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Grown way past 100 users with: • Make a great product. Everyone tells you "build it and they will come" is not working anymore, but it's working _for me_. • O

Grown way past 100 users with: • Make a great product. Everyone tells you "build it and they will come" is not working anymore, but it's working _for me_. • Outreach via your network. Talk to people with the intent of learning, not selling. • I'm personally on a freemium model. But that's in the developer-to-developer market, which is vastly different from your B2C EDIT: https://www.bugsink.com/ https://www.bugsink.com/ link to product, may give an idea of what we're doing.

amanchanda 1y ago
Make a great product. -- > this is an iterative process as per me. Unless users come and try it out, you won't know what a great product looks like. The need is real, and the problem is real. I am one of the users myself. I built it because I felt the need myself. I ran the MVP with 15 others in my network with similar profiles. Quesiton is how to scale beyond that.
- vanschelven 1y ago
  Is there any word of mouth ("virality") among your existing user-base?
  - jll29 1y ago
    Virality can be the key to growth, and it can be engineered. I almost didn't buy the great book The One Billion Dollar App because of hits clickbait title, but it actually well-elaborates the mechanics (and the mathematics) of viral spread of apps, which not by coincident corresponds to the familiar formulas that people will have seen during the CoViD19 pandemic ("r-coefficient", r or R0 [1]). For example, if you have a mobile app that gives you something free for each friend you invite to it, it may encourage some folks to share with r friends... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number
herbst 1y ago
Same here. When I create a product I try to build something that makes a good impression and if done well everything kinda goes from there. My first SaaS was basically traffic kick-started from a single comment on the digital ocean blog, that described a complicated solution to the problem I 'solved'. No freemium either.
meander_water 1y ago
Cool product! How much time would you say you spend on support per week? I've always heard that it's harder to scale when you're reliant on income via support.
- vanschelven 1y ago
  As it stands I'm on the other side of the scalability issues wrt support-based growth: although I do have paying customers, I'd rather have more
90s_dev 1y ago
I've been struggling with choosing a model to make enough to keep the lights on with my upcoming project. Has freemium actually gotten enough paid users for you?
sebstefan 1y ago
> https://www.bugsink.com/ https://www.bugsink.com/ link to product, may give an idea of what we're doing. It's immediately obvious to me that the illustrations are AI slop You should invest 20 bucks into getting some pictures of a guy in a datacenter, or 200 to pay some dude on Fiverr to draw you some sinks, instead of having these be the first thing customers see when checking out your product
- MobileVet 1y ago
  > It's immediately obvious to me that the illustrations are AI slop I don't believe this qualifies as AI Slop. They are all consistent in their style and thus 'on brand' for what they are trying to convey. While visuals are fairly subjective and these may not speak to you, they don't have 'obvious slop characteristics' eg 6 fingers or 3 eyes imho.
  - sebstefan 1y ago
    If you can tell immediately that an illustration is AI-made, for me it already qualifies as slop. It gives low quality, lack of effort, "Is this website legit or is this some guy running a scam from their bedroom in Malaysia" type vibe
- bwb 1y ago
  wow I didn't see it that way at all, they looked good to me.
  - wahnfrieden 1y ago
    They are very obviously "AI generated genre" which many still don't pick up on. Whether art that is obviously AI-generated is appealing or effective - that may also be the case
    - bwb 1y ago
      shrug, i don't mind, looks good
- 1y ago
calmoo 1y ago
Cool concept but AI slop photos are really offputting, this would steer me away from your product (as a naive first viewer).
- helloplanets 1y ago
  Yes, just use a crisp screenshot related to the use case. Especially when it's a product aimed at developers.
  - vanschelven 1y ago
    This comment is a bit puzzling to me given that this is literally the very top thing at the homepage.
coolcase 1y ago
It is as if there is no formula for startup success and you have to experiment. Like if there was a formula everyone would follow it and it would become the only way. A bit like chat up lines- these 10 words and you always get a date. Like there is no counterforces like competition and attention against a cookie recipe for startups.
netrap 1y ago
nice website..

amanchanda 1y ago

Make a great product. -- > this is an iterative process as per me. Unless users come and try it out, you won't know what a great product looks like. The need is real, and the problem is real. I am one of the users myself. I built it because I felt the need myself. I ran the MVP with 15 others in my network with similar profiles. Quesiton is how to scale beyond that.

vanschelven 1y ago
Is there any word of mouth ("virality") among your existing user-base?
- jll29 1y ago
  Virality can be the key to growth, and it can be engineered. I almost didn't buy the great book The One Billion Dollar App because of hits clickbait title, but it actually well-elaborates the mechanics (and the mathematics) of viral spread of apps, which not by coincident corresponds to the familiar formulas that people will have seen during the CoViD19 pandemic ("r-coefficient", r or R0 [1]). For example, if you have a mobile app that gives you something free for each friend you invite to it, it may encourage some folks to share with r friends... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

herbst 1y ago

Same here. When I create a product I try to build something that makes a good impression and if done well everything kinda goes from there. My first SaaS was basically traffic kick-started from a single comment on the digital ocean blog, that described a complicated solution to the problem I 'solved'. No freemium either.

meander_water 1y ago

Cool product! How much time would you say you spend on support per week? I've always heard that it's harder to scale when you're reliant on income via support.

vanschelven 1y ago
As it stands I'm on the other side of the scalability issues wrt support-based growth: although I do have paying customers, I'd rather have more

90s_dev 1y ago

I've been struggling with choosing a model to make enough to keep the lights on with my upcoming project. Has freemium actually gotten enough paid users for you?

sebstefan 1y ago

> https://www.bugsink.com/ https://www.bugsink.com/ link to product, may give an idea of what we're doing. It's immediately obvious to me that the illustrations are AI slop You should invest 20 bucks into getting some pictures of a guy in a datacenter, or 200 to pay some dude on Fiverr to draw you some sinks, instead of having these be the first thing customers see when checking out your product

MobileVet 1y ago
> It's immediately obvious to me that the illustrations are AI slop I don't believe this qualifies as AI Slop. They are all consistent in their style and thus 'on brand' for what they are trying to convey. While visuals are fairly subjective and these may not speak to you, they don't have 'obvious slop characteristics' eg 6 fingers or 3 eyes imho.
- sebstefan 1y ago
  If you can tell immediately that an illustration is AI-made, for me it already qualifies as slop. It gives low quality, lack of effort, "Is this website legit or is this some guy running a scam from their bedroom in Malaysia" type vibe
bwb 1y ago
wow I didn't see it that way at all, they looked good to me.
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
  They are very obviously "AI generated genre" which many still don't pick up on. Whether art that is obviously AI-generated is appealing or effective - that may also be the case
  - bwb 1y ago
    shrug, i don't mind, looks good
1y ago

calmoo 1y ago

Cool concept but AI slop photos are really offputting, this would steer me away from your product (as a naive first viewer).

helloplanets 1y ago
Yes, just use a crisp screenshot related to the use case. Especially when it's a product aimed at developers.
- vanschelven 1y ago
  This comment is a bit puzzling to me given that this is literally the very top thing at the homepage.

coolcase 1y ago

It is as if there is no formula for startup success and you have to experiment. Like if there was a formula everyone would follow it and it would become the only way. A bit like chat up lines- these 10 words and you always get a date. Like there is no counterforces like competition and attention against a cookie recipe for startups.

netrap 1y ago

nice website..