6 ms·
One month from concept to $1000 in revenue
- tokyoSurfer 8y agoGood job, cool that you are sharing!
- al_ramich 8y agoThat is pretty awesome, well done. Great idea as well and that has to be some sort of record from nothing to some revenue in a few weeks...
- BartBoch 8y agoThank you. I have found an untapped niche and took a bet. Only companies in this market, that are doing it in an unbiased way (they do not pay responders to answer the surveys) are the ones that charge $2K upwards per survey. There are no providers for SMB's and startups! And surely not a record, IndieHackers is full of stories like that! Still, I am really proud and happy of how it is going.
- 1k 8y agoHow do you qualify candidates as being the target audience, and what happens if it’s a really small, hard-to-reach niche - how do you guarantee the number of respondents?
- jajern 8y agoTo add onto this, how much manual intervention is required in creating the list and contacting them? I feel like there's a reason the competition costs so much more. Seems like, even with "AI" involved, there would be quite a bit of leg work.
- BartBoch 8y agoThere is some, to be honest. I am running at $0 profit (as per my report). I have got a nice discount for leads (I am categorized as a research project since I strip all the personal data). This gives me the ability to run this. There is some time required for each order and there will be no way this could be 100% hands-off project. There is no low cost option like ours because of two reasons: 1) There is barely any competition, so companies just use that to hike up prices. 2) They provide the leads that answered the survey, so they cannot be categorized as a research project. This makes those leads cost 5-10 times what I pay.
- jajern 8y agoOK, that makes sense. I'm sure you've thought of this, but you are inline with your lead generators terms of service by charging for your product? I'd hate to see you get in trouble since you are getting some social traction here.
- BartBoch 8y agoYes, that is allowed. I can sell results, not actual data. No risk for me whatsoever as long as I make sure no personal data of leads is given to the end customer.
- cryptozeus 8y agoHi good idea? I would like to put my product through this but 1 thing concerns me. How do i know you actually asked the users ? If everyone is anonymous then how can you guarantee this ? Thanks
- BartBoch 8y agoWell, I know this is a trust issue with all the research companies. The answer is comments - you can figure if the users are real by checking comments submitted by them. They are usually pretty specific and helpful.
- zormino 8y agoSo now a core part of the service needs to be continually vetted by the customer?
- moorhosj 8y agoThis seems like a criticism that could be used against almost all products. I continually vet my grocery store's products by ingesting them.
- shashanoid 8y agoSkin In The Game
- hsljekskfh 8y agoi wish indie hackers would stop posting so many stories about how quickly someone got x monthly revenue. it’s impossible to tell them apart, although they’re all very different and interesting stories
- Oras 8y agoSorry not trying to be negative but how do I know who those people are "experts" and "leaders"? The reason I am asking is in the FAQ page you mentioned: `Unlike our competition we do not pay them to answer surveys, so they are unbiased and will answer honestly` How do you get people to invest time to answer questions without anything back? I take it some people would like to help but how sustainable is this model?
- BartBoch 8y agoNot negative at all Oras. I understand there is a lot of questions that might need answering. This is a research project - as such, the results are stripped of the personal data of responders. You can often see that influencers are people high in the social ranks by reading their comments. Not always, but often they will give invaluable information. One that would be unseen from a regular member of the niche. How do I get people? Well, I simply text them in a nice way. Explain that we are a small consulting firm that is helping this business to enter the market. And that his input would be invaluable. We contact rather a large number of leads to get guaranteed minimum responses.
- Kagerjay 8y agoWhat benefits do the reviewers get? Do they get a financial incentive or just because its something they might enjoy doing? you said you get input. In the form of linkedin, emails, text, etc? Do you just copy paste the responses in, or do you automate this process entirely? I had to do a review for my friends company who would fit in this category as well. It was part of the entreprenurship program at his university. He asked me 20 questions in my domain expertise in youtube / twitch and I gave one hour worth of answers. He asked 40 other people who had video experience as well in that domain He said the insight was much more valuable than just text feedback he's gotten in the past. Do you see video feedback as a thing, or even vocal, or do you prefer anonymizing to text only?
- BartBoch 8y ago> What benefits do the reviewers get? Do they get a financial incentive or just because its something they might enjoy doing? Enjoy doing/being helpful. >you said you get input. In the form of linkedin, emails, text, etc? Do you just copy paste the responses in, or do you automate this process entirely? Using text messages to direct potential responders to the quick survey. >He said the insight was much more valuable than just text feedback he's gotten in the past. > >Do you see video feedback as a thing, or even vocal, or do you prefer anonymizing to text only? No, not video feedback. There are companies doing the video feedback and usually, the pricing starts at around $10/review, so considerably more expensive.
- pmoriarty 8y agoAs a customer, how would I know that the data you provide is not fake?
- BartBoch 8y agoThis is a research project, so there is a certain amount of trust required. Also with most reports, you get very specific comments as well. Suggestions, critique, insider information. This can give you an idea of how targeted is the audience.
