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Let me give you some advice from someone who's been on the customer side of SaaS inventory systems for the past couple years. 1. Inventory systems very rarely
by thematt 13y ago
Let me give you some advice from someone who's been on the customer side of SaaS inventory systems for the past couple years.
1. Inventory systems very rarely live in isolation. If you're a medium/large business, you quickly discover the need for integration with accounting, procurement and manufacturing or production. If you're a small business you may only need accounting -- but nevertheless selling this by itself might be difficult.
2. You're using strange terminology that unfamiliar to those dealing with inventory day-to-day. What is a 'sheet'? Why is more sheets better than less when it comes to pricing? Fix your terminology or at the very least clarify what it means.
3. You're charging too little. You're competing with a bunch of companies that won't even list prices on their websites (which means it's in the 5+ digit range per month). Your dirt cheap pricing gives the impression that you're a tiny app that has little value. I'd suggest you consider pricing based on number of users, similar to Atlassian.
4. Sorry to be blunt, but your website sucks. You need more screenshots. Pricing should be on the front page. There's an overwhelming amount of text on your front page, as a customer I probably won't read all that so don't bother.
5. Stop emphasizing that you're a one-man team. That is not attractive to business customers. They want to know that there is firepower behind the product and it's not a fly-by-night operation, both to handle issues when they come up as well as grow the product down the road.
Your big advantage here is transparency. Be up front about your pricing and your features, this sets you apart from your competition by leaps and bounds. Your competition requires a phone call with a sleazy salesperson and then they price based on your revenue. You're in a good market, but it will require you to be a lot larger than you think. You're actually competing in the ERP space. That's actually a good thing though, because nobody likes working with those companies, they're horrible. Use that to your advantage and sell your customers on your advantages.
- stevewillows 13y agoYou should email this directly to the guy. Information like this is priceless for someone in his situation.
- Rakathos 13y agoI'm still here! HN is throttling my comment submission rate though, so I can't reply to very quickly right now. I agree, this advice is priceless.
- stevewillows 13y agoIf you stick it out, I hope you'll update the community in the coming months!
- Rakathos 13y agoThanks for your feedback! 1) I've quickly learned this point but for a long time I resisted adding any other "features" to the app. I considered it a waste of time, if I couldn't get more than one person paying for the product, why should I spend even more time building something that may never get used? Suffice it to say I've changed my tune and building in all of the other modules is just something I'll have to deal with if I want to make any money. 2) The terminology is an antiquated reference to some very old copy. Originally a sheet was like an excel sheet, each one would do something different or track a different location, etc. After going through a bunch of iterations on the copy, I just started referring to the product as a sheet, as in "inventory sheet". I agree 100% that this is confusing and needs to change. 3) One of the first things I'm going to do for rebuilding this app is charge far more. Businesses that scoff at paying more than $29 per month are probably not the kind of business that should be using the product. 4) I've tried a bunch of different designs and copy for the landing page, including a bunch of screenshots at one time. One big problem I've had is my failure to accurately track what was a success and what wasn't. What you see there is my last attempt before losing interest in the product. (I was going for "hybrid copy" for those of you that read CopyHackers). 5) In my latest iteration on the home page and other parts of the site I tried to go for a more "personal" approach instead of "corporate-y" like my competitors. Like the point above says, though, I have failed to accurately track what works and what doesn't beyond saying this iteration has been my most successful at getting trials. All in all, great advice. Thanks!