How to masquerade self-publicism as a how to?
No, it's passing experience on to others so they can benefit from it, aka teaching.
How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
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Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#12I really like this post. The one thing I feel it's missing is the major step of vetting an idea. Is it WORTH doing? I literally get cold emails every day from entrepreneurs who say, "I've spent a big chunk of my life building this thing and none of the ways I've found to acquire customers is working in a scalable way" (they generally don't word it that way, but you get the gist). It's gut-wrenching. Maybe that's a di…
I'm working on the vetting an idea post for OnStartups. It's a huge topic and a very important one. A lot of entrepreneurs seem to vet their idea like VCs. The criteria is somewhat similar, but it's not the best way to go about it. We're talking vetting an idea internally before even going after simple MVP/customer validation, correct?
Yep-- vetting the idea/market. (verbal) Customer validation can be a part of that, I imagine.
I think you're right-- it's a big topic and people have radically different frameworks ranging from "I just want some side income" to "I eventually want my own island". The biggest thing that seems to trip people up is figuring out (before they build it!) if there's a way to scalably acquire customers. Unless people have a well-understood distribution channel they can tap and an ARPU obviously high enough to buy customers through it, entrepreneurs generally have to hustle (sell 1 customer at a time, beg for coverage, write targeted linkbait, etc). And hustling doesn't scale. Hell, with some products/markets, it doesn't work at all.
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#13I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles.
Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit but then what?
You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be profitable), your initial press powder has been shot. Traffic collapses to near non-existent levels and your first customers do not seem to be going out of their way to tell their friends about your product.
That's a much harder problem to solve than just to get to the launch date.
Launching something is like a marriage, the first honeymoon period with a new fledgling company.
If it works out during the 'dating' period you might end up marrying the wrong company, or it may be the right one but it will require skills and expertise that you do not have that go way beyond coding or talking to your existing circle of potential customers.
That's when the real work starts. Getting to launch is the easy bit.
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#14How to masquerade self-publicism as a how to?
If you know me, I could really care less about the traffic one article brings. Here's what I do care about: the comment I would have gotten - "Give us examples please" So I gave everyone examples of what we did.
I do know you - you're the type of person that calls people who try to do you favors & curse them out for not being able to get your startup on techcrunch.
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#15I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles. Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit but then what? You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be profitable), your initial press powder has been sh…
500% agree here. You should write something about this. (My newest crusade is to get anyone with any experience to start writing).
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#16I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles. Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit but then what? You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be profitable), your initial press powder has been sh…
I believe your POV is fairly subjective - I've run e-commerce ops with $15k+ in revenue from "month one".
It matters how much effort you are putting into marketing - SEO, Blogging, Affiliates, SEM, Display ads, PR, Retargeting, A/B Testing (& direct mail, telemarketing if they're the right fit for your product)...
Testing & optimizing these before launch is critical to gaining a steady flow of traffic & customers. If you don't do this & focus only on the "launch post" on TC/Mashable/TNW/RRW then you can easily fall flat after launch, otherwise you definitely have a fighting chance.
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you know me, I could really care less about the traffic one article brings. Here's what I do care about: the comment I would have gotten - "Give us examples please" So I gave everyone examples of what we did.
I do know you - you're the type of person that calls people who try to do you favors & curse them out for not being able to get your startup on techcrunch.
Whatever you're talking about I think you've mistaken HN for your inbox. Please take it to email, whatever your beef is.
Public mudslinging is to nobody's benefit.
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#18I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles. Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit but then what? You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be profitable), your initial press powder has been sh…
I believe your POV is fairly subjective - I've run e-commerce ops with $15k+ in revenue from "month one". It matters how much effort you are putting into marketing - SEO, Blogging, Affiliates, SEM, Display ads, PR, Retargeting, A/B Testing (& direct mail, telemarketing if they're the right fit for your product)... Testing & optimizing these before launch is critical to gaining a steady flow of traffic & customers. If…
15K of revenue on your first day is absolutely amazing, what site was that?
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#19I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles. Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit but then what? You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be profitable), your initial press powder has been sh…
With Stormpulse we "launched" with a post on Hacker News that got us a whopping 200+ visits in a single day! Then we lingered at 50-100 visits per day for over a year. Then we figured out distribution (embeddable widget) and traffic is no longer a problem (we did get a TC mention a few months after the widget launched).
So freemium really worked for us in getting through that post-launch desert plain. Aside from the cost of supporting the free users, our out-of-pocket advertising expense has been <$100 since the start of the company to present day.
Re: How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps
#20I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles. Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit but then what? You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be profitable), your initial press powder has been sh…
500% agree here. You should write something about this. (My newest crusade is to get anyone with any experience to start writing).
Does there exist a library of the "best" startup focused articles written across the net? Kind of a Digg-fashion voting system?