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6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

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Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#21

Post by rcfox »

tr352 wrote: post #19
blakesterz wrote: post #2

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

Related to this: I wonder if the days of founders naming their companies after their own (family) names are ever coming back. There’s something wholesome about it and it inspires confidence. Who is more trustworthy: someone attaching their name to their business, or someone who hides behind WeeBlee or BlooBloo or whatever it is they came up with?

I've always dreamt of doing that, but someone else already used my name: Fox. Even if there weren't probably some kind of trademark issue, there's definitely a negative sentiment associated with it.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#22

Post by kaishiro »

viklove wrote: post #20
jtbayly wrote: post #17

"A $5 monthly membership adds up to $72 per year." Nope. Might want to fix that. https://lunchmoney.app/features/recurring

I don't even understand how you could get a number not ending in 5 or 0 and think it's remotely correct...

Presumably because they used to have $6 in the copy (or in their head) and fat fingered it.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#25

Post by DoreenMichele »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We".

That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak."

The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally changed his name to something normal WASPy sounding because it was a barrier to doing business. I have seen at least one article on the front page of HN where a woman founder was being sexually harassed and generally treated terribly by clients when doing support chats. She changed her picture and her name to make it appear you were dealing with a man and that largely stopped.

I'm a woman and I've had to deal a lot with awful behavior from people, much of which is pretty clearly rooted in misogyny, basically. I'm still not sure what the best path forward is for me.

One part of me is clear that hiding or downplaying my gender to try to be successful just reinforces sexism. Another part of me has to wonder if that's a hill I really want to die on or would I rather be able to, you know, eat more regularly and what not.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#26

Post by tr352 »

rcfox wrote: post #21
tr352 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to this: I wonder if the days of founders naming their companies after their own (family) names are ever coming back. There’s something wholesome about it and it inspires confidence. Who is more trustworthy: someone attaching their name to their business, or someone who hides behind WeeBlee or BlooBloo or whatever it is they came up with?

I've always dreamt of doing that, but someone else already used my name: Fox. Even if there weren't probably some kind of trademark issue, there's definitely a negative sentiment associated with it.

Add your first name or just your initials. That would pretty much solve that problem.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#28

Post by hef19898 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #25
blakesterz wrote: post #2

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We". That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak." The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally change…

Damn, I might be guilty as charged! Not long ago, I officially launched greenleaves.io, a logistics startup. The main issue I have with the about us thing is, that for now it is just me. So I use a lot of we and such (the co founder will join as soon as there is enough money to sustain a second person, we both have family, so...).

Would you to have quick look at https://greenleaves.io/about/? Because the last two weeks told me that I might be overthinking a couple of things...

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#29

Post by hef19898 »

codysc wrote: post #5

The bit about the lack of a mobile app, and the over-compensating for it was a great illustration of guessing at the importance of features to users. Something I'm dealing with a lot right now as I strip out incomplete features to get to a better MMP. Thanks for posting.

I had that revelation last week. Well, actually earlier but it took a while to settle.

The plan was to build product until around May / June, simply because I wanted a little bit more sophistication than spreadsheets ( these would do the job, by the way). A chance encounter with a potential customer ended with me sending an offer after his most important question was "are your transports insured". Pretty much looks like my MVP is much more M than I assumed!

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#30

Post by DoreenMichele »

hef19898 wrote: post #28
DoreenMichele wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We". That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak." The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally change…

Damn, I might be guilty as charged! Not long ago, I officially launched greenleaves.io, a logistics startup. The main issue I have with the about us thing is, that for now it is just me. So I use a lot of we and such (the co founder will join as soon as there is enough money to sustain a second person, we both have family, so...). Would you to have quick look at https://greenleaves.io/about/ ? Because the last two we…

Try reading this: https://johnnycupcakes.com/pages/about

Then sit down and "tell your story" in writing as if you were telling it over beers at a pub to a few new-ish friends who don't all equally well know your backstory. Get someone to read through it before publishing it. Good feedback is very helpful. Also, grammar check, spell check, etc.

You want to be somewhat entertaining, but more importantly you want to capture as succinctly and compellingly as possible why you are uniquely/especially qualified to offer a new and better solution to an old and tired problem space, basically.

There's also a movie clip I like and I've written about why elsewhere, so let me link you to that write up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizenPlanners/comments/ecr2vv/get...

I actually suck at the doing business thing or I would no doubt have some brilliant tie-in here to "And if you have trouble with that, you can hire me..blah blah blah." This is why I still work for a writing service. And I blog.

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