6 ms·

90 paying users is cool but I wouldn’t say it “really blew up”

by ponker 6y ago

muzani 6y ago
It was a health food grocery app, so basket size per user was high. It was RM32-RM128, which by purchasing power translates to roughly $40-$168 per paying user per month. This is also averaging it - as a diet app, we peaked around Dec-March. And it was more on the flow. We got 1200 users in the first 24 hours, after a two week hack. There was definitely a market there. The goods were overpriced because we didn't have economy of scale, but if we did get the prices down as intended, we'd have far more regular customers.
- pknerd 6y ago
  How did you perform market research for a country like Malaysia. Was your idea based on some personal observations?
  - muzani 6y ago
    Pivoting. It was originally a grocery price comparison app. That was illegal (long story). So we pivoted to a recipe app and try to sell ingredients. We looked at other recipe apps like Cookpad and felt that what they were missing was quality control. We wanted a quick and dirty prototype that was a subset of the grocery market, so that if it didn't go well, it would just be controlled damage. I was following a low carb diet so I did a low carb diet app, solving my own problem. There were some blogs and a crappy app that did this. The Facebook group had too much traffic to keep track of recipes and no quality control, so half the recipes were terrible. We released the app, expecting about 30 downloads but it was 1200 and crashed the server temporarily. We also got some feedback that calorie count wasn't helpful, so we switched to carb count, and were the only ones on the market to compile all the local recipes and have carb count for them. The business model canvas helped a lot in the process. We drafted a business model, then identified the riskiest thing and tackled that. At first it was the business proposition (which went from find food > eat healthy > lose weight). Then it was revenue model (sell directly, instead of ads). Then operations, delivery. The target market was unintended and we could well have missed it, because low carb diets aren't part of the culture.
    - pknerd 6y ago
      Damn HN has no notification system! Interesting story. A Pakistani who is willing to get settled in Malaysia in coming years, I was wondering what kind of things I could make for the local market which made me to ask the question.

90 paying users is cool but I wouldn’t say it “really blew up”

by ponker 6y ago

90 paying users is cool but I wouldn’t say it “really blew up”

It was a health food grocery app, so basket size per user was high. It was RM32-RM128, which by purchasing power translates to roughly $40-$168 per paying user per month. This is also averaging it - as a diet app, we peaked around Dec-March. And it was more on the flow. We got 1200 users in the first 24 hours, after a two week hack. There was definitely a market there. The goods were overpriced because we didn't have economy of scale, but if we did get the prices down as intended, we'd have far more regular customers.

pknerd 6y ago
How did you perform market research for a country like Malaysia. Was your idea based on some personal observations?
- muzani 6y ago
  Pivoting. It was originally a grocery price comparison app. That was illegal (long story). So we pivoted to a recipe app and try to sell ingredients. We looked at other recipe apps like Cookpad and felt that what they were missing was quality control. We wanted a quick and dirty prototype that was a subset of the grocery market, so that if it didn't go well, it would just be controlled damage. I was following a low carb diet so I did a low carb diet app, solving my own problem. There were some blogs and a crappy app that did this. The Facebook group had too much traffic to keep track of recipes and no quality control, so half the recipes were terrible. We released the app, expecting about 30 downloads but it was 1200 and crashed the server temporarily. We also got some feedback that calorie count wasn't helpful, so we switched to carb count, and were the only ones on the market to compile all the local recipes and have carb count for them. The business model canvas helped a lot in the process. We drafted a business model, then identified the riskiest thing and tackled that. At first it was the business proposition (which went from find food > eat healthy > lose weight). Then it was revenue model (sell directly, instead of ads). Then operations, delivery. The target market was unintended and we could well have missed it, because low carb diets aren't part of the culture.
  - pknerd 6y ago
    Damn HN has no notification system! Interesting story. A Pakistani who is willing to get settled in Malaysia in coming years, I was wondering what kind of things I could make for the local market which made me to ask the question.