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Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

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Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#221

Post by jacobmischka »

pettycashstash2 wrote: post #212
jacobmischka wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call "hire people from countries with low wages so you can pay them literally 1/10 of the US equivalent haha" heartening.

What are you talking about. IBM and other corporates defined the word outsourcing in the late 90s. I remember managing folks with 2 phds that were 1/2 if not less of my salary and I was fresh out of college. I watched as quality of folks went south over time as pay increased for them. My biggest frustration in the end was trying to train new person every 6 months because corporate wanted the same budget. They literal…

That perspective makes it seem like US workers are paid too highly, which I do agree with. But the parent comments I'm replying to are speaking from a leadership perspective and seem just overjoyed to be exploiting workers for nearly nothing.

Edit: I reread my comment and I can see how I wasn't clear. I was actually replying to the parent of the comment I actually replied to, my mistake. I am glad the Thai wages increased, but GP was straight up flexing about paying people nearly nothing because they came from a poor country.

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#222

Post by kristianc »

themanmaran wrote: post #24

Marketing. The one thing I pushed off for as long as possible. Because it was always easier to build more, than it was to go into marketing / sales. No clever tricks, or growth hacks. Me and my cofounders just connected with everyone we could on LinkedIn, twitter, discord, etc. and talked to people about the product: https://rysolv.com/ . In fact, part of the reason we delayed marketing was looking for some clever wa…

I’m glad to see how thinking has evolved on this on HN over the last couple of years.

If you’d have mentioned marketing a couple of years ago, someone would have shared the Bill Hicks post by now.

Marketing (not just advertising) really is an essential part of building product as it forces you to confront who might actually want the product and how you best go about talking to them and finding them.

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#223

Post by shoto_io »

shoto_io wrote: post #130
themanmaran wrote: post #24

Marketing. The one thing I pushed off for as long as possible. Because it was always easier to build more, than it was to go into marketing / sales. No clever tricks, or growth hacks. Me and my cofounders just connected with everyone we could on LinkedIn, twitter, discord, etc. and talked to people about the product: https://rysolv.com/ . In fact, part of the reason we delayed marketing was looking for some clever wa…

I agree 100%. I think from an investment perspective putting most of your time into marketing yields the highest return. My biggest struggle so far is: How do I find those people to "sit and talk" to? Any advice on that?

By the way, I just learned the ABC rule in this thread (Always Be Selling) :)

So, you should go ahead and subscribe to my newsletter. It's pretty good:

https://www.shoto.io

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#224

Post by keewee7 »

themanmaran wrote: post #24

Marketing. The one thing I pushed off for as long as possible. Because it was always easier to build more, than it was to go into marketing / sales. No clever tricks, or growth hacks. Me and my cofounders just connected with everyone we could on LinkedIn, twitter, discord, etc. and talked to people about the product: https://rysolv.com/ . In fact, part of the reason we delayed marketing was looking for some clever wa…

How do you do marketing when the target demographic uses adblocking?

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#225

Post by ako »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #204
throw8932894 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Build it and they come" works, for example Hotmail and Google did not invest into marketing initially. But it works in non saturated market with a few players.

They didn't need to; Hotmail offered free e-mail accounts which was unheard of at the time; Gmail went viral for offering 1GB of storage which was unheard of at the time. The latter also had scarcity with its invite system, I'm not sure if that helped make it more popular or not. Definitely helped prevent it from collapsing under its own success though. Anyway, I think any service now that shows up offering something…

That 1GB storage comes at a cost, which is basically a marketing cost. You give something away for free, in the hope it will generate word-of-mouth marketing. That free thing you're giving away is coming out of your marketing budget.

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#226

Post by mrborgen »

Charge for our product.

I'm the founder of Scrimba.com, an interactive code-learning platform. We went almost two years from when we launched our very first free course until we launched our very first paid course. In the meanwhile, we planned the "perfect" business model and also pivoted to a Teams-based product for a while.

Had I just dared to put up a pricing wall in front of our second course instead, we'd have gotten the signal we needed from the market much earlier. Once we started getting revenue, everything else became a lot easier (what to invest more in, which courses to prioritise, what to do in general).

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#227

Post by cooperx »

keewee7 wrote: post #224
themanmaran wrote: post #24

Marketing. The one thing I pushed off for as long as possible. Because it was always easier to build more, than it was to go into marketing / sales. No clever tricks, or growth hacks. Me and my cofounders just connected with everyone we could on LinkedIn, twitter, discord, etc. and talked to people about the product: https://rysolv.com/ . In fact, part of the reason we delayed marketing was looking for some clever wa…

How do you do marketing when the target demographic uses adblocking?

marketing > advertising

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#228

Post by sfifs »

throw8932894 wrote: post #200
endymi0n wrote: post #137

To paraphrase my brilliant cofounder, mentor and tough sparring partner: "The biggest lie you techies tell to yourselves is 'Build it and they will come'. Nope. Nobody ever comes by. I've beaten competitors with the better product again and again. Know why? Because marketing builds growth, growth builds revenue and revenue enables hiring brilliant people to fix your product, all the while the brilliant product people…

"Build it and they come" works, for example Hotmail and Google did not invest into marketing initially. But it works in non saturated market with a few players.

I'm too young to remember Hotmail launch but GMAIL did market. Their marketing investments were

1. Free Storage an order of magnitude larger that anything anyone provided at that time which was an unbeatable proposition. I'd say they ate the costs of storage as marketing investment.

2. Viral invitation format -> exclusively perception

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#229

Post by simmo9000 »

simmo9000 wrote: post #214

Establish what "trust" is. The play-by rule-book. My approach has mostly been to get out of the way of what I don't know and hold on whilst having blind trust. Like riding a horse, hold on and give direction of the course with balance of freedom to run. Give more freedom and get more trust and enjoy the exhilaration, however hold the reins too tight and you will be fighting all the way. Walk the tightrope so to speak…

And... More importantly understand what YOU want!

Set your goals as to what will make you happy. Idle ideas like "I want a house and a happy family" become flexible and then you will chase that flexibility.

Make sure that when you realise, truly, your goals of "business", only then, you will be happy, accept, and at that point, if you desire, set a new goal. ( I Do not shift YOUR goalpost of what you define that "Take Off" moment is. 9.. 8.. 7..

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#230

Post by normac2 »

endymi0n wrote: post #137

To paraphrase my brilliant cofounder, mentor and tough sparring partner: "The biggest lie you techies tell to yourselves is 'Build it and they will come'. Nope. Nobody ever comes by. I've beaten competitors with the better product again and again. Know why? Because marketing builds growth, growth builds revenue and revenue enables hiring brilliant people to fix your product, all the while the brilliant product people…

Is the idea that the product (once it's caught up) will be as good or better (and/or at least reach more people) than the original? Or is he OK with people being worse off than if your company never existed and the better product got to take the lead?
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