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This story strikes me as (at least partly) survivorship bias. It's great that they were able to acquire 600 paid customers without advertizing their product on

This story strikes me as (at least partly) survivorship bias. It's great that they were able to acquire 600 paid customers without advertizing their product on blogs, and ignoring their competitors. I don't have hard numbers to back me up, but I doubt that this is a successful strategy in general. This story is a data point that proves that it's possible, not that this gives you a better (or even good) chance at succeeding. Hell, I would wager that greater exposure would have led to much higher sales.

rock_hard 8y ago
Ignoring competitors is generally a good strategy as a early stage team, specially in immature markets. If you focus too much on what the competition is doing you tend to end up with a local maximum otherwise. Agree on your point about ads though
danmaz74 8y ago
It all depends on what you definition of success is. If your definition is creating a high-growth technically innovative business (what many would say a tech startup is), then this for sure isn't a good way to achieve success. If your definition is creating on the side a sustainable business based on tech (which other people would also define as "startup"), then this advice is generally very good.
bszupnick 8y ago
Do you think there's a philosophical difference that the author did here? They specifically write "Don’t hurry. It’s not a startup rushing to an exit.". The lack of pressure and the slow cultivation was something that struck me in this article, as opposed to the stereotypical rush of the startup lifecycle.
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  The whole 'Lean Startup' trend was such a feel good gimmick. Sure if you arent sure about your product and havent done any market tests, a minimum viable product is fine. However, I had/have a service that was already popular and my circle of friends were obsessed with MVP and Lean Startup. They pressured me and when I began mainstream marketing the response was that my service was low quality. Those people were wrong, but minimal HTML/css bugs was all it took for people to question me.
  - yathern 8y ago
    I think the "Lean Startup" trend is very useful for a large amount of entrepreneurs, who suffer similar issues. Primarily being afraid of launching their product until it's "perfect". It's very, very easy to just keep working on things indefinitely, never quite being perfect - a backlog that adds two new items for every one you finish. And the longer you work on something, the more pressure there is for it to be "perfect" at launch. Additionally, if in all this time, you're not getting feedback - you may be developing something that is not quite what people want. Feedback is crucial, and launching your project is a surefire way to get real, useful feedback. Getting something out there is half the battle for a lot of people. Myself included. It's a very large psychological barrier to launching something. And the more work you put in, the larger that barrier grows - which is paradoxical sounding, but true. With a smaller, proof-of-concept launch, you can change your product direction more easily - if it turns out the feedback isn't great. With a larger more polished product, you have already invested so much into the current direction. There's momentum and emotional attachment (for people like me, that is) which makes it unwise to proceed like that. But if you don't suffer from these problems of seeking false perfection before launch, and you get feedback throughout development from non-launch sources - you don't need to subscribe to the "lean" mentality.
    - CPLX 8y ago
      I disagree, though what you're saying is true I don't think it's the primary reason for why the lean startup model was so effective. The lean startup mentality was fundamentally a product of the era of entrepreneurship that birthed it, and the market environment for software. About 10-15 years ago the web was clearly here to stay and maturing, but literally huge problem spaces had been very lightly explored with software. So it made sense to do something, anything, to solve a problem that software was good at, because the alternative was almost always a legacy approach. Which means even an MVP was likely useful for customers. The only real danger was moving too slow. It's the equivalent of buying up residential real estate in Brooklyn or San Francisco 20 years ago. Or whatever metaphor you prefer, where a market is growing so quickly that nearly all entrants have the ability to thrive if they are at least somewhat aligned with a consumer problem and willingness to pay. Thing are different now. There's a software solution for almost everything, maybe not a great one but there's something out there. People are overwhelmed and exhausted by their options, have subscription fatigue, and likely have the experience of adopting a fledgling poorly supported MVP type solution that didn't live very long and regretting it. People are pretty much the same. But the market environment has shifted. Nobody gives a fuck about your landing page with two sentences and an email capture box any more. The world has moved on from this model.
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  It seems like I did this thing and it worked, it will work for you too. When the reality is if the guy was to try this again 19 more times with new startups, chances are he'd have 18-19 more failures under his belt..
- let_var 8y ago
  This exactly. He's clear about not looking at his project thru the lenses of startup. It's nice recipe for a side-project.
11eleven 8y ago
I feel what's also missing is how he acquired his very first 100 paid customers because a lot of the other strategies don't really apply (make existing users happy, user forum, roadmaps) if you don't have a minimum user base to work with.
- canadapups 8y ago
  I skimmed some of his blog posts: > "On the private beta launch, I posted a link to Hacker News and it fortunately got covered on the top page and it resulted in over 1,000 beta entries. Beta users gave me lots of suggestions and bug reports and they helped me evolve the app to be ready for the official release." https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-i-built-a-markdown-editor-earning-1300-mo-profit-inkdrop-ddf6ad702c42 https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-i-built-a-markdown-editor-earn...
tomnipotent 8y ago
I fail to understand the point of your post. The author was simply sharing his personal experience on what appears to be launching his first paid app and how it allowed him to stop freelancing thanks to the profit. It isn't a "they", it's a he.
- noname120 8y ago
  If they were “simply sharing [their] personal experience” instead of giving (what they think as) actionable advice, then please explain the following: – Title: “How I’ve Attracted The First 500 Paid Users[...]”[1]. – “TL;DR” section of the article: “You Don’t Have To Get Covered on Large Blogs” and “Ignore All Competitors” [2]. Also, it's a 'they' used as a gender-neutral singular[3]. [1] https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-paid-users-for-my-saas-that-costs-5-mo-7a5b94b8e820#aa26 https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-pa... [2] https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-paid-users-for-my-saas-that-costs-5-mo-7a5b94b8e820#2ffa https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-pa... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
canadapups 8y ago
There may be survivorship bias because his slower, low-cost strategy is a good way to survive! The longer he survives, the greater chance his product takes off. If you go guns blazing, you effectively put death in the business plan and success is only a contingency.

