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I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook (http://forkthecookbook.com http://forkthecookbook.com) I actually app

by chewxy 14y ago

I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook (http://forkthecookbook.com http://forkthecookbook.com) I actually approached bloggers and talked to them, one by one. It's a tedious task, but I absolutely refuse to buy ads except for quick tests.

hayksaakian 14y ago
I'm curious as to why you refuse to buy ads.
- soyelmango 14y ago
  "Advertising is a tax for having an unremarkable product", said someone (http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/is-advertising-is-a-tax-for-having-an-unremarkable-product/ http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/is-advertisi...) Or in other words, spend your time and money not on advertising, but on making a product so compelling that your users/customers advertise for you. Think Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Skype – no advertising, but a product that people will encourage others to use.
  - hayksaakian 14y ago
    I would imagine that if you were entering a crowded market with an idea that simply cut costs, but provided no real unique consumer facing benefit, you could afford to ride on CPC. Am I wrong?
MatthewB 14y ago
I'm curious as well as to why you don't want to buy ads. It's a great way to quickly get data without wasting your time on "a tedious task."
- chewxy 14y ago
  It is a great way to get data, which is why I mentioned "except for quick tests". For actual growth, it's actually a pretty poor channel. A lot of time and energy will need to be spent optimizing ads, LP, CTA, etc. Time spent on funnel optimization can be better spent running tests elsewhere. I have personally found it to be far easier to pop a few emails and reply over the course of the day. People who are genuinely interested about the product will link to it (take for example this fine lady: http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/paleo-banana-breakfast-cookies.html http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/paleo-banana-brea...). Those are the people we want to look for. That way we can more effectively run tests and grow users more naturally, as opposed to having a HN-level spike and not have any follow up activity. The current tests we're running/actively developing for are pro-accounts. So instead of spending time obsessing over ad quality, CTRs, optimizing landing pages, we can spend more time working on writing the software needed to test our assumptions. Hope that helps
  - guptaneil 14y ago
    I think it really depends on the kind of product and your target market. Certain types of ads might not be worth the time and effort due to various factors. To provide a counterexample though, I'm working on a student planner (tabuleapp.com). Homework management is a surprisingly big pain point for students, and we've found that Facebook ads are an excellent way to reach our audience. Near the beginning of the semester, when the need for a new organizational tool is highest, we had a lot of success from our first ad with no time spent on optimizing it. I can't think of a better way to reach thousands of college students that's scalable and affordable for a startup.
    - chewxy 14y ago
      I absolutely agree. If your startup/project etc is the kind that falls into the long tail, you will stand to benefit from advertising a lot. For Fork the Cookbook, we had at one point contemplated targeting "recipe management app" and related keywords. I did a quick estimation of effort (I work in online advertising as my day job), and decided that effort was better spent blogging and looking for bloggers.
    - 14y ago
- CookWithMe 14y ago
  It depends, but I'd say in the beginning you want to get qualitative and not quantitative data. Adds are good for quantitative data, but if you write mails and people respond, they will usually tell you stuff. Most only a bit, but some a lot. 1-to-1 communication is the best way to learn about your potential customers in the beginning. And once you need to learn about them quantitatively, it'll become easier to use adds, because you know the pain points but also the wording of your customers.
moot 14y ago
I'm sorry, but reading "I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead." made me laugh so hard I spit out my tea. You owe me new boxers, sir. And some burn cream.
- obilgic 14y ago
  I wish people(hackers) would spend same amount of time building and marketing/selling their idea. Unfortunately, i think its human nature, it is always easy to start with the fun part, and give up when the steps need to be taken become uninteresting/difficult. Hackers love creating stuff, but when it comes to the selling that idea to their potential users, they dont have enough energy. Hackers vs entrepreneurs?
  - chewxy 14y ago
    I absolutely agree. I have fallen into that trap a number of times. The latest was indeed with Fork the Cookbook. Some bloggers filed a DMCA request (fun fact, recipes cannot be copyrighted, so they essentially were perjuring themselves). It sapped so much energy from our marketing and coding efforts, that 3-4 weeks later we're still recovering - took ages to convince ourselves that it was still worth doing. There's always a first time I guess
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - ficho 14y ago
      For what it's worth, I just discovered your site and i find the overall design and experience awesome. It's light, clean, pro, has some fun elements and a bit of a nicely integrated branding which is cool (the forking idea). Well done!
    - olbmen 14y ago
      Of course recipes can't be copyrighted, but you running into this issue proves just how much you screwed up at trying to understand your audience. Don't blame them for filling DMCA requests, blame yourself for not building something that they'll want to use and contribute to. Think about it for a minute. Does Github grab your source code without asking you and then offers people the option to fork it? No! Devs upload their source code to Github because they get a value out of it. The same goes for food blogs or anything else. If your target audience can't get any value out of your product, then you're dead before launching. As devs, we need to keep this in mind: people won't care if they can't get value. Just because it took you days/weeks/months/years/decades to build does not mean it will produce value for anyone. Only studying your target customers and building on top of this knowledge will.
mgkimsal 14y ago
What's dead? The project, or the Show HN post?
- chewxy 14y ago
  The project.
auston 14y ago
hey, dont shut down forkthecookbook, i want to try it.
- chewxy 14y ago
  Not planning to. Just got off a 4 week long funk from it... first commit in 4 weeks!
ibudiallo 14y ago
um i added recipes, now how do i search? is there a search functionality ?

