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You're right. Something is wrong with the Census site, but there are images on the tour page. I'll take a look. The Census product uses Mechanical Turk to recog
by rgraham 15y ago
You're right. Something is wrong with the Census site, but there are images on the tour page. I'll take a look. The Census product uses Mechanical Turk to recognize deer in trail camera photos and determine herd statistics using capture-recapture. You upload images and get emailed results. That is it.
I never managed to sell the Scout product online. It is incredibly bad marketing copy that I modified from some examples I found around the web. Any sales of that product required calls or in person handling. I did best at a trade show. There is no online audience I could reach for it. I underpriced the product and marketed it poorly. I found some success in higher-touch sales, but you are correct that the price point needs to support that effort level and you should target your market accordingly. That particular product also has an entrenched and highly likable competitor.
Phone numbers (business listings) from a service like Hoover's are free at your public library.
You're also correct that working on a technical product has nothing to do with writing marketing copy, but I'll bet that not everyone in this audience knows that. Hopefully my story lent them some perspective.
I'm working on another product at the moment. I wrote the article about my experience developing those products hoping that people would think about what might work for them and be open to ideas that aren't commonplace. I'm glad to have your perspective as it may help everyone consider their options from every angle.
- mattmanser 15y agoYeah, that's true. In the end you did totally the right thing, which is go where the customers were. As you say you couldn't find your audience is online. And it's good to remind HN that there are other marketing methods they might not have tried. I just thought the article wasn't fair on comparing a $150 adwords spend to a bunch of customer visits, which once you get past being a sole founder will cost you a lot of real money.