11 ms·

How and when to acquire SaaS users

236 points by timjones 6y ago

throwawaytemp27 6y ago
Cool article, love the insight into the thought process and best of luck. But that name HelloHailey seems like literally an insane choice. I would never use it. As far as I know I’m the target market so may want to look at changing it if others agree!
- timjones 6y ago
  Thank you! Definitely interested in hearing others' thoughts on the name as well. Here was my thinking: As a solo, bootstrapped founder, I think people are interested in the person behind the product, at least at first. I've been using my personal story and the process of building in public to grow an email list and waitlist. The HelloHailey name gives me an opportunity to re-enforce that personal story in the product messaging. That being said, I'm not ruling out a name change when it comes time for an official launch.
  - throwawaytemp27 6y ago
    Sounds like you need to “kill your darling” as it were. The number of people who you will reach if you scale is exponentially more than those who have already connected with your story.
- dkarp 6y ago
  why is the name "literally an insane choice"?
awillen 6y ago
Good on you for breaking out of a cycle that wasn't working. I think you're really speaking to something that's becoming increasingly true - distribution is at least as important as, if not more important than, products themselves. We've moved past "if you build it they will come" to something more akin to "if enough people are already coming to you, you can build something, and they'll try it."
- timjones 6y ago
  Agreed! I think this is becoming even more important as the barriers to building software products shrink. Every day, there are dozens of products being launched on ProductHunt - many of them without code. The "easy" distribution channels are being flooded.
dvt 6y ago
> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They did have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are gimmicky Kickstarter-style (and often derivative) products. I mean, think about Dropbox or Slack or Instagram: how could you possibly sell (or even validate the idea of) those products without actually giving some sort of demo? Without people actually using that thing? It might work for something like the product in the post (people understand what "video chat" is), but I don't really see it working for any kind of particularly novel or value-generating product. Followup: grabbed a coffee, and this post got a bit of attention. To be clear, I think that an MVP should be just that: a minimum viable product. By definition, you shouldn't be able to go leaner. I also think that sometimes people conflate "fake it 'til you make it" with PG's "do things that don't scale" -- these two are not the same. [1] https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before-you-build-it/ https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before... [2] https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the first jump and test the idea. Everything is on a spectrum and -- given the vast graveyard of random ideas engineers build as side projects -- we should figure out a better way to drive better yield.
  - thelastwave 6y ago
    What is NASCAR login?
kevsim 6y ago
I've got to applaud you for thinking about distribution first. Many tech folks turned entrepreneurs (myself included) think that if they build a great product, they'll get usage. Doesn't work that way. But I will also say that I suspect your strategy is possibly a little naive. I hope it's as easy as you've laid out, and I'm envious of the viral aspects of your proposed product. However, I suspect the "top of funnel" portion (hypothesis 1) won't be enough to drive your "land and expand" portion (hypothesis 2). At least in my own experience currently trying to build a B2B SaaS tool [0], it's an absolute grind. And while some of these communities you're mentioning will engage, it's hard to convert that to people entering your funnel in a reliable fashion. You've got to combine it with 19 others things like content marketing, speaking at events, etc. That being said, we're not engaging in as transparent way as you are so YMMV. I wish you the best of luck! 0: https://kitemaker.co https://kitemaker.co - a crazy fast issue tracker that connects all of your other tools (GitHub, Figma, Slack, Discord) better than anything else out there
- timjones 6y ago
  Thank you! And I agree 100% with what you've said. I could preface every sentence with maybe and I think but then it wouldn't be on the HN front page :) I know that everything I'm laying out will be much harder than I've made it seem. I see this strategy as being a north star, but necessarily a hard and fast path.
Closi 6y ago
Well written blog post! A few observations from an outsiders perspective: * One interesting thing I have noticed from being on HN is that lots of start-ups that focus on the tech industry / IT / helping developers. I think it makes sense to pick a niche you understand, but possibly not if it is a 'niche' which is filled with developers. * Workplace collaboration in a 'knowledge work' environment = red ocean. Application of workplace collaboration tools to new/unexplored industry segments I suspect has lots of blue ocean areas however. I think you have picked something in the red ocean. * As a small note, you started with a solution (always on video room, inspired by a twitter post) and worked backwards to a problem to solve (teammates not being fully engaged). The usual process would be to start with a problem and then work out how you are going to solve it. I know it sounds like semantics, but there are lots of potential solutions to "teammates feel disconnected" and an always on video room is just one of them! (e.g. coffee roulette, remote pizza parties).
- timjones 6y ago
  Thanks for the thoughts! I agree on your first point. This is the easier niche for me right now, but probably not the best niche. I 100% agree with your second point too. My first step was supposed to be "Choose a problem" (https://www.themvpsprint.com/p/choose-a-problem https://www.themvpsprint.com/p/choose-a-problem). But I can spot the flaws in how I presented this - it looks like I was starting with a potential solution someone asked about on Twitter. That being said, the solution I'll be building is actually quite different from an "always on zoom room" - more focused on teams that operate largely asynchronously. I'll be formalizing and sharing my product vision over the next week or two :)
dmarlow 6y ago
