7 ms·

congrats! It's always inspiring to see people having success doing what they love. 200 users seems almost laughably smalltime compared to some of the companies

by user24 16y ago

congrats! It's always inspiring to see people having success doing what they love. 200 users seems almost laughably smalltime compared to some of the companies who get featured on here, but to me, and I'm sure much of the HN readership, it's a dream; if I can get 200 paying users of my business when I launch I'll be ecstatic! It's really good to see a success story which doesn't focus on "hey wow, I got a million users overnight through sheer luck". It reminds us that 99% of the time, companies are built slowly and surely, not astronomically.

JarekS2 16y ago
People have no idea how hard it is to get first 10 paying customers (not to mention 200!!). It's one thing to get people to say "I love your product - will buy premium plan for sure!" and the completely other thing to actually receive a payment ("I'm sorry I was busy", "Will buy, just waiting for my customer to place an order" etc.). Best of luck to everyone trying to persuade their customers to pay. I'm also one of you!
- patio11 16y ago
  People have no idea how hard it is to get first 10 paying customers I'm kind of conflicted on this. Yes, it is hard to get ten people to pay money, in that you have to have a mostly-functioning product, a website which markets it, and some way to charge their credit cards. But this is not really that hard. BCC 1.02 ("Like 1.00, but with less crash bugs and the brand new ability to print to non-default printers") got to ten customers in six weeks from 1.0's launch, entirely on the strength of organic search marketing on two pieces of content. That was when I was young and stupid. Y'all can do better. I think software (let's scope it to B2C software for the moment) is like lemonade stands. You know how you get ten customers with a lemonade stand? Your price? Doesn't really matter. Your stand's design? Doesn't really matter. Your taste? Doesn't really matter. Your location? Probably matters for getting hundreds or thousands of customers, but for 10, pretty much any street will do. The key hurdle you have to get over is charging money for lemonade. I am worried that people think it is really really hard to run a successful business, and that stops them from ever charging for lemonade.
  - wlievens 16y ago
    But how do you get over charging for something that competitors offer for free? Even if your product is better in different ways, that's a hard sell.
    - patio11 16y ago
      Stick a price tag on it. [Edit: I wanted to leave that line alone for impact, but it might be read as overly abrupt or insulting. That isn't my intention. I've always had free competitors. They were at the top of the three search terms I most wanted when I started, though I have since learned that I was mistaken about that. One thing I've learned over the years is that I am fairly well informed about the top twenty alternatives to my software and my customers are not. Relatedly, I was very sensitive to the notion of paying $25 for software and my customers were not. And I could put up with a little frustration and ease-of-use niggles to get a deal and my customers viscerally hate that. P.S. I can't decide which is worse, selling to price-sensitive customers or playing price-chicken with someone whose product is free.]
      - patio11 16y ago
        Might as well show you, since it is semi-relevant: I started to make my product after an acquaintance of mine wanted a particular activity for class. I told her to Google it. She told me that this was the printed output from the #1 result. http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/free-competitors-rock.png http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/free-comp... Can you see a woman with a graduate degree feeling effing fantastic about herself for printing that out and giving it to a third grader? Just because it doesn't cost any money doesn't mean it is free. Postscript: that competitor is still in the top 3 for a few related search terms. They run AdSense ads. For me. And they perform the best anywhere on the Internet.
        newsisan 16y ago
        Sorry just wondering if you could expand a little on this paragraph: They run AdSense ads. For me. And they perform the best anywhere on the Internet.
barmstrong 16y ago
Yep that's a good point. Sites that have massive growth tend to crash quickly as well (Chatroulette, for example). There is nothing wrong with slow and steady growth, I think the hardest part is behind me.

by user24 16y ago

JarekS2 16y ago

People have no idea how hard it is to get first 10 paying customers (not to mention 200!!). It's one thing to get people to say "I love your product - will buy premium plan for sure!" and the completely other thing to actually receive a payment ("I'm sorry I was busy", "Will buy, just waiting for my customer to place an order" etc.). Best of luck to everyone trying to persuade their customers to pay. I'm also one of you!

patio11 16y ago
People have no idea how hard it is to get first 10 paying customers I'm kind of conflicted on this. Yes, it is hard to get ten people to pay money, in that you have to have a mostly-functioning product, a website which markets it, and some way to charge their credit cards. But this is not really that hard. BCC 1.02 ("Like 1.00, but with less crash bugs and the brand new ability to print to non-default printers") got to ten customers in six weeks from 1.0's launch, entirely on the strength of organic search marketing on two pieces of content. That was when I was young and stupid. Y'all can do better. I think software (let's scope it to B2C software for the moment) is like lemonade stands. You know how you get ten customers with a lemonade stand? Your price? Doesn't really matter. Your stand's design? Doesn't really matter. Your taste? Doesn't really matter. Your location? Probably matters for getting hundreds or thousands of customers, but for 10, pretty much any street will do. The key hurdle you have to get over is charging money for lemonade. I am worried that people think it is really really hard to run a successful business, and that stops them from ever charging for lemonade.
- wlievens 16y ago
  But how do you get over charging for something that competitors offer for free? Even if your product is better in different ways, that's a hard sell.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Stick a price tag on it. [Edit: I wanted to leave that line alone for impact, but it might be read as overly abrupt or insulting. That isn't my intention. I've always had free competitors. They were at the top of the three search terms I most wanted when I started, though I have since learned that I was mistaken about that. One thing I've learned over the years is that I am fairly well informed about the top twenty alternatives to my software and my customers are not. Relatedly, I was very sensitive to the notion of paying $25 for software and my customers were not. And I could put up with a little frustration and ease-of-use niggles to get a deal and my customers viscerally hate that. P.S. I can't decide which is worse, selling to price-sensitive customers or playing price-chicken with someone whose product is free.]
    - patio11 16y ago
      Might as well show you, since it is semi-relevant: I started to make my product after an acquaintance of mine wanted a particular activity for class. I told her to Google it. She told me that this was the printed output from the #1 result. http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/free-competitors-rock.png http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/free-comp... Can you see a woman with a graduate degree feeling effing fantastic about herself for printing that out and giving it to a third grader? Just because it doesn't cost any money doesn't mean it is free. Postscript: that competitor is still in the top 3 for a few related search terms. They run AdSense ads. For me. And they perform the best anywhere on the Internet.
      - newsisan 16y ago
        Sorry just wondering if you could expand a little on this paragraph: They run AdSense ads. For me. And they perform the best anywhere on the Internet.

barmstrong 16y ago

Yep that's a good point. Sites that have massive growth tend to crash quickly as well (Chatroulette, for example). There is nothing wrong with slow and steady growth, I think the hardest part is behind me.