3 ms·

Show HN We launched our first digital product – hard lessons as Indie Developers

alex_arc_nine 2y ago
Hi HN, We recently launched our project, alt-generator.ai, a WordPress plugin designed to automate the generation of optimized, multi-language alt texts to boost accessibility and SEO. Despite our hard work and numerous iterations, our launch didn’t go as planned—we ended up with 0 conversions. We’re sharing this openly to learn from our experience. We’d love to hear your honest feedback on our product, marketing approach, or any other aspect you think could be improved. What do you think went wrong, and what would have made you consider using a tool like this? Any insights or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!
- mtmail 2y ago
  What was the marketing approach so far? The usual producthunt launch + submitting the tool to many directories? On HN you can use https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show which requires less upvotes to get visibility. Without 'Show HN' in the title new tools get overlooked easily. Not sure if your target audience (Wordpress agencies?) hang out on HN though
  - alex_arc_nine 2y ago
    Thank you! Yes, exactly. We published on: ProductHunt, Medium, X and here. Also some sharing from our friends in networks. Nice, I will try it over there as well.
- esafak 2y ago
  Did you try reaching out to companies that look like good targets?
  - alex_arc_nine 2y ago
    Yeah! But no response at all. Cold emails don't seem to work well.
alex_arc_nine 2y ago
Thanks everyone for taking a look. We crossed 300 unique visitors, unfortunately still no conversion. If you have any feedback on structure, layout, pricing, please let us know!
- iterateoften 2y ago
  The pricing is phrased weird > €0,05 per asset forever That makes it sounds like I need to pay that forever. Instead compare to: > €0,05 one-time fee per asset Makes it sound like I just pay it once and it is good forever.
  - alex_arc_nine 2y ago
    Thanks for the input! If you have any other feedback, pls let me know!
ostaquet 2y ago
Building the product is the easy part. Selling the product is the hard part. I’m scaling and advising small and medium businesses. The biggest challenge I saw is to find the product market fit (PMF). The PMF is first to solve a problem people wants to solve and who are ready to pay for it. Did you have an idea about who is your ideal customer? Maybe it is press media? As soon as you answered this question, you can promote your product at the right places.
- alex_arc_nine 2y ago
  Totally agree! We were just trying to be honest. The product is very specific so we kind knew it would be hard to really find paying customers. Ideally we need agencies or others who work on websites and want to use our service to provide this service to their clients. Also, they could mark it up nicely.

Hi HN, We recently launched our project, alt-generator.ai, a WordPress plugin designed to automate the generation of optimized, multi-language alt texts to boost accessibility and SEO. Despite our hard work and numerous iterations, our launch didn’t go as planned—we ended up with 0 conversions. We’re sharing this openly to learn from our experience. We’d love to hear your honest feedback on our product, marketing approach, or any other aspect you think could be improved. What do you think went wrong, and what would have made you consider using a tool like this? Any insights or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

mtmail 2y ago
What was the marketing approach so far? The usual producthunt launch + submitting the tool to many directories? On HN you can use https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show which requires less upvotes to get visibility. Without 'Show HN' in the title new tools get overlooked easily. Not sure if your target audience (Wordpress agencies?) hang out on HN though
- alex_arc_nine 2y ago
  Thank you! Yes, exactly. We published on: ProductHunt, Medium, X and here. Also some sharing from our friends in networks. Nice, I will try it over there as well.
esafak 2y ago
Did you try reaching out to companies that look like good targets?
- alex_arc_nine 2y ago
  Yeah! But no response at all. Cold emails don't seem to work well.

alex_arc_nine 2y ago

Thanks everyone for taking a look. We crossed 300 unique visitors, unfortunately still no conversion. If you have any feedback on structure, layout, pricing, please let us know!

iterateoften 2y ago
The pricing is phrased weird > €0,05 per asset forever That makes it sounds like I need to pay that forever. Instead compare to: > €0,05 one-time fee per asset Makes it sound like I just pay it once and it is good forever.
- alex_arc_nine 2y ago
  Thanks for the input! If you have any other feedback, pls let me know!

ostaquet 2y ago

Building the product is the easy part. Selling the product is the hard part. I’m scaling and advising small and medium businesses. The biggest challenge I saw is to find the product market fit (PMF). The PMF is first to solve a problem people wants to solve and who are ready to pay for it. Did you have an idea about who is your ideal customer? Maybe it is press media? As soon as you answered this question, you can promote your product at the right places.

alex_arc_nine 2y ago
Totally agree! We were just trying to be honest. The product is very specific so we kind knew it would be hard to really find paying customers. Ideally we need agencies or others who work on websites and want to use our service to provide this service to their clients. Also, they could mark it up nicely.