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Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
11–20 of 102 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#12I think the best thing would be to run a PPC campaign when you're at work, so you can acquire emails, and then email those leads through automation (you can do this with Mailchimp) just to confirm their interest.
Then, you have to use your lunch hour or anytime you can sneak away to get the deal done.
That's if you have a budget.
If you don't, I like the idea of hiring a sales person.
P.S. I wrote a book on branding and marketing. If anyone reading this want a free .pdf copy, feel free to email me at bj@bjmendelson.com
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#13Here are some quick ideas: Use your lunch hour. Sell to businesses outside your time zone before and after work. Hire a part time sales person. Send postcards. Improve your online signup flow.
I've heard pretty much all the other good recommendations that others have added, but this one - "Sell to businesses outside your time zone before and after work" - is novel! This is a great idea, though I can imagine there might be some challenges, such as if support issues peak/surge, there will be a few sleepless nights...but that might happen even if dealing with clients in same time zone. Regardless, this is qui…
It's so interesting that this comes across as novel, though I totally understand how that can be - it's an unavoidable reality for those of us building side projects while living on the other side of the pond :)
It also plays into the R&D stage where the dynamic of participating in forum posts and irc/slack chats is a whole other experience. There's a forum or two where I tend to post a question at night, and don't even look at it till the next morning because I know nobody's going to really get to it till then (my time, in Israel).
The hard part with this setup is getting motivated after a full day of work, family, etc. Pushing before/after work is perfect in terms of time, but not in terms of energy. Burnout/fatigue becomes a tougher challenge. That's really a whole other subject though...
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#14Realistically speaking, you should do research and just talk to people with problems and try to figure out how to convince them. Then start setting realistic goals, how much do you think you can handle per day and then per week.
You have a busy schedule and so does your client, first thing is to not automate if you're starting out because you have to design out the system you're going to use gradually. I've tried straight-out automation but just like code most times you have to tear it down a couple times.
I recommend trying to figure how to get people to reject their current software or their current ways if not using software and use yours and find a common theme you can talk about to other prospective customers because I think that will be the main bulk of your sales and marketing efforts as we live in more software-saturated times.
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#15Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, quit your job and do it full-time.
I can think of no worse advice than this. I really hope this is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#16Automate as much as possible. Payments ? Slap a stripe checkout form (unless you happen to be in a country where Stripe is still not supported) or Paypal for others. Onboarding: Make it as easy and smooth as possible for clients to get started after signinup. Show them exactly where and how to start. Documentation & FAQ: Create tons of it. If a client has a question, thy should be able to resolve it through your docu…
Great advice. This is pretty much what I did when working on https://ipinfo.io on the side (now fulltime).
For support tickets I use and highly recommend helpscout - it's cheap, and works well. The android and iOS apps need some work, but it's possible to do basic issue management from mobile.
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#17Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, quit your job and do it full-time.
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Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#18Automate as much as possible. Payments ? Slap a stripe checkout form (unless you happen to be in a country where Stripe is still not supported) or Paypal for others. Onboarding: Make it as easy and smooth as possible for clients to get started after signinup. Show them exactly where and how to start. Documentation & FAQ: Create tons of it. If a client has a question, thy should be able to resolve it through your docu…
Excellent tips codegeek!
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#19Automate as much as possible. Payments ? Slap a stripe checkout form (unless you happen to be in a country where Stripe is still not supported) or Paypal for others. Onboarding: Make it as easy and smooth as possible for clients to get started after signinup. Show them exactly where and how to start. Documentation & FAQ: Create tons of it. If a client has a question, thy should be able to resolve it through your docu…
Suggestion re: phone calls - setup a Calendly.com page to avoid back-and-forth about your availability.
Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?
#20The naive answer would be to automate it: put up a Stripe or Paypal form and let them pay for your product. However, if you're in B2B, the client would need to trust you, as in meeting you, the sales process, even training. What I would do is not automating the sales process, but the leads process: so you don't waste time in leads that are just passing by or checking out your product. With those you could arrange a m…
Exactly this. Don't automate sales!
Automate lead generation! learn from your potential customers, improve your product and perfect your sales->setup->training->support process.
Once you do all this, and satisfied customers are pouring in, then find a way to scale.