls. Would it be better to gain advantage by developing/learning a strategy much earlier in a career, and avoid unnecessary bleeding.

Having an exact strategy on how to approach problems in development can make your life easier. Even though you don’t need to follow exact steps every time, you will by time incorporate these steps unconsciously in your routine. Start by forcing yourself to follow these steps, write them somewhere in a visible place in your (home)office. Let’s try to define strategy!

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Each problem is unique in its own way. Sometimes you get stuck with some bug without having an idea what to do next except to use joker “call other dev”. Sometimes you miss an estimate for the new feature by a lot just because you haven’t planned it properly or you have missed some obvious points because you haven’t asked the right questions at the right time. 

As you gain experience, you probably start having your own way of approaching these problems, set of some unwritten. You formed these rules, by bleeding on some problems, basically from your mistakes and falls. Would it be better to gain advantage by developing/learning a strategy much earlier in a career, and avoid unnecessary bleeding.

Having an exact strategy on how to approach problems in development can make your life easier. Even though you don’t need to follow exact steps every time, you will by time incorporate these steps unconsciously in your routine. Start by forcing yourself to follow these steps, write them somewhere in a visible place in your (home)office. Let’s try to define strategy!

Handling features

Even though your first tasks on your first real jobs will be to fix some minor bugs, soon after you will start working on some startup or get an opportunity to work on an important company project, there you will need to implement some features.

We have divided feature implementation in following steps:

  1. Analysis
  2. Estimation
  3. Coding

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Each problem is unique in its own way. Sometimes you get stuck with some bug without having an idea what to do next except to use joker “call other dev”. Sometimes you miss an estimate for the new feature by a lot just because you haven’t planned it properly or you have missed some obvious points because you haven’t asked the right questions at the right time. 

As you gain experience, you probably start having your own way of approaching these problems, set of some unwritten. You formed these rules, by bleeding on some problems, basically from your mistakes and falls. Would it be better to gain advantage by developing/learning a strategy much earlier in a career, and avoid unnecessary bleeding.

Having an exact strategy on how to approach problems in development can make your life easier. Even though you don’t need to follow exact steps every time, you will by time incorporate these steps unconsciously in your routine. Start by forcing yourself to follow these steps, write them somewhere in a visible place in your (home)office. Let’s try to define strategy!

Even though your first tasks on your first real jobs will be to fix some minor bugs, soon after you will start working on some startup or get an opportunity to work on an important company project, there you will need to implement some features.

We have divided feature implementation in following steps:

  1. Analysis
  2. Estimation
  3. Coding

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6
Block quote

Unordered list

  • Item A
  • Item B
  • Item C

Text link

Bold text

Emphasis

Superscript

Subscript

Each problem is unique in its own way. Sometimes you get stuck with some bug without having an idea what to do next except to use joker “call other dev”. Sometimes you miss an estimate for the new feature by a lot just because you haven’t planned it properly or you have missed some obvious points because you haven’t asked the right questions at the right time. 

As you gain experience, you probably start having your own way of approaching these problems, set of some unwritten. You formed these rules, by bleeding on some problems, basically from your mistakes and falls. Would it be better to gain advantage by developing/learning a strategy much earlier in a career, and avoid unnecessary bleeding.

Having an exact strategy on how to approach problems in development can make your life easier. Even though you don’t need to follow exact steps every time, you will by time incorporate these steps unconsciously in your routine. Start by forcing yourself to follow these steps, write them somewhere in a visible place in your (home)office. Let’s try to define strategy!

Even though your first tasks on your first real jobs will be to fix some minor bugs, soon after you will start working on some startup or get an opportunity to work on an important company project, there you will need to implement some features.

We have divided feature implementation in following steps:

  1. Analysis
  2. Estimation
  3. Coding

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6
Block quote

Unordered list

  • Item A
  • Item B
  • Item C

Text link

Bold text

Emphasis

Superscript

Subscript

Each problem is unique in its own way. Sometimes you get stuck with some bug without having an idea what to do next except to use joker “call other dev”. Sometimes you miss an estimate for the new feature by a lot just because you haven’t planned it properly or you have missed some obvious points because you haven’t asked the right questions at the right time. 

As you gain experience, you probably start having your own way of approaching these problems, set of some unwritten. You formed these rules, by bleeding on some problems, basically from your mistakes and falls. Would it be better to gain advantage by developing/learning a strategy much earlier in a career, and avoid unnecessary bleeding.

Having an exact strategy on how to approach problems in development can make your life easier. Even though you don’t need to follow exact steps every time, you will by time incorporate these steps unconsciously in your routine. Start by forcing yourself to follow these steps, write them somewhere in a visible place in your (home)office. Let’s try to define strategy!

Even though your first tasks on your first real jobs will be to fix some minor bugs, soon after you will start working on some startup or get an opportunity to work on an important company project, there you will need to implement some features.

We have divided feature implementation in following steps:

  1. Analysis
  2. Estimation
  3. Coding

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5
Heading 6
Block quote

Unordered list

  • Item A
  • Item B
  • Item C

Text link

Bold text

Emphasis

Superscript

Subscript

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Heading 4

Heading 5
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What Is Plenum.ba?

‍The idea for the Plenum platform has been in development for a long time. The general concept emerged around 2013, while the implementation process began in 2023. We dedicated a year and a half to building a platform that is different, user-oriented, and open to anyone who wants to express their opinions, share their views, write freely, and stand behind their name while also having the opportunity to earn from their writing.

