5 ms·

Let's be honest with ourselves. 0 users after 4 months is a failure. Can you turn it around? Sure, it's definitely a possibility. But all your effort so far is

Let's be honest with ourselves. 0 users after 4 months is a failure. Can you turn it around? Sure, it's definitely a possibility. But all your effort so far is not the way to do it. You need to do things completely differently, because whatever tactics you have used so far haven't even gotten you a single user. You would have to invest more money and time into it, and it might get more users. You need help, and brand strategist isn't what you need. You need a sales strategy. You need to find customers and sales. You have to call people up and demonstrate it in person, you can't rely on Facebook or Google ads to make a difference. But bluntly, this isn't such a hot idea like Dropbox or Airbnb that is going to get viral. Even Airbnb needed a lot of hustle to get it off the ground, and you need to figure out your target audience and get sales the old-fashioned way. If you're able to get good sales, then it could possibly be the service that you want it to be, eventually.

matt_the_bass 8y ago
I don’t think generally calling it “failure” is fair. I think you could call it “marketing failure”.
- docker_up 8y ago
  At what point does it become a failure, if 0 users after 4 months of effort is NOT a failure? Coddling people, especially in business, is very counterproductive. People could waste years of their lives following bad paths because of bad advice like yours. Not a single person has decided that the product is worth paying money for. If the purpose of the effort was to get some people to pay money for this, and the outcome is 0, how could you honestly say this isn't a failure?
  - madmulita 8y ago
    Yes, but how would one feel if one had to admit failure. We must put feelings before data! /s
    - marcelluspye 8y ago
      Or maybe, it makes sense to identify why something failed and label it as such.
  - matt_the_bass 8y ago
    I agree that there is some point that one needs to say failure. However from how I read the OPs description, it sounds like the product has not been marketed in any way other than a single Show HN. That is clearly a marketing failure. It possible points as a business failure but does not mean it is a product failure. I think we need more data to state definitively.
  - not_real_acct 8y ago
    I couldn't agree more. I have a friend who's pushing fifty years old and he's been trying to make money with the same product for nearly thirty years now. I see his friends on Facebook constantly encouraging him, and telling him that he does great work. He doesn't. His product is atrocious. They're just being nice and he should've thrown in the towel twenty-nine years ago. His income is literally less than $100 a year. (I believe he's on SSI disability now, which is how he gets by.)
- paulcole 8y ago
  It was on the frontpage of Hacker News. That's not a marketing failure.
  - matt_the_bass 8y ago
    With all due respect only making 1 post on HN is not in my opinion effective marketing.
    - paulcole 8y ago
      He paid no money and got a few dozen signups in just a few hours. If that's a failed campaign then I wish I can fail like that.
      - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
        They were just trial signups, though. None of them resulting in making money.
        paulcole 8y ago
        That's not a marketing failure that's a product/support failure.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    There's a lot more to marketing than getting on the front page of HN. OP, I suggest you read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg, and The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, and consider if you've successfully identified who your customers are, and a valid channel for reaching them. Further ask if you've correctly identified a problem that those customers will pay to have solved, and whether or not your product actually solves that problem. How do you do that? Talk to customers. All of this stuff is in the Steve Blank book. Also consider reading The Mom Test[1] by Rob Fitzpatrick. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+mom+test&index=aps&tag=hydsma-20&ref=pd_sl_4x7iu6nu4x_e&adgrpid=53518527302&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=274697998008&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1886659730974151501&hvqmt=e&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9060439&hvtargid=aud-509611686427:kwd-301633211935 https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+mom+test&inde...
ezekg 8y ago
I went nearly a year without a paying customer, even though I had an email list of over 300 people and a beta user pool of ~400 people, got on the front page of HN twice, and was #3 product of the day on PH. Still, nobody stuck around, much less offered me feedback. It was tough, and I considered giving up many times. But to call it a failure because of that would've been premature. If your product isn't selling, maybe you're not doing something right (likely!), or maybe it's just not a good product. I think you can figure out which of the 2 your product is by putting some real effort into discovering why nobody is interested in giving you money for it. The "why" may be your sources of traffic, it may be your messaging, it may be that your product doesn't actually solve a problem, or it may be any number of small things that build up and turn into a gigantic roadblock that nobody can pass without their hand being held. I didn't start seeing "good" traffic until I started spending money to experiment with Google Adwords. Through that experimentation, I discovered that the traffic sources I was relying on so much were in reality total garbage. They were users from PH, HN and Reddit; "tire-kickers" as a lot of us call them. They just want to try out the hot new thing, then rinse (i.e. churn) and repeat with the new hotness. They aren't prepared, or willing, to open their wallet. The Adwords traffic was actually converting, so I quit focusing on the bad traffic channels and starting adjusting my ads, finding better keywords, and talking to the "good" traffic (yeah, they actually talk back!). Since I was getting quality traffic now (albeit, low numbers), that helped me find the next roadblock, which was my, at the time, terrible onboarding flow. The root problem wasn't that my product was bad, it was that I was sending bad traffic to my product and I didn't want to change that. The second problem was that onboarding sucked. I'm still not where I ultimately want to be with Keygen, but now I'm working on other problems (hint: scaling) because the root problems I was having have been fixed. Stop guessing, and figure out the why.
- yazr 8y ago
  I keep wondering about adwords buying for a small SAAS. At $1/click, and then maybe 1%-5% conversion for a paying user, and even if this is a generous 100$ annual subscription .. its just terrible. Does this really work long term ? (disclosure : i worked in a big B2C that spent 8 digit sums on incoming traffic so obviously it works..)