Sorry to nitpick, but some of your examples illustrate that they certainly had an MVP and THEN did the distribution. How could hotmail perform distribution without first having an MVP? I agree with the premise of validation, then building. While this is a good rule of thumb, it's not always possible. I like the focus and thinking behind getting users. It can't be "built it and they will come". Having a good, sound plan and sticking with it is the key.
- timjones 6y ago
  My main point was that these companies likely had strong hypotheses about how they would grow before building an MVP. You don't always need to prove out all your growth channels. But it's important to have strong hypotheses and remove at least a little bit of uncertainty around those hypotheses before building.
  - blobbers 6y ago
    It seems like you need a strong hypothesis for growth and a strong hypothesis for customer acquisition. It seems like knowing what you're going to build can help drive how you will distribute, and but vice versa seems less obvious. It is a situation where both are required (`&`). Good luck with the projects!
  - hyperpallium2 6y ago
    I see that, but you don't talk about this - your main point - in the case studies, at all. Of course it's difficult to, since they don't discuss it and so you have to infer it, but if it's your main point, you probably do need to mention it in the case study. Your heading "My side projects always fail" makes me think the problem is getting initial adoption (not going from small adoption to huge adoption). The network effects of those three examples don't kick in until after some adoption. I like the idea of considering not just the product or the market, but also how you to reach that market. It can change your choice of which idea to pursue in the first place. Really, to evaluate as a business idea, not just as a product idea
    - deleted 6y ago
mac_was 6y ago
Great post mate. I followed a similar pattern and created https://sayoname.com https://sayoname.com, an app for remotely located workers so they can record names and call each other directly from the browser. A tool so people can easily find how to say someone's name, sneak on what someone does in the company etc. I almost got a big school hooked up to start paying subscription (it is an international school) but they decided on creating their own solution due to privacy concerns. Extremely disappointing and lowers morale straight away. I have few hundred profiles but the growth is stale atm. I don't really have time to actively look for new users and would love a co-founder as what they say on y-combinator it is REALLY a lot easier if you have someone you can share thought and can both motivate each other. So my advice is add a step and get a co-founder.
- timjones 6y ago
  Looks like a neat tool! I had 2 cofounders in my last company - I agree it's easier. But so far, building in public has been a great way to replicate some of those benefits without one: 1. I have external motivation to produce results on a weekly basis. 2. I have to be able to justify all my decisions to everyone on the internet (anyone who cares at least...). I end up thinking things through more deeply. 3. I get continuous feedback from others - not nearly as good as a cofounder who's 100% in the business, but still helpful.
  - eins1234 6y ago
    Wow, as a fellow solo founder, building in public sounds like a great idea! I've always dismissed it in the past, but that's because I've never considered it from the perspective of getting some of the same benefits as having a co-founder. Will definitely try to give it a shot.
    - timjones 6y ago
      Emphasis on some haha - I don't want to claim that the collective power of the internet is more valuable than a human that's 100% invested in the business :) But yes, I'd definitely recommend it! Feel free to DM if want any tips - https://twitter.com/AnotherTimJones https://twitter.com/AnotherTimJones. It was uncomfortable at first, but got easier pretty quickly (and honestly a lot of fun).
legerdemain 6y ago
From the blog post: > Twitter is full of interesting and influential people sharing > thoughts and having public conversations. And they’re all > accessible - just 280 characters away. Yes! Yes! Marketing has changed 1000% since the Dark ages! People forget that you can now marketing your product effortlessly and completely for free to everyone in the world. No more complaining that "my awesome product failed because no one knows about it" -- just press that Tweet button and you're on!
- Descartes1 6y ago
  Ah, but getting your tweet actually read is a whole other ball of wax.
  - forbiddenvoid 6y ago
    Step 1: Have 100,000 followers Step 2: Instant Marketing Success Step 3: Tell everyone how easy social media is
    - justiceforsaas 6y ago
      Literally describes 100% of IndieHackers threads about "I sold 540 copies of my products on Twitter in 8 hours".
    - zdbrandon 6y ago
      > Step 1: Have 100,000 followers I imagine one could swap “Have” for “Pay to work with someone who has”.
- b20000 6y ago
  where do I sign up?!?!? marketing today costs money just like it did years ago, you are still paying for visibility and there is no "free" traffic anymore like there was in the late 90s.
  - legerdemain 6y ago
    Here are the steps to success: 1. Go to http://www.twitter.com http://www.twitter.com. 2. Click Join Twitter today. 3. Type in this Tweet: "I have the perfect product! Email me for quote. #Growth #Product #MVP"
hyperpallium2 6y ago
That's "marketing" not distribution. But maybe your term sounds cooler... Thinking of open source development, some of this is implied, by platforms like github, and ideas like "release early, release often". So developers are dependent on this promtion/distribution platform, without even realizing they have one.
b20000 6y ago
I applaud your success. To me it seems that by putting distribution first, or focusing on problems to solve, that you typically end up with markets or problems you are personally not really excited about. I've done this exercise many times. I can either work on something I think is cool and there is a niche market for, but does not really "solve" a problem but addresses a "want", or I can work on something I have zero interest in but for which there probably is a market and clear distribution model. If I like adventure games, and want to make one, those don't solve a problem, and it's a niche market with a lot of competition (gaming in general). Or I can work on some online tax prep software for expats. Niche market, addresses a problem, zero personal interest, probably a big market.
