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How I launched a profitable minimally viable product in 3 hours
- please 16y agobut did it only last for 30 minutes? Error 500 - Internal server error An internal server error has occured! Please try again later.
- amirkhella 16y agoSorry about that - 1and1 is totally unreliable as a host, and is collapsing under the HN effect. Reload it a couple of times and it should work.
- jhuckestein 16y agoIf a server cannot handle the "HN effect", you should probably host nothing there. Unless of course it's not only the server's fault ;)
- amirkhella 16y agoThat's probably another lesson I should add to the post: Never use 1and1 as your host.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- IgorPartola 16y agoWP SuperCache?
- amirkhella 16y agoI just got it installed and activated, and deactivated most plug-ins on the blog and website. Hopefully that will solve it.
- GFischer 16y agoOuch.. it was looking good and I was considering it for my own startup thingie :) Any good and cheap Microsoft hosting you can recommend? (as in the 5 to 10 dollar a month range)?
- patio11 16y agoI'm thinking Apache with KeepAlive turned on: it kills more blogs than cancer!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- dangrossman 16y agoThat's a nice looking site for a $35 template. Any chance you're willing to share where it's from?
- amirkhella 16y agoThe theme is called inFocus. I purchased it from ThemeForest.net
- rcavezza 16y agoCan someone post a text summary or the post in its entirety? I found the site url on google, but couldn't cache it from before the site went down.
- nopal 16y agoCoral cache is working: http://blog.amirkhella.com.nyud.net/2010/09/21/the-story-of-keynotopia-how-i-launched-a-profitable-product-in-3-hours/ http://blog.amirkhella.com.nyud.net/2010/09/21/the-story-of-...
- rcavezza 16y agoThanks
- amirkhella 16y agoWorking on creating a static HTML file for the post
- unohoo 16y agohave you tried pricing variations ? You might be leaving money on the table if there's such an incredible demand.
- amirkhella 16y agoThat's a very good point. I had some pricing variations in the beginning and the one I have now is at the sweet spot. One of the most interesting moves was to add a company license (a friend suggested it and it took less than 10 minutes to add it. It sold several copies to date. I am planning an update that should position the product at the right value/price point.
- rcavezza 16y agoI was really looking forward to learning how the product was built, how the payment processor was set up so quickly, the tools used, and how he was able to build the product so fast. Most of the post was actually about dealing with the uncertainties of launching a product before you're comfortable with it and being pleasantly surprised by the results. There's very little information on the process of how Amir launched it in three hours except using paypal and buying a $35 theme from themeforest - I'd like to hear more about this in a feature post.
- amirkhella 16y agoSure. If enough folks want to dig into this much detail, I'd be happy to put together an in-depth write-up.
- palish 16y agoYes.
- websockr 16y agoDitto. Please, if you're exposing this much about the process and not trying to keep it a secret or anything, give us the play by play.
- amirkhella 16y ago:) No secrets here. I've been keeping a journal of the whole experiment, and can compile it into a couple of posts this weekend.
- bvi 16y agoThe blog post says nothing about how you launched your product in 3 hours. Slightly misleading, perhaps?
- shazow 16y agoSounds more like "How I built, refined, and publicized a free trial of my product for months, then released the paid version in 3 hours."
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y agoWhich is also a pretty effective business model!
- kwellman 16y agoYou seem to be referring to the web site as the "minimally viable product" not including the actual product that you're selling on the site. You don't mention how long it took to actually build the templates that you're selling. Three hours is still impressive and inspiring, but I imagine there was a lot more work leading up to that point.
- amirkhella 16y agoCorrect- The product itself has been created over time, as a byproduct of my day job. But it wasn't a product until I put together that MVP website.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sahillavingia 16y agoHow much time was spent working on the project afterwards though? I built an app "in a week" (http://oneweekapp.com/ http://oneweekapp.com/) which went on to generate a decent passive income for me, but since then I've spent far far more than a week on it. I'd be really curious to know more details, specifically on the payment end (doesn't that take more than 3 hours by itself to set up?).
- golgo13 16y agoThe app looks cool. Looks like you deserve more than 3 stars (as of 2010-09-21)
- sahillavingia 16y agoThanks, it's mainly cause it crashes a lot. The update I just submitted should fix a lot of it.
- amirkhella 16y agoOneWeekApp looks pretty cool! I spent a couple of hours a day afterward to do testing, upgrade the templates, and improve copy.
- cloudkj 16y agoLooks pretty similar to the Four Hour Work Week muse model touted by Tim Ferris and co. Attractive product page (Wordpress theme), informational product (software templates), outsourced commerce pipeline (e-junkie). Only thing is that he didn't need to use paid ads to drive traffic, since he led with a blog post that led to subscriptions, which meant he already had a customer base. Cool stuff.
- curtisspope 16y agoThanks man, I know what this is like
- madridorama 16y agowhat plugin are you using to handle ejunkie requests inside of wordpress? does ejunkie manage sales through paypal and google checkout? do they provide good tracking? I am curious how viable ejunkie + wordpress are as a basic and simple ecommerce platform
- amirkhella 16y agoNo plugin. Just their HTML script for each shopping cart item that I embed in product pages. They manage sales through PP and GC, and they even hold delivery on eCheck payments until they are cleared. I think eJunkie + Wordpress make a great duo for eCommerce platforms.
- danielnicollet 16y agoAre you still growing the product and company, and yes, as shazow says, sounds like you put a lot more than 3 hours into it... Don't take this the wrong way but are you baiting us because your traffic to Keynotopia is falling?
- allenp 16y agoCan you comment on the impact the affiliate program has had on your sales?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- barfoomoo 16y agoAny quick SEO tips?
- amirkhella 16y agoHelp me put together a useful in-depth follow-up post by leaving a reply to this comment with a couple of questions that you'd like me to answer.
- rada 16y agoYou have an error on your link building website: We never buy links or use links farms. We find relevant, diverse links and build them nauturally. nauturally -> naturally