matt_the_bass 8y ago

I don’t think generally calling it “failure” is fair. I think you could call it “marketing failure”.

docker_up 8y ago
At what point does it become a failure, if 0 users after 4 months of effort is NOT a failure? Coddling people, especially in business, is very counterproductive. People could waste years of their lives following bad paths because of bad advice like yours. Not a single person has decided that the product is worth paying money for. If the purpose of the effort was to get some people to pay money for this, and the outcome is 0, how could you honestly say this isn't a failure?
- madmulita 8y ago
  Yes, but how would one feel if one had to admit failure. We must put feelings before data! /s
  - marcelluspye 8y ago
    Or maybe, it makes sense to identify why something failed and label it as such.
- matt_the_bass 8y ago
  I agree that there is some point that one needs to say failure. However from how I read the OPs description, it sounds like the product has not been marketed in any way other than a single Show HN. That is clearly a marketing failure. It possible points as a business failure but does not mean it is a product failure. I think we need more data to state definitively.
- not_real_acct 8y ago
  I couldn't agree more. I have a friend who's pushing fifty years old and he's been trying to make money with the same product for nearly thirty years now. I see his friends on Facebook constantly encouraging him, and telling him that he does great work. He doesn't. His product is atrocious. They're just being nice and he should've thrown in the towel twenty-nine years ago. His income is literally less than $100 a year. (I believe he's on SSI disability now, which is how he gets by.)
paulcole 8y ago
It was on the frontpage of Hacker News. That's not a marketing failure.
- matt_the_bass 8y ago
  With all due respect only making 1 post on HN is not in my opinion effective marketing.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    He paid no money and got a few dozen signups in just a few hours. If that's a failed campaign then I wish I can fail like that.
    - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
      They were just trial signups, though. None of them resulting in making money.
      - paulcole 8y ago
        That's not a marketing failure that's a product/support failure.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  There's a lot more to marketing than getting on the front page of HN. OP, I suggest you read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg, and The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, and consider if you've successfully identified who your customers are, and a valid channel for reaching them. Further ask if you've correctly identified a problem that those customers will pay to have solved, and whether or not your product actually solves that problem. How do you do that? Talk to customers. All of this stuff is in the Steve Blank book. Also consider reading The Mom Test[1] by Rob Fitzpatrick. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+mom+test&index=aps&tag=hydsma-20&ref=pd_sl_4x7iu6nu4x_e&adgrpid=53518527302&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=274697998008&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1886659730974151501&hvqmt=e&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9060439&hvtargid=aud-509611686427:kwd-301633211935 https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+mom+test&inde...

ezekg 8y ago

I went nearly a year without a paying customer, even though I had an email list of over 300 people and a beta user pool of ~400 people, got on the front page of HN twice, and was #3 product of the day on PH. Still, nobody stuck around, much less offered me feedback. It was tough, and I considered giving up many times. But to call it a failure because of that would've been premature. If your product isn't selling, maybe you're not doing something right (likely!), or maybe it's just not a good product. I think you can figure out which of the 2 your product is by putting some real effort into discovering why nobody is interested in giving you money for it. The "why" may be your sources of traffic, it may be your messaging, it may be that your product doesn't actually solve a problem, or it may be any number of small things that build up and turn into a gigantic roadblock that nobody can pass without their hand being held. I didn't start seeing "good" traffic until I started spending money to experiment with Google Adwords. Through that experimentation, I discovered that the traffic sources I was relying on so much were in reality total garbage. They were users from PH, HN and Reddit; "tire-kickers" as a lot of us call them. They just want to try out the hot new thing, then rinse (i.e. churn) and repeat with the new hotness. They aren't prepared, or willing, to open their wallet. The Adwords traffic was actually converting, so I quit focusing on the bad traffic channels and starting adjusting my ads, finding better keywords, and talking to the "good" traffic (yeah, they actually talk back!). Since I was getting quality traffic now (albeit, low numbers), that helped me find the next roadblock, which was my, at the time, terrible onboarding flow. The root problem wasn't that my product was bad, it was that I was sending bad traffic to my product and I didn't want to change that. The second problem was that onboarding sucked. I'm still not where I ultimately want to be with Keygen, but now I'm working on other problems (hint: scaling) because the root problems I was having have been fixed. Stop guessing, and figure out the why.

yazr 8y ago
I keep wondering about adwords buying for a small SAAS. At $1/click, and then maybe 1%-5% conversion for a paying user, and even if this is a generous 100$ annual subscription .. its just terrible. Does this really work long term ? (disclosure : i worked in a big B2C that spent 8 digit sums on incoming traffic so obviously it works..)