- elcomet 6y ago
  > Niche market, [...] , probably a big market Which one is it then?
  - zdbrandon 6y ago
    A niche of a giant can still be considered “big”.
  - Kye 6y ago
    Maybe a weird example: most fursuit builders also take mascot commissions from non-furries. They target a small niche, but also a big market.
  - b20000 6y ago
    I think niche market / big market is always subjective and very poorly defined in general leading to confusion. When chatting with a VC, "niche" probably means "not worth investing into, too small" in their simplified language even though you could mean simply that it's a subsection of some huge industry which is in itself huge. Like first person shooters in the game industry.
- timjones 6y ago
  Thank you! There are some people for whom growing a business is the exciting part. They can get excited about tax prep software if they see the opportunity. I'm more like you (not one of those people). If I don't care about the problem, and (maybe more importantly) the users I'm solving it for, I won't solve it well. Another point - not everything has to be a business - you can always work your day job and build adventure games on nights and weekends purely for fun. Sometimes the best businesses come out of hobby projects. If not, whatever - it's fun and fulfilling.
markdown 6y ago
Honest question: If you're going to pick hello<randomName> as a name, why not pick one with a .com?
corytheboyd 6y ago
I don’t really agree with a lot of what’s being said here. If you have something that solves real problems, you should be able to fight for users. Yeah sure, just because you built a great thing doesn’t mean people will flock to it, you need to do SOME marketing. It might take two years to get ten users, because turns out it’s very hard to run every aspect of a business by yourself. But it’s progress, and if you maintain a high bar of connection with your user base and product quality, as long as you continue to market and improve it will grow. There are no “get rich quick” schemes here, I don’t believe in that nonsense. There is hard work and there is giving up, that’s it.
justiceforsaas 6y ago
I think you've gone from one extreme to the other. Yes, building a product with no distribution sucks. So does doing distribution without having anything to show for it. Take this from a guy who spent 2 years studying distribution channels [1]. There's nothing wrong about spending a week or two developing a MVP before focusing on distribution. I think the key is to start with 1) The minimum thing you can do and call a 'product' 2) Try to promote/distribute it to see the response. So far you've done: a) A web page explaining what your product is about Some steps to (progressively) get to a "better" MVP may be: b) Make a video showcasing your product (which can be a simple Figma design with static screens that show once you click on them) c) Build a feature that's high on the ICE Scoring model [2], and distribute that d) Build a meaningfully different feature than c) and promote it as a SEPARATE product. Let your features be like split tests you promote on the same/different distribution channels and see how they perform. [1] https://firstpayingusers.com https://firstpayingusers.com [2] https://university.hygger.io/en/articles/2288376-ice-scoring https://university.hygger.io/en/articles/2288376-ice-scoring
- timjones 6y ago
  I agree that there's nothing wrong with spending a week or two developing an MVP first. I don't plan on spending more than 3-4 weeks building an MVP, which I'll start within 2 weeks. An advantage that my current approach gives me is a few dozen low-commitment (but qualified) waitlist users that have shown some initial interest. I obviously have some close friends that will try it out with their teams. But going distribution-first allows me to easily expand beyond that close circle to a more unbiased group of people.
- dang 6y ago
  You've posted your link 23 times in the last month—that's well over the line into spamming. Even apart from that, your account is using HN primarily for promotion, which is against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We ban accounts that do these things, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing the guidelines and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. The intended spirit is intellectual curiosity, which is not at all the same thing as having something to promote, though it's fine to bring up one's own work as part of good conversation.
polote 6y ago
One new guy trying to tell the world that there is a process to start a successful business, there is not. Sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed. Some succeed more than others, but they never always succeed. I wish you good luck for your project but changing your approach is not going to ensure you not to fail.
anoncow 6y ago
Fun ideas without any possibility of a viable business model is what I am struggling with too. Ideas take away a lot of your time when you are chasing them and only once the prototyping is done or sometimes when the initial product is out you realise that there is no chance of making any money.
- conductr 6y ago
  Then step one is foresight. And I say that from experience. I often view through lens of, yes I think it would be awesome if this concept existed, I could build it, but do I want to sell it? The answer is usually No.
  - anoncow 6y ago
    Thanks. Trying to find books which teach how to evaluate ideas. Not a business graduate, but is this something that they teach in business schools?
    - conductr 6y ago
