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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?

#481

Post by sanedigital »

OJFord wrote: post #450
sanedigital wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to start with a $1M+ Super Bowl Ad. Find 10 people, call them, learn what they need, educate them about your offer, take their feedback back to your product. The earlier you can start that process the better, without exception.

I'm not sure 'call 10 people' is the up-thread intended marketing push though? Maybe it is, but certainly not the way I read it (and hence framed my response).

It's a start. You start with 10 calls. You learn from them and build an email to send to 100 people. You book more calls and then take the feedback and put it into a social media post and get 1000 more. Then you take what you learn there and turn it into an ad to show to 10K sets of eyeballs. The up-thread focus is on starting this process early.

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

#482

Post by sanedigital »

marcosdumay wrote: post #405
sanedigital wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. It's a reminder that all of your sales and marketing efforts are wasted if you're not actually pushing towards a sale. Calls to action, follow ups, using funnels—all of these are things that increase an individual's likelihood to close. That's "ABC".

Try to close too early and any sensible customer will run away and never talk to you again. "Always" be closing includes too early as well as too late, after the client has run away and you will gain nothing except to alienate him further.

Yes, a three-letter acronym is incapable of expressing every nuance of a complex interpersonal dance. ABC is about sales and marketing driving towards the close. It doesn't mean you turn a cold call into "Hi, my name is James, buy my product. This is what it does. Buy it. Do you want to know more? Buy it first."

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

#484

Post by slig »

holgersindbaek wrote: post #269

It might sound dumb, but monetizing my site was the stepping stone to make it take off. I run a solitaire website called https://online-solitaire.com/ that ran for a few years without me earning any money from it. I kind of thought that no-one earned money from banner ads anymore, so I didn't even bother with them. One day I decided to try it out and earned around $1000 the first month. That gave me the boost to spen…

Hi, thanks for sharing. Is the widget thing working for your website? I also run a game website and I'm thinking of letting people use some of my games in widgets, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Thanks!

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

#485

Post by pgt »

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…

+1 for successfully marketing on HN.

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

#486

Post by tornato7 »

willis936 wrote: post #463
11101010001100 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this occurred to you, but is remote work an option?

It has, but it's pretty hard to find. I sent out about 100 applications every time I try to find a job, hear back from maybe 20 and get offers from less than 5. I've never heard back from an application for remote work. I have thrived in my short stints of remote work in the past (mid 2019). I'm not really a tech insider here, more of an engineer in search of discourse more stimulating than reddit. Also, I think disc…

You might consider a move to the blockchain industry if it interests you at all. More than half the jobs are remote and there are plenty of wealthy people to talk with. Let me know if you want any advice there, my email is my username at Gmail.

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

#487

Post by maxrev17 »

awb wrote: post #25

Ran a web agency from ‘08-‘13, grew it to 20 FTEs fully remote then sold it. A few accelerants: 1) Hired talented engineers in low cost of living areas in the US. 2) Started replacing myself by hiring multiple managers, which helped when I sold the business as it was no longer just about me. 3) Converted long-term clients to pre-paid retainer billing with helped create predictable workloads and revenue streams.

This sounds great, but in the UK the tax implications mean sadly it is better to retain money in a business and drip feed it over retirement :p haha

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

#488

Post by dataexporter »

holgersindbaek wrote: post #446
oops wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really nice execution! How is it monetized though? I don't see any ads, only an "upsell" to a native app but it also appears to be free? Edit: I see the ad sidebar now. FYI on my first visit I played for several minutes and this never opened

It's intentional. The first 5 games are ad-free. Most of the ad-revenue are from people who stick, so I kind of try to give people the best experience the first 5 games.

Isn't that kind of like penalizing your regular - repeat customers?

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

#489

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

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…

>Establish what "trust" is. The play-by rule-book. Interesting you mention this, I have used the word integrity in my own ramblings (can be found via a link on my profile), to essentially imply the same aspect, and probably much more. More being things like predictability, personal motivations that go beyond money making etc.

>These are just ramblings of a semi-serial pseudo-successful entrepreneur. I apologise.

My views come from observations of business. I'm not an entrepreneur either (cannot afford to be one)

>I don't know any answers but I do know that 'trust' is one of the crucial key elements of a successful business. Trust between every party.

True, there are all sort of other elements that people are well aware of ( marketing, development, competition, planning etc.), but this one (trust/integrity) is an underrated one I think.

All that I said hold less true for fly-by-night operators, or enterprises with short term goals.

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

#490

Post by JeanPierreK »

Creating on-boarding training discussing the nuances of different parts of the business. I use teachable now since it's powerful and inexpensive in my opinion at 99 bucks a month. I know this already sounds like a paid promo for them but It's not. I run a blood testing company and we have 150,000 customers who are keen on improving their lifestyle and health. I've been running digital operations since 2004. And I WISH i had been smart enough to document each tiny nuance, tip, how to and share it. Makes learning faster, keeps new team members engaged and happy since they are more comfortable they are in turn less likely to quit, and you don't have to hold everyones hand as much or at all. I could write a book on other things. but 1 other massive improvement was selecting mission critical stats to come inbound to me automatically in slack. i.e. site down, checkout errors, sales revenue comparable to previous period, customer tickets, i never have to go look for it. I connected it all to slack in one way or another and i see it first thing each morning. It helps me spot issues before they become big problems and it feels like i can see around corners because you get the pulse of the business.

Hope this helps. if you need some more help just email me jp AT jean-pierre.com

fun fact: This is my first real comment in Hacker News, I figured after seeing so many articles that helped me over the years, I'd give back. Thank you Hacker News and Y Combinator for all the great stuff over the years.

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