- heinrichf 8y agoCan someone provide insight on how this works ? The author is buying leads in the desired area from an external company (which one?), and sending these people survey to complete (for free?) ?
- BartBoch 8y agoI cannot mention the company I am using (NDA), but you can find those companies if you dig a little. There is much more than one. I ask them politely to fill the quick survey (answers are submitted by clicking buttons rather than writing) and then an option to add a comment. A person can quickly fill it within 2 minutes. Note, that only certain % of people contacted will fill out the survey.
- kirykl 8y agoJust to inform, your shared cloudflare cert is blocked where I work. Probably want to move it to at least domain dedicated
- BartBoch 8y agoGood to know, thank you!
- niko001 8y agoI run IdeaCheck.io [0], a similar service. I appreciate competition, but this looks like a quickly thrown together MVP without a real product. Have a look at the graphs on the sample report [1] - it makes zero sense to present this information as a line chart. What is the significance of the 8 other data points on the chart that aren't labeled? What kind of metrics are "accuracy" and "feelings"? "My idea is 50% accurate?" From the landing page: "Are you opening a burger joint around the corner? Let us talk to the people from the office building in front of it, your potential customers!" Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing. IdeaCheck uses a professional panel provider to find respondents. We negotiated a contract with this provider to provide entrepreneurs with access to the same class of market research that Fortune 100 companies use. We don't make any targeting claims that we can't deliver on. Yes, respondents are paid, but that doesn't incentivize them to be extra nice - they answer multiple random surveys each day (from different companies doing market research) and are paid for their time, not their opinion. In general, I like the idea of not paying respondents and actively searching for a small target niche, but at the same time you're introducing a non-response bias (you're spamming hundreds of people to receive 25 survey responses - those who reply aren't an accurate representation of the target audience) [0] https://www.ideacheck.io https://www.ideacheck.io [1] https://afteridea.com/app/index.php?id=5b396a5f4eb37 https://afteridea.com/app/index.php?id=5b396a5f4eb37
- BartBoch 8y agoWell, ok. I see you decided to attack me. OK. I am not interested in going into the fight with you, so I will answer just a few things I think people would like me to explain. "My idea is 50% accurate?" - the question "How accurately do you think this idea solves the problem?" should explain that. "Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing." - great, how? "but at the same time you're introducing a non-response bias" - so according to you paying to pretty much-untargeted people to answer questions is better than getting some of the relevant people to fill out the survey? Interesting. "you're spamming hundreds of people to receive 25 survey responses" - it seems you know things I don't know then. I am not spamming people. I send them a request if they can fill out the survey to help a company. All of the people we contacted agreed to be contacted. Only because you have not managed to figure it out, does not mean other people haven't. I am OK with running at no profit, for now, to build the brand and get my name out. You can pretend like paid, barely targeted people are better than answers from real, targeted, unpaid people. But the reality is, that even if only certain % of people answer to our call, they are still targeted, and they beat paid survey takers by a mile. Very classy of you to post this kind of biased and offensive comment.
- nlowell 8y agoDo the respondents know they are responding anonymously to the primary service or is that not the case? For some surveys users will respond differently based on whether or not they feel anonymous.
- BartBoch 8y agoYes, they are ensured that they answer anonymously.
- coffee 8y agoThis looks like a fantastic service and it's really great that you are being open/public about your progress. Well done! I suppose being open also opens you up to attacks from your competitors. Sorry to see that. I could definitely use a service like this and most of the questions asked (and that you've answered) so far have addressed my own.
- BartBoch 8y agoThank you. It has been a tough day, but a constructive one indeed.
- Invictus0 8y agoCool idea and product but this strikes me as a horrible product for an entrepreneur to use. If I was the entrepreneur looking to open the cake shop or burger joint or whatever, why would I pay you to ask random people their opinion when I could just stand on the corner and do it myself? You have an enormous loss of information here as well; I get none of the nonverbal and facial communication that I would get from an in person interaction. This just strikes me as lazy entrepreneurship.
- coffee 8y agoSo here's how I see this (and what I believe you're missing)... There may be 200 things you MUST do when you open a cake shop or burger joint. This being one of them. Having a service available, for a reasonable price, to help you take one of those 200 items off your plate is a value add, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business. Further, yes, you can miss out on nonverbal and facial communication. But, you also get an honest answer. Most people don't want to give negative feedback face-to-face, and will lie just to avoid it. Calling this lazy is, well, a bit harsh. It adds value.
- Invictus0 8y agoI don't see this as just another thing; this is an existential question for the business. Moreover, this is something you undertake in the planning phase. You should not be filing paperwork and buying shit before you even start your research/customer interviews. Plus, how can you really trust these results unless you did the research yourself? Are you going to base your entire business thesis on the results of a $300 survey? What do these results even mean, relatively speaking? I feel like speaking to customers is too important to contract away.
- BartBoch 8y agoI think we should not generalize in any way this. There are people that need this, and there are people that don't need this. As simple as that. Most of my customers are startup owners, where they need another form of validation before they will spend few months and their savings on a project.