      My business school days were just before all the startup craze began. So I’m sure curriculum has changed. Entrepreneurship wasn’t really a major; or not at most schools at the time (early 2000s). My understanding is most formalized ways (lean,etc) are about idea validation and iteration. But even that assumes you want to burn some amount of energy on the idea. Validation in itself is hard work. My personal approach is have the idea, maybe I’ll spend a day or few brainstorming (paper and pen), I sketch out the solution. I have a shorthand for this, I usually just sketch out the data model and I can visualize the front end functionality. I don’t need to do mock ups or wire frames. That’s a time suck. If I feel good that, this could be cool (useful, problem solving, easy to communicate, etc)... I run through every user acquisition channel and think of a strategy. Think of tactical execution. What’s the likelihood _I_ could execute with success. The I in the last sentence is key. I see plenty of people executing big ideas I had, but could never had executed. Know your abilities. Do I need help? Do I want to hire(invest)? Do I want to spend money on ads? I personally avoid anything free. I have noticed, if I expect something for free, it won’t come. For example, if you think about making something viral or network effect. Certainly build that in, and leverage it. But don’t hinge your success in it. It’s probably a multiplier and you need to build the base. Once I get to the part about investing my money. I’m a pretty frugal person and don’t like wasting money growing hobby sites. So this is a good filter for me. It also helps me think of what does the product need to look like (mvp or further) before I feel like dumping resources into growth. Using this I can estimate how much work I have ahead of me. I only have 10-20 tinker time hours a week. So again do I need help? Am I going to dedicate weeks to an alpha/beta? This type of thought process easily exposes most ideas to be things I just simply don’t want to do for some reason or another. This is just a simplified description of my personal way. I have a lot of biases like not wanting to seek VC funding, or really even have to build a team.
fourseventy 6y ago
4.) Give up and move on <-------- There's your problem
m0llusk 6y ago
An alternative approach to the who is going to buy the damn thing problem is to focus on the marketing to engineering ratio. If you build it customers will only come and buy if they know what it is and how it might work for them.
d_burfoot 6y ago
Most startup ideation follows the following sequence: 1. invent a bold new product 2. figure out how to market it In other words, the "Eureka" moment is in the product ideation step, while the marketing step is basically a schlep. But the inverse approach might actually be better: 1. invent a bold new marketing strategy 2. figure out a product to sell with it Don't assume that marketing is somehow a lower form of intellectual activity than engineering. It requires a strong aesthetic sense, a deep understanding of human psychology, mastery of technical tools, and the ability to be self-critical.
- friendlybus 6y ago
  1. invent a bold new marketing strategy 2. figure out how to sell the strategy It is the product.
satvikpendem 6y ago
Nice to see that you're transitioning from the developer mindset to the founder mindset, from building first to selling first. Many people don't understand that development is just one part of a successful company. They think that if you build it, they will come. I too have fallen into this trap multiple times until I had my latest startup idea (todo list + calendar for project management, https://getartemis.app https://getartemis.app). I simply made a landing page, used Figma and an animation tool called Principle to make a nice video, and put it on the landing page. Now I have over 1200 singups to the email list while I'm working on building the product. Doing this has allowed me to do so many things, such as figuring out that there is indeed demand for the product, and directly talking to these potential users by setting up a call with them. Having a distribution channel is a powerful thing. It would be even better if I cultivated my Twitter audience, but an email list is a start, and it has some distinct advantages such as owning your distribution channel.
meghido1 6y ago
There's this upcoming trend of "building in public". Founder/Developer sharing their journey to their audience while trying to get traction. I agree that launching your product to an engaged and consolidated audience give a boost but I also think that depends on which type of product you are building. For sure you need at least to have an MVP to show to your users.
- quaffapint 6y ago
  I started doing this [0]. I think a lot of times solo founders like myself get stuck in a vacuum. It feels so isolating and demotivating that just sharing my random thoughts (even though I know noone is reading them) actually helps. It makes me feel like I'm having someone to share them with. It also might help start building an audience that I can discuss the product with. [0] https://thedevfounder.com/ https://thedevfounder.com/
bird_monster 6y ago
I've found that my side projects are very rarely about completing anything. Usually a side project is about chasing a curiosity in a piece of tech or a workflow change or something. "Could I build a faster CI pipe in Terraform?" "Could I write this Kafka consumer in Java?" "Can I containerize this?". Things that aren't really about "completing" or "shipping." I think that people like me often forget that one of the biggest drivers for working on projects past when they become interesting is the money I receive for working on them. If I'm not being paid, it becomes difficult to fathom struggling for 10 hours on building something past when it's particularly interesting. Once any personal project would require basically any UI work, that's about when I bail (as I have no interest and actively dislike pretty much every UI-based technology I've ever encountered). Getting paid to work is important to me.
Sophistifunk 6y ago
This is not a "great startup process". In any other industry, this is called a bait-and-switch. It is a form of fraud, and in many jurisdictions indictable.
- alangibson 6y ago
  What part exactly do you think would qualify as fraud?
AHappyCamper 6y ago
I found the article confusing, but the infographic at the end made everything worth it. Probably one of the best I've ever seen, and I take my hat off to the author!
preommr 6y ago
This won't work because programmers need to understand that the value they bring is in being able to build things. Marketing using shiny new features and a good product is simple, but an effective strategy as a developer. Marketing magic by marketing gurus is it's own thing. They can artificially prop up a product using efficient advertising, connections, or lots of cash. Ironically this is going to work because gathering a following for an interesting project is one way to do marketing. Lots of programmers succeed because they make tutorials, or they participate in a community where they build up a reputation.
mifeng 6y ago
Unsolicited advice: your problem isn't great - sure engineering leaders want to increase personal connections between remote teammates, but is that one of their top problems and how much are they willing to pay to solve it I would iterate until you find a problem that people are willing to pay a lot of money to fix.

