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Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

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Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#171

Post by alangibson »

cod3boy wrote: post #162
alangibson wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overall, I think your premise of “I know we have a decent product” is flawed. Yea, I'm not seeing $29 a month worth of value being added by this product over, say, just using stock templates on Google Drive.

Can you please take a quick look, here is the actual product in the show. I think we failed at showcasing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wAeenBe-c

This plays more like an instructional video than a demo. You spend almost the entire time filling out forms. Consider doing a 30 - 60 sec explainer video that just shows off the sizzle if you really want to have a video.

I would also loose Bighetti. You're pitch is 'be more professional' and the first thing you see in the video is a character who's famous for being a lazy idiot.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#172

Post by shubhamjain »

In addition to everyone else's wise words: don't try to eat the whole elephant at once. It seems you have tried to solve every problem that freelancer might have, instead of a crisp, well-defined one. The result being, you have created something that is hard to sell because very few people want a drastic overhaul of their workflow. No one wants to replace Skype, an Invoicing software, Squarespace with a software that has just been launched.

A product can be bad for hundreds of reasons, which also includes, as I can see it here, doing too much, having no focus, and communicating the benefits poorly.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#173

Post by cod3boy »

simonw wrote: post #149

"If you build it, they will come" is entirely untrue in the world of SaaS. Your first ten (even your first 100) customers will each require an enormous amount of effort to find, convince, on-board and retain. Once you've built a product that ten people are willing to pay for you can probably get to 100. If you can get to 100 you'll probably be able to get to 1,000. But those first 10-100 will be like pulling blood fr…

Thanks for the reading materials. Really relevant, Will go through them in detail.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#174

Post by tnolet »

I'm a "pro" freelancer in the tech space. You've already had many relevant tips and critiques here so I won't repeat them. Just wanted to add this one, as I've seen it firsthand with startups: you are focusing on you. You fail to make me, a potential customer pretty much exactly in the market you are targeting, believe you have any idea how freelancing works and where the pain and value adds are.

Genuine question and not meant as a put down: how long have you freelanced and have you experienced the pain you mention yourself?

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#175

Post by cod3boy »

beautifulfreak wrote: post #119
cod3boy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working on this, thanks. Here is a quick raw video btw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wAeenBe-c here is a quick demo profile btw https://bighead.sievehq.com/

That's not a quick video. It seems slow even speeded up 2X. Even so, the first page ("Hello There") disappears in about a second, despite having some important information. You can't expect people to wait as text is slowly being entered into text fields, so I hope by "raw" you meant that it will be edited to speed up the text entry somehow. (And check your grammar. One page asks, "What is the monetization plans or bu…

When I said quick, I meant we made that quickly, while the comments were happening on HN. Will put together a good one by tomorrow.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#176

Post by cod3boy »

tnolet wrote: post #174

I'm a "pro" freelancer in the tech space. You've already had many relevant tips and critiques here so I won't repeat them. Just wanted to add this one, as I've seen it firsthand with startups: you are focusing on you. You fail to make me, a potential customer pretty much exactly in the market you are targeting, believe you have any idea how freelancing works and where the pain and value adds are. Genuine question and…

I've freelanced on the side for a few years. I used to put together a google form for the requirement collection, then send the NDAs on DocuSign,I had a quite number of people asking me to send an NDA before discussing. Quickbooks for accounting and sometimes PandaDoc for agreements. While putting together this product, I wanted to reduce the friction of getting started with freelancing and put together all of these in a single package. I've also spent time answering previous portfolios, my fee structure etc, which are kind of FAQs, that's why we thought of putting a personal assistant to quickly answer basic questions.

I'd love to hear your points, and probably what are the needs of a pro person like you?

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#177

Post by cod3boy »

mike wrote: post #168
gt_ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they called a “ virtual assistant”? I would just call that an assistant. I have always thought a virtual assistant is a chatbot. In fact, I have never even given one of them a chance bacause I was so sure of it.

Virtual assistant[0] is an accepted term for a human assistant, but agree that with the increase it chatbots it is confusing. Definitely worth clarifying as having a real person answering the questions is a lot more valuable. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_assistant_(occupation)

Noted the point, will clarify in the copy.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#178

Post by cod3boy »

shubhamjain wrote: post #172

In addition to everyone else's wise words: don't try to eat the whole elephant at once. It seems you have tried to solve every problem that freelancer might have, instead of a crisp, well-defined one. The result being, you have created something that is hard to sell because very few people want a drastic overhaul of their workflow. No one wants to replace Skype, an Invoicing software, Squarespace with a software that…

Noted, just to make it clear, we've so far made the personal website, client onboarding, requirement collection with NDAs for now. Invoices, payments, and agreements are yet to come :)

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#179

Post by cod3boy »

alangibson wrote: post #171
cod3boy wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please take a quick look, here is the actual product in the show. I think we failed at showcasing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wAeenBe-c

This plays more like an instructional video than a demo. You spend almost the entire time filling out forms. Consider doing a 30 - 60 sec explainer video that just shows off the sizzle if you really want to have a video. I would also loose Bighetti. You're pitch is 'be more professional' and the first thing you see in the video is a character who's famous for being a lazy idiot.

Noted, now that we are here, can you please take a look at this one too? We had an explainer as well :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23V3LmRUb4

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#180

Post by richardknop »

As somebody who has worked as contractor / freelancer for some years I don't see how this product is any useful to me. It does nothing that I can't do myself for free. For invoicing I'd rather use software supplied by my accountant who does my taxes, seems crazy to use SaaS for that.
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