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How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

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Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#31

Post by ineedasername »

boxcarr wrote: post #29
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #8

I have an interesting question. Say there is an already established business that has more than proven the idea is viable. What does it take to... join the same market space? Can you offer the same features at the same price? Can you offer the same features at a lower price? Can you offer less features at a lower price? Are there cases where there is only room for one player and no matter what you do, you will not be…

Super simple. No matter the industry, you can beat the competition with AI + blockchain written in Rust.

I still remember when all it took was synergy and outside-the-box thinking.

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#33

Post by enraged_camel »

csytan wrote: post #9
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #8

I have an interesting question. Say there is an already established business that has more than proven the idea is viable. What does it take to... join the same market space? Can you offer the same features at the same price? Can you offer the same features at a lower price? Can you offer less features at a lower price? Are there cases where there is only room for one player and no matter what you do, you will not be…

"What does it take to... join the same market space?" Speaking on the SAAS space. IMO the bar for entry is getting higher every year. It's getting easier and easier to build apps, and the number of developers keeps growing. What does it take to join the same market space? Here's some strategies: 1. Find a niche that is being ignored and really needs your specific product. This is getting harder to do. 2. Raise money.…

>>Speaking on the SAAS space. IMO the bar for entry is getting higher every year. It's getting easier and easier to build apps, and the number of developers keeps growing.

The flip side of the coin is that demand for software is increasing, as software is "eating the world". This is why average salaries for software developers have been increasing: growth demand is outpacing growth in supply.

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#34

Post by exodust »

Presentation is not good. Endless headings followed by double space followed by short paragraph or bullet points.

Hard to read, annoying to scan. I can see a lot of generic fluff. There may be pearls in there, but I didn't spot any on quick glance.

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#35

Post by aeriklawson »

boxcarr wrote: post #29
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #8

I have an interesting question. Say there is an already established business that has more than proven the idea is viable. What does it take to... join the same market space? Can you offer the same features at the same price? Can you offer the same features at a lower price? Can you offer less features at a lower price? Are there cases where there is only room for one player and no matter what you do, you will not be…

Super simple. No matter the industry, you can beat the competition with AI + blockchain written in Rust.

Don't forget deep learning!

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#36

Post by joshmn »

boxcarr wrote: post #29
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #8

I have an interesting question. Say there is an already established business that has more than proven the idea is viable. What does it take to... join the same market space? Can you offer the same features at the same price? Can you offer the same features at a lower price? Can you offer less features at a lower price? Are there cases where there is only room for one player and no matter what you do, you will not be…

Super simple. No matter the industry, you can beat the competition with AI + blockchain written in Rust.

VR! It's all about VR!

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#37

Post by defenestration »

Very insightful. While reading the article, I realised that having freedom is my core motivation. And that (a bit of extra) freedom is the biggest thing my company can give people. We enable people who are diagnosed with cancer to be in charge. To not feel defeated, to make decisions and set their path. Will use this to update our messaging. Thanks for the article!

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#38

Post by funkaster »

> Helped launch more than 500 mobile apps

I don't want to discredit the author... but that number seems way too high. 500 apps for a period of "more than 10 years" (which usually means prob is just 10 years or really close to it) implies that you would've had to release (on average) 4 apps per month non-stop during 10 years. How can you have time to do anything else?

I get you're not developing each app, but if you're helping them, then you must allocate some reasonable amount of time per app, otherwise your contribution would be close to zero (not relevant).

Was that a typo? I could believe 50, but 500?

Re: How to Acquire Your First 100 Customers

#39

Post by encoderer »

I will circle back and read this over the weekend but my advice is this:

Get to 10 customers, and then double down on anything that worked.

Some ideas for the first 10:

- write an essay about something interesting that you can weave your business idea into, submit to tech blogs like hackernoon

- join a maker group that can help you in an informal quid pro quo with social media shares and upvotes

- launch on hacker news, product hunt and indie hackers. All have their rituals. Spend a little time, not too much, to get it right.

- contact all the people you talked to before/during product development (bc you did talk to people, right?)

- use an seo keyword research tool or just start searching for things and use the suggestions at the bottom of the google results. Write actual content on your website that is directed toward answering these questions. Seo compounds slowly so start early.

- find places your customers are (questions on quora or stack overflow; Facebook groups; etc) and learn about them and interact without being spammy.

These are the techniques we used to take Cronitor to 10 customers and then hundreds more.

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