236 points by timjones 6y ago

Cool article, love the insight into the thought process and best of luck. But that name HelloHailey seems like literally an insane choice. I would never use it. As far as I know I’m the target market so may want to look at changing it if others agree!

timjones 6y ago
Thank you! Definitely interested in hearing others' thoughts on the name as well. Here was my thinking: As a solo, bootstrapped founder, I think people are interested in the person behind the product, at least at first. I've been using my personal story and the process of building in public to grow an email list and waitlist. The HelloHailey name gives me an opportunity to re-enforce that personal story in the product messaging. That being said, I'm not ruling out a name change when it comes time for an official launch.
- throwawaytemp27 6y ago
  Sounds like you need to “kill your darling” as it were. The number of people who you will reach if you scale is exponentially more than those who have already connected with your story.
dkarp 6y ago
why is the name "literally an insane choice"?

awillen 6y ago

Good on you for breaking out of a cycle that wasn't working. I think you're really speaking to something that's becoming increasingly true - distribution is at least as important as, if not more important than, products themselves. We've moved past "if you build it they will come" to something more akin to "if enough people are already coming to you, you can build something, and they'll try it."

timjones 6y ago
Agreed! I think this is becoming even more important as the barriers to building software products shrink. Every day, there are dozens of products being launched on ProductHunt - many of them without code. The "easy" distribution channels are being flooded.

dvt 6y ago

> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They did have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are gimmicky Kickstarter-style (and often derivative) products. I mean, think about Dropbox or Slack or Instagram: how could you possibly sell (or even validate the idea of) those products without actually giving some sort of demo? Without people actually using that thing? It might work for something like the product in the post (people understand what "video chat" is), but I don't really see it working for any kind of particularly novel or value-generating product. Followup: grabbed a coffee, and this post got a bit of attention. To be clear, I think that an MVP should be just that: a minimum viable product. By definition, you shouldn't be able to go leaner. I also think that sometimes people conflate "fake it 'til you make it" with PG's "do things that don't scale" -- these two are not the same. [1] https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before-you-build-it/ https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before... [2] https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists

TuringNYC 6y ago
I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the first jump and test the idea. Everything is on a spectrum and -- given the vast graveyard of random ideas engineers build as side projects -- we should figure out a better way to drive better yield.
- thelastwave 6y ago
  What is NASCAR login?

kevsim 6y ago

I've got to applaud you for thinking about distribution first. Many tech folks turned entrepreneurs (myself included) think that if they build a great product, they'll get usage. Doesn't work that way. But I will also say that I suspect your strategy is possibly a little naive. I hope it's as easy as you've laid out, and I'm envious of the viral aspects of your proposed product. However, I suspect the "top of funnel" portion (hypothesis 1) won't be enough to drive your "land and expand" portion (hypothesis 2). At least in my own experience currently trying to build a B2B SaaS tool [0], it's an absolute grind. And while some of these communities you're mentioning will engage, it's hard to convert that to people entering your funnel in a reliable fashion. You've got to combine it with 19 others things like content marketing, speaking at events, etc. That being said, we're not engaging in as transparent way as you are so YMMV. I wish you the best of luck! 0: https://kitemaker.co https://kitemaker.co - a crazy fast issue tracker that connects all of your other tools (GitHub, Figma, Slack, Discord) better than anything else out there

timjones 6y ago
Thank you! And I agree 100% with what you've said. I could preface every sentence with maybe and I think but then it wouldn't be on the HN front page :) I know that everything I'm laying out will be much harder than I've made it seem. I see this strategy as being a north star, but necessarily a hard and fast path.

Closi 6y ago

Well written blog post! A few observations from an outsiders perspective: * One interesting thing I have noticed from being on HN is that lots of start-ups that focus on the tech industry / IT / helping developers. I think it makes sense to pick a niche you understand, but possibly not if it is a 'niche' which is filled with developers. * Workplace collaboration in a 'knowledge work' environment = red ocean. Application of workplace collaboration tools to new/unexplored industry segments I suspect has lots of blue ocean areas however. I think you have picked something in the red ocean. * As a small note, you started with a solution (always on video room, inspired by a twitter post) and worked backwards to a problem to solve (teammates not being fully engaged). The usual process would be to start with a problem and then work out how you are going to solve it. I know it sounds like semantics, but there are lots of potential solutions to "teammates feel disconnected" and an always on video room is just one of them! (e.g. coffee roulette, remote pizza parties).

timjones 6y ago
Thanks for the thoughts! I agree on your first point. This is the easier niche for me right now, but probably not the best niche. I 100% agree with your second point too. My first step was supposed to be "Choose a problem" (https://www.themvpsprint.com/p/choose-a-problem https://www.themvpsprint.com/p/choose-a-problem). But I can spot the flaws in how I presented this - it looks like I was starting with a potential solution someone asked about on Twitter. That being said, the solution I'll be building is actually quite different from an "always on zoom room" - more focused on teams that operate largely asynchronously. I'll be formalizing and sharing my product vision over the next week or two :)

dmarlow 6y ago

Sorry to nitpick, but some of your examples illustrate that they certainly had an MVP and THEN did the distribution. How could hotmail perform distribution without first having an MVP? I agree with the premise of validation, then building. While this is a good rule of thumb, it's not always possible. I like the focus and thinking behind getting users. It can't be "built it and they will come". Having a good, sound plan and sticking with it is the key.