by chewxy 14y ago

hayksaakian 14y ago

I'm curious as to why you refuse to buy ads.

soyelmango 14y ago
"Advertising is a tax for having an unremarkable product", said someone (http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/is-advertising-is-a-tax-for-having-an-unremarkable-product/ http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/is-advertisi...) Or in other words, spend your time and money not on advertising, but on making a product so compelling that your users/customers advertise for you. Think Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Skype – no advertising, but a product that people will encourage others to use.
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  I would imagine that if you were entering a crowded market with an idea that simply cut costs, but provided no real unique consumer facing benefit, you could afford to ride on CPC. Am I wrong?

MatthewB 14y ago

I'm curious as well as to why you don't want to buy ads. It's a great way to quickly get data without wasting your time on "a tedious task."

chewxy 14y ago
It is a great way to get data, which is why I mentioned "except for quick tests". For actual growth, it's actually a pretty poor channel. A lot of time and energy will need to be spent optimizing ads, LP, CTA, etc. Time spent on funnel optimization can be better spent running tests elsewhere. I have personally found it to be far easier to pop a few emails and reply over the course of the day. People who are genuinely interested about the product will link to it (take for example this fine lady: http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/paleo-banana-breakfast-cookies.html http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/paleo-banana-brea...). Those are the people we want to look for. That way we can more effectively run tests and grow users more naturally, as opposed to having a HN-level spike and not have any follow up activity. The current tests we're running/actively developing for are pro-accounts. So instead of spending time obsessing over ad quality, CTRs, optimizing landing pages, we can spend more time working on writing the software needed to test our assumptions. Hope that helps
- guptaneil 14y ago
  I think it really depends on the kind of product and your target market. Certain types of ads might not be worth the time and effort due to various factors. To provide a counterexample though, I'm working on a student planner (tabuleapp.com). Homework management is a surprisingly big pain point for students, and we've found that Facebook ads are an excellent way to reach our audience. Near the beginning of the semester, when the need for a new organizational tool is highest, we had a lot of success from our first ad with no time spent on optimizing it. I can't think of a better way to reach thousands of college students that's scalable and affordable for a startup.
  - chewxy 14y ago
    I absolutely agree. If your startup/project etc is the kind that falls into the long tail, you will stand to benefit from advertising a lot. For Fork the Cookbook, we had at one point contemplated targeting "recipe management app" and related keywords. I did a quick estimation of effort (I work in online advertising as my day job), and decided that effort was better spent blogging and looking for bloggers.
  - 14y ago
CookWithMe 14y ago
It depends, but I'd say in the beginning you want to get qualitative and not quantitative data. Adds are good for quantitative data, but if you write mails and people respond, they will usually tell you stuff. Most only a bit, but some a lot. 1-to-1 communication is the best way to learn about your potential customers in the beginning. And once you need to learn about them quantitatively, it'll become easier to use adds, because you know the pain points but also the wording of your customers.

moot 14y ago

I'm sorry, but reading "I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead." made me laugh so hard I spit out my tea. You owe me new boxers, sir. And some burn cream.

obilgic 14y ago
I wish people(hackers) would spend same amount of time building and marketing/selling their idea. Unfortunately, i think its human nature, it is always easy to start with the fun part, and give up when the steps need to be taken become uninteresting/difficult. Hackers love creating stuff, but when it comes to the selling that idea to their potential users, they dont have enough energy. Hackers vs entrepreneurs?
- chewxy 14y ago
  I absolutely agree. I have fallen into that trap a number of times. The latest was indeed with Fork the Cookbook. Some bloggers filed a DMCA request (fun fact, recipes cannot be copyrighted, so they essentially were perjuring themselves). It sapped so much energy from our marketing and coding efforts, that 3-4 weeks later we're still recovering - took ages to convince ourselves that it was still worth doing. There's always a first time I guess
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - ficho 14y ago
    For what it's worth, I just discovered your site and i find the overall design and experience awesome. It's light, clean, pro, has some fun elements and a bit of a nicely integrated branding which is cool (the forking idea). Well done!
  - olbmen 14y ago
    Of course recipes can't be copyrighted, but you running into this issue proves just how much you screwed up at trying to understand your audience. Don't blame them for filling DMCA requests, blame yourself for not building something that they'll want to use and contribute to. Think about it for a minute. Does Github grab your source code without asking you and then offers people the option to fork it? No! Devs upload their source code to Github because they get a value out of it. The same goes for food blogs or anything else. If your target audience can't get any value out of your product, then you're dead before launching. As devs, we need to keep this in mind: people won't care if they can't get value. Just because it took you days/weeks/months/years/decades to build does not mean it will produce value for anyone. Only studying your target customers and building on top of this knowledge will.

mgkimsal 14y ago

What's dead? The project, or the Show HN post?

chewxy 14y ago
The project.

auston 14y ago

hey, dont shut down forkthecookbook, i want to try it.

chewxy 14y ago
Not planning to. Just got off a 4 week long funk from it... first commit in 4 weeks!

ibudiallo 14y ago

um i added recipes, now how do i search? is there a search functionality ?