Public Launch with Frenkie

This collaboration led to the production of a music video for Fraze, in which Plenum was prominently branded. As part of the agreement, we also recorded the first podcast with Frenkie for our YouTube channel. To mark the launch, we organized an event, hosted our authors and Frenkie, and together we watched and listened to the music video we had created all while enjoying a great time. As a result of this launch, we gained our first wave of publicity and reached 2,000 monthly users on the platform. The key to this success was choosing the right person, someone whose mission and vision aligned with ours allowing users to connect with our message. From the PR campaign we initially planned, we were only invited to TV SA’s morning program, where our co-founder presented Plenum.ba. Additionally, we partnered with a well-known journalist and blogger from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collaboration helped us reach a new audience and significantly increased our visitor analytics whenever Srđan shared his articles on social media.

‍

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  • - Analysis
  • - Estimation
  • - Coding
  • - Testing
Post-Release Marketing and Growth Strategy

After the release, we began preparing campaigns to increase brand awareness and attract new authors to the platform. We successfully launched a campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which resulted in 14 new authors joining Plenum.ba within just 2-3 weeks.

Our campaign had three key components:
‍Writers – Graphical campaign
‍Readers – Graphical campaign
‍Video campaign – Covering both of the above

The results were outstanding. In the month before this campaign, we had 2,400 unique users visiting our site. The month we launched the campaign, that number skyrocketed to 14,000 unique users.

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  • - firm deadlines and they try to save time in analysis and estimation
  • - not willing to participate and communicate in meetings which are related to analysis
  • - because of mindset that these meetings are waste of time
  • - if you are less experienced engineer you might be having a fear of asking stuping questions
  • - jump on coding directly and try to figure out things during development


As a part of analysis you need to do following:
‍
1. Read your ticket
Read your ticket carefully. Make sure all acceptance criterias are clear to you. If there are no AC’s, there must be some product or project manager who should explain the ticket to you. 

After you have read your ticket, if you are working on client-side there should be some design that will show you what you need to code. 

2. Design analysis
You need to analyze design, and communicate any potential discrepancies or unclarities with the designer.

  • - Check if designer is following design system and using standardized components
  • - Check if implementation complexity is on a much higher level then benefits we are getting?


3. Compare design and acceptance criteria (AC)
Compare ticket description (and AC’s) with implemented design. If they are not in sync, communicate those differences with products, PM and designer. You need to have a clear picture, and know everything about the feature you are going to implement.

4. Ask questions ‍

  • - Don’t be afraid to ask questions about anything.
  • - Asking questions and proper communication is in general one of the most important things that will take you to successfully finalize your tasks on time.


5.  Check the codebase and analyze technical implementation
After you are clear about what you need to implement, you should take a quick look at the current state of the app and check the codebase where you are adding this feature. Think from a logical standpoint, are there some things that are not possible to implement in a way that non-tech people have envisioned it.  See if you have proper knowledge of the technology you are working on, try figuring out if you can implement requested or you need guidance from more senior dev.
Ask for opinions from people who have already touched that part of the app.

6. Client side - server side sync
Also, if you are interacting with the backend side (or vice-versa), you need to take into account if you have everything ready from the other side. Also, point out any additional work that should be done on the other side before you can complete your task.

7.  Divide ticket into subtasks
After you have verified all the stuff mentioned, you need to create your own plan of the implementation. Divide ticket into minor subtasks, either creating those subtasks in reality or having it just on a piece of paper. 

8. Create implementation plan
Write down your plan and keep notes of any future adjustments.

And then it went like this:
plenum.ba analitics image

How We Achieved These Results with Just a Few Hundred Dollars Invested

We created 10 visuals for each campaign segment.
We produced 10 videos targeting both audiences.
We closely monitored campaign performance, analyzing the results every few days.
We allocated more budget to the best-performing visuals and turned off those that underperformed.

Key Results
‍
Growth from 2.4K to 14K users in one month
14 new authors joined the platform
Following this success, we continued running campaigns targeting readers, using a similar approach to Srđan's collaboration. We also invited Frenkie to write on our platform, as he had previously been a blogger and columnist. Currently, we are maintaining a steady 10K monthly users without significant advertising investments.

plenum.ba analitics image
plenum.ba analitics image
  • - Not investing enough time in analysis phase - being unprepared
  • - Being too optimistic and not anticipating unexpected events
  • - Blind guessing


When estimating, you should keep in mind following things:
‍
1. Estimate each subtask separately
Estimate each subtask separately and in the end just summarize the points. 

2. Consider PR reviews 
You should consider also adding some points for PR reviews - because those can take some time, especially when complex logic is implemented.

3. Meetings and communication in the team
Consider time you will need to invest into communication with the team if needed (ex integration)

4. Dev Testing 
Dev testing is a really important part to minimize bugs produced, so that will take some time also. Also, if you are working in different environments, you need to test on all those also. If deploying is your responsibility, you should take into account that time also.

5. Unexpected things
And just when you thought you had your final estimate, pause for a second, and add some points for unexpected things. Always expect the unexpected.

YouTube Growth and Expansion

Apart from the website, our Plenum YouTube channel has also gained traction. Our initial episodes brought in around 300 subscribers, which was a solid result for a new channel.

One of our early campaigns involved recording videos featuring our authors, showcasing their work on Plenum.ba.

Over time, we decided to take a more structured approach. Instead of focusing solely on entertainment content, we expanded to cover diverse human-interest stories from unique perspectives.