timjones 6y ago
My main point was that these companies likely had strong hypotheses about how they would grow before building an MVP. You don't always need to prove out all your growth channels. But it's important to have strong hypotheses and remove at least a little bit of uncertainty around those hypotheses before building.
- blobbers 6y ago
  It seems like you need a strong hypothesis for growth and a strong hypothesis for customer acquisition. It seems like knowing what you're going to build can help drive how you will distribute, and but vice versa seems less obvious. It is a situation where both are required (`&`). Good luck with the projects!
- hyperpallium2 6y ago
  I see that, but you don't talk about this - your main point - in the case studies, at all. Of course it's difficult to, since they don't discuss it and so you have to infer it, but if it's your main point, you probably do need to mention it in the case study. Your heading "My side projects always fail" makes me think the problem is getting initial adoption (not going from small adoption to huge adoption). The network effects of those three examples don't kick in until after some adoption. I like the idea of considering not just the product or the market, but also how you to reach that market. It can change your choice of which idea to pursue in the first place. Really, to evaluate as a business idea, not just as a product idea
  - deleted 6y ago

mac_was 6y ago

Great post mate. I followed a similar pattern and created https://sayoname.com https://sayoname.com, an app for remotely located workers so they can record names and call each other directly from the browser. A tool so people can easily find how to say someone's name, sneak on what someone does in the company etc. I almost got a big school hooked up to start paying subscription (it is an international school) but they decided on creating their own solution due to privacy concerns. Extremely disappointing and lowers morale straight away. I have few hundred profiles but the growth is stale atm. I don't really have time to actively look for new users and would love a co-founder as what they say on y-combinator it is REALLY a lot easier if you have someone you can share thought and can both motivate each other. So my advice is add a step and get a co-founder.

timjones 6y ago
Looks like a neat tool! I had 2 cofounders in my last company - I agree it's easier. But so far, building in public has been a great way to replicate some of those benefits without one: 1. I have external motivation to produce results on a weekly basis. 2. I have to be able to justify all my decisions to everyone on the internet (anyone who cares at least...). I end up thinking things through more deeply. 3. I get continuous feedback from others - not nearly as good as a cofounder who's 100% in the business, but still helpful.
- eins1234 6y ago
  Wow, as a fellow solo founder, building in public sounds like a great idea! I've always dismissed it in the past, but that's because I've never considered it from the perspective of getting some of the same benefits as having a co-founder. Will definitely try to give it a shot.
  - timjones 6y ago
    Emphasis on some haha - I don't want to claim that the collective power of the internet is more valuable than a human that's 100% invested in the business :) But yes, I'd definitely recommend it! Feel free to DM if want any tips - https://twitter.com/AnotherTimJones https://twitter.com/AnotherTimJones. It was uncomfortable at first, but got easier pretty quickly (and honestly a lot of fun).

legerdemain 6y ago

From the blog post: > Twitter is full of interesting and influential people sharing > thoughts and having public conversations. And they’re all > accessible - just 280 characters away. Yes! Yes! Marketing has changed 1000% since the Dark ages! People forget that you can now marketing your product effortlessly and completely for free to everyone in the world. No more complaining that "my awesome product failed because no one knows about it" -- just press that Tweet button and you're on!

Descartes1 6y ago
Ah, but getting your tweet actually read is a whole other ball of wax.
- forbiddenvoid 6y ago
  Step 1: Have 100,000 followers Step 2: Instant Marketing Success Step 3: Tell everyone how easy social media is
  - justiceforsaas 6y ago
    Literally describes 100% of IndieHackers threads about "I sold 540 copies of my products on Twitter in 8 hours".
  - zdbrandon 6y ago
    > Step 1: Have 100,000 followers I imagine one could swap “Have” for “Pay to work with someone who has”.
b20000 6y ago
where do I sign up?!?!? marketing today costs money just like it did years ago, you are still paying for visibility and there is no "free" traffic anymore like there was in the late 90s.
- legerdemain 6y ago
  Here are the steps to success: 1. Go to http://www.twitter.com http://www.twitter.com. 2. Click Join Twitter today. 3. Type in this Tweet: "I have the perfect product! Email me for quote. #Growth #Product #MVP"

hyperpallium2 6y ago

That's "marketing" not distribution. But maybe your term sounds cooler... Thinking of open source development, some of this is implied, by platforms like github, and ideas like "release early, release often". So developers are dependent on this promtion/distribution platform, without even realizing they have one.

b20000 6y ago

I applaud your success. To me it seems that by putting distribution first, or focusing on problems to solve, that you typically end up with markets or problems you are personally not really excited about. I've done this exercise many times. I can either work on something I think is cool and there is a niche market for, but does not really "solve" a problem but addresses a "want", or I can work on something I have zero interest in but for which there probably is a market and clear distribution model. If I like adventure games, and want to make one, those don't solve a problem, and it's a niche market with a lot of competition (gaming in general). Or I can work on some online tax prep software for expats. Niche market, addresses a problem, zero personal interest, probably a big market.