rock_hard 8y ago

Ignoring competitors is generally a good strategy as a early stage team, specially in immature markets. If you focus too much on what the competition is doing you tend to end up with a local maximum otherwise. Agree on your point about ads though

danmaz74 8y ago

It all depends on what you definition of success is. If your definition is creating a high-growth technically innovative business (what many would say a tech startup is), then this for sure isn't a good way to achieve success. If your definition is creating on the side a sustainable business based on tech (which other people would also define as "startup"), then this advice is generally very good.

bszupnick 8y ago

Do you think there's a philosophical difference that the author did here? They specifically write "Don’t hurry. It’s not a startup rushing to an exit.". The lack of pressure and the slow cultivation was something that struck me in this article, as opposed to the stereotypical rush of the startup lifecycle.

MrEfficiency 8y ago
The whole 'Lean Startup' trend was such a feel good gimmick. Sure if you arent sure about your product and havent done any market tests, a minimum viable product is fine. However, I had/have a service that was already popular and my circle of friends were obsessed with MVP and Lean Startup. They pressured me and when I began mainstream marketing the response was that my service was low quality. Those people were wrong, but minimal HTML/css bugs was all it took for people to question me.
- yathern 8y ago
  I think the "Lean Startup" trend is very useful for a large amount of entrepreneurs, who suffer similar issues. Primarily being afraid of launching their product until it's "perfect". It's very, very easy to just keep working on things indefinitely, never quite being perfect - a backlog that adds two new items for every one you finish. And the longer you work on something, the more pressure there is for it to be "perfect" at launch. Additionally, if in all this time, you're not getting feedback - you may be developing something that is not quite what people want. Feedback is crucial, and launching your project is a surefire way to get real, useful feedback. Getting something out there is half the battle for a lot of people. Myself included. It's a very large psychological barrier to launching something. And the more work you put in, the larger that barrier grows - which is paradoxical sounding, but true. With a smaller, proof-of-concept launch, you can change your product direction more easily - if it turns out the feedback isn't great. With a larger more polished product, you have already invested so much into the current direction. There's momentum and emotional attachment (for people like me, that is) which makes it unwise to proceed like that. But if you don't suffer from these problems of seeking false perfection before launch, and you get feedback throughout development from non-launch sources - you don't need to subscribe to the "lean" mentality.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    I disagree, though what you're saying is true I don't think it's the primary reason for why the lean startup model was so effective. The lean startup mentality was fundamentally a product of the era of entrepreneurship that birthed it, and the market environment for software. About 10-15 years ago the web was clearly here to stay and maturing, but literally huge problem spaces had been very lightly explored with software. So it made sense to do something, anything, to solve a problem that software was good at, because the alternative was almost always a legacy approach. Which means even an MVP was likely useful for customers. The only real danger was moving too slow. It's the equivalent of buying up residential real estate in Brooklyn or San Francisco 20 years ago. Or whatever metaphor you prefer, where a market is growing so quickly that nearly all entrants have the ability to thrive if they are at least somewhat aligned with a consumer problem and willingness to pay. Thing are different now. There's a software solution for almost everything, maybe not a great one but there's something out there. People are overwhelmed and exhausted by their options, have subscription fatigue, and likely have the experience of adopting a fledgling poorly supported MVP type solution that didn't live very long and regretting it. People are pretty much the same. But the market environment has shifted. Nobody gives a fuck about your landing page with two sentences and an email capture box any more. The world has moved on from this model.
Brockenstein 8y ago
It seems like I did this thing and it worked, it will work for you too. When the reality is if the guy was to try this again 19 more times with new startups, chances are he'd have 18-19 more failures under his belt..
let_var 8y ago
This exactly. He's clear about not looking at his project thru the lenses of startup. It's nice recipe for a side-project.

11eleven 8y ago

I feel what's also missing is how he acquired his very first 100 paid customers because a lot of the other strategies don't really apply (make existing users happy, user forum, roadmaps) if you don't have a minimum user base to work with.

canadapups 8y ago
I skimmed some of his blog posts: > "On the private beta launch, I posted a link to Hacker News and it fortunately got covered on the top page and it resulted in over 1,000 beta entries. Beta users gave me lots of suggestions and bug reports and they helped me evolve the app to be ready for the official release." https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-i-built-a-markdown-editor-earning-1300-mo-profit-inkdrop-ddf6ad702c42 https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-i-built-a-markdown-editor-earn...

tomnipotent 8y ago

I fail to understand the point of your post. The author was simply sharing his personal experience on what appears to be launching his first paid app and how it allowed him to stop freelancing thanks to the profit. It isn't a "they", it's a he.

noname120 8y ago
If they were “simply sharing [their] personal experience” instead of giving (what they think as) actionable advice, then please explain the following: – Title: “How I’ve Attracted The First 500 Paid Users[...]”[1]. – “TL;DR” section of the article: “You Don’t Have To Get Covered on Large Blogs” and “Ignore All Competitors” [2]. Also, it's a 'they' used as a gender-neutral singular[3]. [1] https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-paid-users-for-my-saas-that-costs-5-mo-7a5b94b8e820#aa26 https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-pa... [2] https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-paid-users-for-my-saas-that-costs-5-mo-7a5b94b8e820#2ffa https://blog.inkdrop.info/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-pa... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

canadapups 8y ago

There may be survivorship bias because his slower, low-cost strategy is a good way to survive! The longer he survives, the greater chance his product takes off. If you go guns blazing, you effectively put death in the business plan and success is only a contingency.