171–180 of 264 posts
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> There's absolutely zero chance that they all just happened to be female, nicely formatted [firstname].[lastname]@gmail.com addresses. That makes you fraudulent these days? Man, my wife and I are screwed.
You are female then? The author used the word "all" also.
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This plus the mention of ProductHunt makes me think they fell into the trap of marketing to their fellow creators rather than their audience. That's a common mistake plenty of people make when building anything. Game developers market their games on game development forums, website owners market their sites on web development/webmaster forums, authors market on writing forums, etc. They then forget that the typical p…
I see this advice a lot, but I never really understood what the alternative is. If your product has a specific niche, maybe there are some forums or subreddits dedicated to it, sure. But if it's a game? Some are designed for a niche audience, but most really aren't. Another thing is that most of the forums/subreddits these days have strict rules against self-promotion. And I'm not saying that you're wrong - I'm just…
Even if it isn't designed for a niche, you can still start by marketing to one. Or to a demographic, and advertise to media that targets that demographic.
This is a pretty good atticle, and the product is actually quite solid (maybe a tad overpriced), but this right here is a rookie mistake: > In January, 2019 I launched to HackerNews and some subreddits ... Really? That's a "launch" these days? At least scrounge up a few hundred bucks and throw up some Facebook ads. Reddit and Hacker News have some of the most cynical and thrifty readers out there. Networking and gett…
Actually the YC startup school says you should not pay for customers initially. Paid ads come to a later stage.
Did they give you a reasoning for this guidance?
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I see this advice a lot, but I never really understood what the alternative is. If your product has a specific niche, maybe there are some forums or subreddits dedicated to it, sure. But if it's a game? Some are designed for a niche audience, but most really aren't. Another thing is that most of the forums/subreddits these days have strict rules against self-promotion. And I'm not saying that you're wrong - I'm just…
> But if it's a game? Some are designed for a niche audience, but most really aren't. Even if it isn't designed for a niche, you can still start by marketing to one. Or to a demographic, and advertise to media that targets that demographic.
Because if you're talking about ads, many people (even in this post) are saying that they just don't work for small projects.
Some products are inherently difficult to monetize. I wouldn't give up yet, but another approach is to make the product free and use it as lead-gen for something else (an affiliate product, your own product in a separate niche, or even ads) if you corner the market for the free product it can bring a lot of valuable traffic.
I love your idea of using a free product as a marketing tool. Are there any resources/case studies to validate: "if you corner the market for the free product it can bring a lot of valuable traffic."
(#1 dating site, monetized with Google ads. Ugly. Markus Frind later sold it for $575 million.)
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-markus-frind-bootstrappe...
Writing the software is the easy part of SaaS.
I've run into the situation of people eagerly telling you they want something, but when it comes time to pay for it they vanish.
This is a pretty good atticle, and the product is actually quite solid (maybe a tad overpriced), but this right here is a rookie mistake: > In January, 2019 I launched to HackerNews and some subreddits ... Really? That's a "launch" these days? At least scrounge up a few hundred bucks and throw up some Facebook ads. Reddit and Hacker News have some of the most cynical and thrifty readers out there. Networking and gett…
> Really? That's a "launch" these days? At least scrounge up a few hundred bucks and throw up some Facebook ads. Reddit and Hacker News have some of the most cynical and thrifty readers out there. Networking and getting the word out is half the battle. With such little effort put into the launch, OP could have been selling a dollar for fifty cents and no one would've cared. Eh, I tried exactly this for a "thought bub…
> Solve a real need and research it prior to building. Either build something tiny and get feedback or get feedback before you even start building! I've run into the situation of people eagerly telling you they want something, but when it comes time to pay for it they vanish.
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Actually the YC startup school says you should not pay for customers initially. Paid ads come to a later stage.
Its not particularly useful to just parrot the information without also including their justification; not all of us take YC mantras as the gospel. Did they give you a reasoning for this guidance?