elcomet 6y ago
> Niche market, [...] , probably a big market Which one is it then?
- zdbrandon 6y ago
  A niche of a giant can still be considered “big”.
- Kye 6y ago
  Maybe a weird example: most fursuit builders also take mascot commissions from non-furries. They target a small niche, but also a big market.
- b20000 6y ago
  I think niche market / big market is always subjective and very poorly defined in general leading to confusion. When chatting with a VC, "niche" probably means "not worth investing into, too small" in their simplified language even though you could mean simply that it's a subsection of some huge industry which is in itself huge. Like first person shooters in the game industry.
timjones 6y ago
Thank you! There are some people for whom growing a business is the exciting part. They can get excited about tax prep software if they see the opportunity. I'm more like you (not one of those people). If I don't care about the problem, and (maybe more importantly) the users I'm solving it for, I won't solve it well. Another point - not everything has to be a business - you can always work your day job and build adventure games on nights and weekends purely for fun. Sometimes the best businesses come out of hobby projects. If not, whatever - it's fun and fulfilling.

markdown 6y ago

Honest question: If you're going to pick hello<randomName> as a name, why not pick one with a .com?

corytheboyd 6y ago

I don’t really agree with a lot of what’s being said here. If you have something that solves real problems, you should be able to fight for users. Yeah sure, just because you built a great thing doesn’t mean people will flock to it, you need to do SOME marketing. It might take two years to get ten users, because turns out it’s very hard to run every aspect of a business by yourself. But it’s progress, and if you maintain a high bar of connection with your user base and product quality, as long as you continue to market and improve it will grow. There are no “get rich quick” schemes here, I don’t believe in that nonsense. There is hard work and there is giving up, that’s it.

justiceforsaas 6y ago

I think you've gone from one extreme to the other. Yes, building a product with no distribution sucks. So does doing distribution without having anything to show for it. Take this from a guy who spent 2 years studying distribution channels [1]. There's nothing wrong about spending a week or two developing a MVP before focusing on distribution. I think the key is to start with 1) The minimum thing you can do and call a 'product' 2) Try to promote/distribute it to see the response. So far you've done: a) A web page explaining what your product is about Some steps to (progressively) get to a "better" MVP may be: b) Make a video showcasing your product (which can be a simple Figma design with static screens that show once you click on them) c) Build a feature that's high on the ICE Scoring model [2], and distribute that d) Build a meaningfully different feature than c) and promote it as a SEPARATE product. Let your features be like split tests you promote on the same/different distribution channels and see how they perform. [1] https://firstpayingusers.com https://firstpayingusers.com [2] https://university.hygger.io/en/articles/2288376-ice-scoring https://university.hygger.io/en/articles/2288376-ice-scoring

timjones 6y ago
I agree that there's nothing wrong with spending a week or two developing an MVP first. I don't plan on spending more than 3-4 weeks building an MVP, which I'll start within 2 weeks. An advantage that my current approach gives me is a few dozen low-commitment (but qualified) waitlist users that have shown some initial interest. I obviously have some close friends that will try it out with their teams. But going distribution-first allows me to easily expand beyond that close circle to a more unbiased group of people.
dang 6y ago
You've posted your link 23 times in the last month—that's well over the line into spamming. Even apart from that, your account is using HN primarily for promotion, which is against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We ban accounts that do these things, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing the guidelines and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. The intended spirit is intellectual curiosity, which is not at all the same thing as having something to promote, though it's fine to bring up one's own work as part of good conversation.

polote 6y ago

One new guy trying to tell the world that there is a process to start a successful business, there is not. Sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed. Some succeed more than others, but they never always succeed. I wish you good luck for your project but changing your approach is not going to ensure you not to fail.

anoncow 6y ago

Fun ideas without any possibility of a viable business model is what I am struggling with too. Ideas take away a lot of your time when you are chasing them and only once the prototyping is done or sometimes when the initial product is out you realise that there is no chance of making any money.

conductr 6y ago
Then step one is foresight. And I say that from experience. I often view through lens of, yes I think it would be awesome if this concept existed, I could build it, but do I want to sell it? The answer is usually No.
- anoncow 6y ago
  Thanks. Trying to find books which teach how to evaluate ideas. Not a business graduate, but is this something that they teach in business schools?
  - conductr 6y ago
    My business school days were just before all the startup craze began. So I’m sure curriculum has changed. Entrepreneurship wasn’t really a major; or not at most schools at the time (early 2000s). My understanding is most formalized ways (lean,etc) are about idea validation and iteration. But even that assumes you want to burn some amount of energy on the idea. Validation in itself is hard work. My personal approach is have the idea, maybe I’ll spend a day or few brainstorming (paper and pen), I sketch out the solution. I have a shorthand for this, I usually just sketch out the data model and I can visualize the front end functionality. I don’t need to do mock ups or wire frames. That’s a time suck. If I feel good that, this could be cool (useful, problem solving, easy to communicate, etc)... I run through every user acquisition channel and think of a strategy. Think of tactical execution. What’s the likelihood _I_ could execute with success. The I in the last sentence is key. I see plenty of people executing big ideas I had, but could never had executed. Know your abilities. Do I need help? Do I want to hire(invest)? Do I want to spend money on ads? I personally avoid anything free. I have noticed, if I expect something for free, it won’t come. For example, if you think about making something viral or network effect. Certainly build that in, and leverage it. But don’t hinge your success in it. It’s probably a multiplier and you need to build the base. Once I get to the part about investing my money. I’m a pretty frugal person and don’t like wasting money growing hobby sites. So this is a good filter for me. It also helps me think of what does the product need to look like (mvp or further) before I feel like dumping resources into growth. Using this I can estimate how much work I have ahead of me. I only have 10-20 tinker time hours a week. So again do I need help? Am I going to dedicate weeks to an alpha/beta? This type of thought process easily exposes most ideas to be things I just simply don’t want to do for some reason or another. This is just a simplified description of my personal way. I have a lot of biases like not wanting to seek VC funding, or really even have to build a team.

