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Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

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Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#41

Post by andysinclair »

throw2bit wrote: post #40

Stripe is US only and very bad charge back fees and worst dispute resolution. After losing a lot of money by using Stripe as a small time side projector, I recommend using PayPal, they have all that Stripe provides. I don't understand why people go behind Stripe. Because Stripe is cool ? Paypal has everything Stripe has plus zero dispute fees. Stripe has 15$ fees. You will feel the burn when you have lot of disputes…

Stripe is not US only, it's available in 25 countries: https://stripe.com/global

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#42

Post by movedx »

callmeed wrote: post #24

Contrarian view: don't spend time automating things. Spend any extra time you have selling and building the product people need. If someone needs your product, they'll probably be fine with an invoice. Spend the early mornings before work prospecting and reaching out to potential customers. If you're on the west coast, even better because you can conduct sales calls with east coast people who are already at work. Aft…

(Not OP)

Thanks for the book recommendation.

It's interesting that you say not to automate everything. I somewhat agree, except for the payment side of things -- isn't Stripe/PayPal really low friction and simply to get in place?

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#43

Post by throw2bit »

andysinclair wrote: post #41
throw2bit wrote: post #40

Stripe is US only and very bad charge back fees and worst dispute resolution. After losing a lot of money by using Stripe as a small time side projector, I recommend using PayPal, they have all that Stripe provides. I don't understand why people go behind Stripe. Because Stripe is cool ? Paypal has everything Stripe has plus zero dispute fees. Stripe has 15$ fees. You will feel the burn when you have lot of disputes…

Stripe is not US only, it's available in 25 countries: https://stripe.com/global

It was when I tried it way back. Didnt care to check back. My customers are from everywhere around the world. Not only from those petty list of countries that Stripe supports. I cant tell them, sorry you cannot buy my product because the payment processor dont support your country. What a turn off it will be for the customers.

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#45

Post by fomojola »

anfractuosity wrote: post #35
codegeek wrote: post #7

Automate 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…

Regarding payments can you recommend a simple API over both Stripe & Paypal out of interest (or would you just implement both using their respective APIs?) I know Paypal has its Instant Payment Notification API, were they ping your server once a payment has gone through, I assume Stripe has something similar. I was just wondering if there's a simple API, that can handle payments through both Paypal and Stripe etc.

Honestly, just use their respective APIs: you can get far with just Stripe Checkout (https://stripe.com/checkout) and Paypal Checkout (https://developer.paypal.com/demo/checkout/) and they are both simple enough. Paypal Checkout even has an entirely client-side payment flow.

The fact that Paypal keeps most of their fee if you have to issue a refund does suck, but that is a separate issue: the interfaces are both very straightforward.

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#46

Post by muzani »

callmeed wrote: post #24

Contrarian view: don't spend time automating things. Spend any extra time you have selling and building the product people need. If someone needs your product, they'll probably be fine with an invoice. Spend the early mornings before work prospecting and reaching out to potential customers. If you're on the west coast, even better because you can conduct sales calls with east coast people who are already at work. Aft…

Agreed, automation can take far more time than it saves. Especially in very early stages, when you don't even know which features are used often. Something like payment is a given, but not other things.

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#47

Post by callmeed »

movedx wrote: post #42
callmeed wrote: post #24

Contrarian view: don't spend time automating things. Spend any extra time you have selling and building the product people need. If someone needs your product, they'll probably be fine with an invoice. Spend the early mornings before work prospecting and reaching out to potential customers. If you're on the west coast, even better because you can conduct sales calls with east coast people who are already at work. Aft…

(Not OP) Thanks for the book recommendation. It's interesting that you say not to automate everything. I somewhat agree, except for the payment side of things -- isn't Stripe/PayPal really low friction and simply to get in place?

Yes its easy, but ... in my experience, very early customers usually get special pricing, terms, and support. IMO its not worth the time to configure plans, pricing pages, and glue code that you'll probably change later. An invoice tool/service that uses Stripe or PayPal would be fine.

Also, if people can sign-up with stripe online they're also going to expect to be able to cancel, view billing history, and print invoices online. That stuff takes a little more work.

Some of this is dependent on OP's actual product, target market, and pricing. I think its better to start with a high-touch approach. Act as their account manager, hand-hold them through the onboarding process, let them know they can contact you for anything from billing to tech support.

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#48

Post by rdegges »

I just sold one of my side projects, Ipify (https://www.ipify.org/) for a reasonable amount of money just a month ago. It's something that I built on my free time, and ran for several years successfully.

I was contacted with a purchase offer, did some negotiation, and ended up selling it several weeks later.

I realize this isn't the sort of sales you were asking about in the title, but figured it might be useful information. If anyone has questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Re: Ask HN: How to sell your app/side project while working full-time?

#49

Post by uladzislau »

obilgic wrote: post #20
rsoto wrote: post #5

The 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.

What do you use for outbound lead generation?
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