It seems like the product handles a few of the bureaucratic nuisances a freelancer has to deal with, but forgets about one important issue: finding actual clients!
Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
231–240 of 325 posts
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#232Emperor Akbar, on a whim, once asked his minister Birbal to find him ten fools. You can get the gist here (Source: http://folklore.usc.edu/?p=24202 ). Birbal stumbled across the third fool while the latter was looking for something at night. The guy was looking under a streetlamp and couldn't seem to find whatever he was looking for. Birbal asked him what he was looking for so frantically. He explained that he lost h…
> Collect an email address just before anyone clicks get started. That's a sure way to collect a bunch of mailinator.com addresses.
And if the end goal was to get everybody's real email addresses, this would be a calamitous failure.
This guy just needs some feedback. Even just a fraction of real emails would be better than none.
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#233As someone who's done some freelancing as a software dev, I don't see much value in the product.
None of the features offered by the product resonate with me.
For managing appointments, I usually do it all over email. Most major email clients support calendar invites.
Also, most freelancers already have a website and if not they can setup their own site very quickly with little effort.
I think the product is in a very competitive space. All the ideas I can think of in this space are already taken or they are impossible to monetize.
For example an invoicing app for freelancers is a great idea but already taken. Also it's hard to monetize because there are so many free alternatives available that it doesn't make sense for a freelancer to pay for it.
Another great idea is a SaaS solution to allow freelancers and their customers to sign and fill out documents/forms online. That idea is already taken and again hard to monetize because there are many free solutions already available.
I think that ultimately if the problem is simple to solve, then the market will be competitive and the amount that customers will be willing to pay for it will approach $0.
If you're not among the first people to solve a specific problem or the solution isn't able to leverage network effects, then the problem needs to be difficult to solve... Or else your profits will be eaten away by the competition once their product reaches parity with yours.
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#234Emperor Akbar, on a whim, once asked his minister Birbal to find him ten fools. You can get the gist here (Source: http://folklore.usc.edu/?p=24202 ). Birbal stumbled across the third fool while the latter was looking for something at night. The guy was looking under a streetlamp and couldn't seem to find whatever he was looking for. Birbal asked him what he was looking for so frantically. He explained that he lost h…
I'm not a freelancer, but I'd assume the biggest problem getting started with freelancing isn't the NDAs etc. It's getting clients. Maybe your marketing should be geared to people who are already freelancing and who want to upsell/become more professional?
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#235I'm at problem zero, how did you get 600 people to come to your website, what channels did you use? Some piggybacking here, if anyone is up to giving advice https://smileydelta.com/
If you really want some comments, why not start a new thread that is more likely to be seen?
(After looking at your front page, I have NFI what your company is, does, or why I should give you money.)
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#236> It's not the product,
No, it is the product.
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's "SV character"?
See the guy on their demo page [0]? He's a fictional character [1] on the HBO show Silicon Valley [2]. [0]: https://bighead.sievehq.com/ [1]: http://silicon-valley.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Head [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_(TV_series)
Using copyrighted photos for commercial purposes without permission will bring in some nasty letters from lawyers (demands for takedown, demands for payment, etc.)
And to a potential customer, it indicates a lack of basic trustworthiness - if someone is unaware of or uncaring of the basic laws about copyright, should I trust them with my credit card number?
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#238Whoah! You're charging $348 dollars a year and you don't even have a professional video done yet? You are already expensive and this is an MVP!
Also you have some 15 minute onboarding process. 15 minutes is like 150 years in web time. What kind of freelancer has the time for that.
im not sure who your target is. Freelancers could mean almost anything. You're not going to attract the hacker crowd but that should be obvious to you. Hackers already know how do all this and they aren't going to pay you $348/year for stuff they can do easily on their own.
Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#239I also clicked on signup, but then didn't. Here is why: I wanted to sign up to test the product, but after clicking on signup I get a Typeform modal. Typeform as a signup form makes me suspicious that the product doesn't really exists, and the startup is doing some sort of landing page -> signup validation. You also ask that I enter my credit card and you want to charge me 10$ upfront, without having established any…
Thanks, Makes sense. Before we were asking $348 ;-) but then our program was that we'd giveaway shares for the first 100 people. The whole thought process behind that was, We are a small team of hustlers wanting to build the best experience for freelancers to work with their clients. Soon in our journey, we realized building a startup is a lot of work, and it’s hard to focus on multiple areas. This is why we’ve launc…
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Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?
#240As someone who's done some freelancing as a software dev, I don't see much value in the product. None of the features offered by the product resonate with me. For managing appointments, I usually do it all over email. Most major email clients support calendar invites. Also, most freelancers already have a website and if not they can setup their own site very quickly with little effort. I think the product is in a ver…
Good points. I think you overestimate first mover advantage here. It's not that people are already solving all these problems, it's that the solution he's come up with is not unique or compelling or distinct from those services in anyway. It's just a kitchen sink.