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I 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 buil
by rcavezza 16y ago
I 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.
- patio11 16y agoYou'd be surprised how often nuts&bolts issues stop people from starting. I was mildly mystified by "Set up website, collect money, deliver software" prior to starting, too. Turns out it is trivial, but that was not obvious prior to doing it. (Relatedly: taxes, bookkeeping, accounting, and government regulation were all walks in the park. Marketing is hard. Who knew?)
- jcoby 16y agoYeah, the nuts and bolts of selling the product is the easy part. There are loads of services out there to sell digital goods including the one that the submitter used and my own service (shameless plug: link in my profile anyone is interested). PayPal is still the cheapest and easiest way to collect the money, even considering fraud. (PayPal almost always sides with the buyer and with digital goods you have little recourse.) It's the marketing that makes all the difference. We have customers that have made $50-60k in less than a week due to awesome marketing. And we have customers that pull in well over $100k/yr due to good marketing and good affiliates. We also have many that will never sell anywhere near that much in the product's lifetime, also due to marketing.
- amirkhella 16y agoI am more surprised by how much people are trying to reinvent the wheel every day. I think there are enough tools and APIs out there to build small useful products in less than a week.
- paulsingh 16y agoAgreed, 100% There are tons of APIs now available for email delivery, billing, etc. Great job with this!
- lukev 16y agoThis has always been my impression. But when I've actually looked for resources on how to get those nuts & bolts set up, for someone who knows nothing about them, it's been non-obvious. You wouldn't by any chance know of some resources related to getting over the initial hump of getting paid for software/services, would you?
- curyous 16y agoPlease do a step-by-step write up, it would mean a lot to me to help me get started.
- dmitri1981 16y agoYes, please
- rmc 16y agoMy guess is that the nuts and bolts problems aren't actually that big. Most people Just Don't Start™.
- amirkhella 16y agoThat's exactly right. I really don't think I did anything new or special here. My biggest challenge was to stop thinking about it and do it.
- edanm 16y agoThe problem, for me at least, was that I didn't know what was the simplest way. I spent a long time learning some design skills, learning html/css, etc. Then I realized (not long ago) that I could effectively buy a 20$ site template, and it would take a hundredth of the time and look 100 times better. Then, even more recently, I learned that you can set up a WordPress site, with a great design, and pretty much any goodie you need (contact forms, email lists, etc.). Now, none of these things are particularly hard. But for me, coming from a non-Web background, each of these steps took some learning. And you never know when you should be learning more. So in that sense, every article I read that says exactly how to set up an MVP, including all the nuts & bolts of the various plugins / etc, is incredibly valuable.
- wazoox 16y agoRight on it. I spent literally weeks building barely average-looking purely W3C-compliant webpages in pure HTML+CSS... And it's a huge pain right now to change the site because there is no way to iterate rapidly. That's because I've learnt HTML at the time when even HTML 3.2 was hot :)