fourseventy 6y ago

4.) Give up and move on <-------- There's your problem

m0llusk 6y ago

An alternative approach to the who is going to buy the damn thing problem is to focus on the marketing to engineering ratio. If you build it customers will only come and buy if they know what it is and how it might work for them.

d_burfoot 6y ago

Most startup ideation follows the following sequence: 1. invent a bold new product 2. figure out how to market it In other words, the "Eureka" moment is in the product ideation step, while the marketing step is basically a schlep. But the inverse approach might actually be better: 1. invent a bold new marketing strategy 2. figure out a product to sell with it Don't assume that marketing is somehow a lower form of intellectual activity than engineering. It requires a strong aesthetic sense, a deep understanding of human psychology, mastery of technical tools, and the ability to be self-critical.

friendlybus 6y ago
1. invent a bold new marketing strategy 2. figure out how to sell the strategy It is the product.

satvikpendem 6y ago

Nice to see that you're transitioning from the developer mindset to the founder mindset, from building first to selling first. Many people don't understand that development is just one part of a successful company. They think that if you build it, they will come. I too have fallen into this trap multiple times until I had my latest startup idea (todo list + calendar for project management, https://getartemis.app https://getartemis.app). I simply made a landing page, used Figma and an animation tool called Principle to make a nice video, and put it on the landing page. Now I have over 1200 singups to the email list while I'm working on building the product. Doing this has allowed me to do so many things, such as figuring out that there is indeed demand for the product, and directly talking to these potential users by setting up a call with them. Having a distribution channel is a powerful thing. It would be even better if I cultivated my Twitter audience, but an email list is a start, and it has some distinct advantages such as owning your distribution channel.

meghido1 6y ago

There's this upcoming trend of "building in public". Founder/Developer sharing their journey to their audience while trying to get traction. I agree that launching your product to an engaged and consolidated audience give a boost but I also think that depends on which type of product you are building. For sure you need at least to have an MVP to show to your users.

quaffapint 6y ago
I started doing this [0]. I think a lot of times solo founders like myself get stuck in a vacuum. It feels so isolating and demotivating that just sharing my random thoughts (even though I know noone is reading them) actually helps. It makes me feel like I'm having someone to share them with. It also might help start building an audience that I can discuss the product with. [0] https://thedevfounder.com/ https://thedevfounder.com/

bird_monster 6y ago

I've found that my side projects are very rarely about completing anything. Usually a side project is about chasing a curiosity in a piece of tech or a workflow change or something. "Could I build a faster CI pipe in Terraform?" "Could I write this Kafka consumer in Java?" "Can I containerize this?". Things that aren't really about "completing" or "shipping." I think that people like me often forget that one of the biggest drivers for working on projects past when they become interesting is the money I receive for working on them. If I'm not being paid, it becomes difficult to fathom struggling for 10 hours on building something past when it's particularly interesting. Once any personal project would require basically any UI work, that's about when I bail (as I have no interest and actively dislike pretty much every UI-based technology I've ever encountered). Getting paid to work is important to me.

Sophistifunk 6y ago

This is not a "great startup process". In any other industry, this is called a bait-and-switch. It is a form of fraud, and in many jurisdictions indictable.

alangibson 6y ago
What part exactly do you think would qualify as fraud?

AHappyCamper 6y ago

I found the article confusing, but the infographic at the end made everything worth it. Probably one of the best I've ever seen, and I take my hat off to the author!

preommr 6y ago

This won't work because programmers need to understand that the value they bring is in being able to build things. Marketing using shiny new features and a good product is simple, but an effective strategy as a developer. Marketing magic by marketing gurus is it's own thing. They can artificially prop up a product using efficient advertising, connections, or lots of cash. Ironically this is going to work because gathering a following for an interesting project is one way to do marketing. Lots of programmers succeed because they make tutorials, or they participate in a community where they build up a reputation.

mifeng 6y ago

Unsolicited advice: your problem isn't great - sure engineering leaders want to increase personal connections between remote teammates, but is that one of their top problems and how much are they willing to pay to solve it I would iterate until you find a problem that people are willing to pay a lot of money to fix.