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How and when to acquire SaaS users

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Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#51

Post by TuringNYC »

thelastwave wrote: post #46
TuringNYC wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the fi…

What is NASCAR login?

A NASCAR login is a stack of login options (Login with Apple, Login with Google, Login with Facebook, Login with Twitter, Login with Github...) where you end up having so many stacked logos that it starts to look like a NASCAR racecar (because they have tons of logos on them.)

https://nascar.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020...

Google Identity reference to NASCAR Login: https://developers.google.com/identity/toolkit/images/federa...

NASCAR logins are particularly great (easy entry to convert interested users) and at the same time having a huge number of super-ugly edge cases:

1. If you log in with john.q.doe@gmail.com but originally had registered your gmail as johnqdoe, then your login automatically changes to the non-dot form.

2. If you have already registered via email on john.q.doe@gmail.com, then you cannot login-with-Google in the above case, as both accounts are separate and distinct in the host system.

3. If you have two accounts under your school and work account, but log-in-with-Facebook, and Facebook has both your emails, it gets confused.

4. There are cases where you simply cannot log in due to the network of conflicts across the identity services.

...and yet this is also awesome because you get to convert a registered user ASAP in 95% of the cases.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#52

Post by hamburglar »

thelastwave wrote: post #46
TuringNYC wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the fi…

What is NASCAR login?

A login page that has a million logos on it (login with facebook, login with google, etc)

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#53

Post by smarx007 »

TuringNYC wrote: post #38
dvt wrote: post #36

> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They did have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are…

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the fi…

Just today Redpanda hit HN front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739 and I cannot see how would you give a demo of such a system without having such a system developed in the first place. At the very least, the whole of HN would laugh at such a salesman trick. I do think there is a spectrum of fake-it-before-you-make-it ability for each idea. For some like Instagram is close to 100% and for things like Redpanda it's close to zero.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#54

Post by timjones »

kevsim wrote: post #50

I've got to applaud you for thinking about distribution first. Many tech folks turned entrepreneurs (myself included) think that if they build a great product, they'll get usage. Doesn't work that way. But I will also say that I suspect your strategy is possibly a little naive. I hope it's as easy as you've laid out, and I'm envious of the viral aspects of your proposed product. However, I suspect the "top of funnel"…

Thank you! And I agree 100% with what you've said. I could preface every sentence with maybe and I think but then it wouldn't be on the HN front page :)

I know that everything I'm laying out will be much harder than I've made it seem. I see this strategy as being a north star, but necessarily a hard and fast path.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#55

Post by macNchz »

TuringNYC wrote: post #38
dvt wrote: post #36

> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They did have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are…

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the fi…

Yes I think you described this approach well. I've worked on a bunch of things built this way... as an overall approach it will certainly minimize the chance that you waste time building something totally un-sellable.

On the other hand, I've seen organizations using this "BVP" approach for absolutely everything they build, which I've come to view as a sort of product development antipattern, reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the top. It's like the polar opposite of a moonshot: building things in such tiny increments that you can only ever achieve a local maxima, because the higher summit requires a bigger leap.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#56

Post by Kye »

elcomet wrote: post #44
b20000 wrote: post #26

I applaud your success. To me it seems that by putting distribution first, or focusing on problems to solve, that you typically end up with markets or problems you are personally not really excited about. I've done this exercise many times. I can either work on something I think is cool and there is a niche market for, but does not really "solve" a problem but addresses a "want", or I can work on something I have zer…

> Niche market, [...] , probably a big market Which one is it then?

Maybe a weird example: most fursuit builders also take mascot commissions from non-furries. They target a small niche, but also a big market.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#57

Post by justiceforsaas »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #34
Descartes1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but getting your tweet actually read is a whole other ball of wax.

Step 1: Have 100,000 followers Step 2: Instant Marketing Success Step 3: Tell everyone how easy social media is

Literally describes 100% of IndieHackers threads about "I sold 540 copies of my products on Twitter in 8 hours".

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#58

Post by TuringNYC »

macNchz wrote: post #55
TuringNYC wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the fi…

Yes I think you described this approach well. I've worked on a bunch of things built this way... as an overall approach it will certainly minimize the chance that you waste time building something totally un-sellable. On the other hand, I've seen organizations using this "BVP" approach for absolutely everything they build, which I've come to view as a sort of product development antipattern, reflecting some lack of a…

>> reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the top

Sure, but my assumption would be -- if you suddenly get registrations, signups, or even conditional trial accounts, great! Now I have some validation, and I'd jump in immediately and start building out the product fully.

...then, if I get even more engagement, even greater! Now I can start planning some scale-out.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#59

Post by szemy2 »

b20000 wrote: post #26

I applaud your success. To me it seems that by putting distribution first, or focusing on problems to solve, that you typically end up with markets or problems you are personally not really excited about. I've done this exercise many times. I can either work on something I think is cool and there is a niche market for, but does not really "solve" a problem but addresses a "want", or I can work on something I have zer…

You really hit the nail here! I have written about this (https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-myth-of-interesting-bo...) and I am still struggling to break from this. If the problem is interesting, it is probably cutting-edge in some way, ergo it is hard to solve, hard to bootstrap.

The best way imo to break this, is to build a bunch of small things that individually work but collectively point to and solve a more difficult problem. Kaleido.ai is a good example of this, they have created remove.bg and unscreen as individual products but are building something full-fledged.

I'm doing the same with CAD tools for Architects.

I started building https://cadcheck.xyz which brings me slightly closer to a larger solution that would be nearly impossible to build without VC funding.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#60

Post by detaro »

TuringNYC wrote: post #38
dvt wrote: post #36

> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They did have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are…

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the fi…

What's the definition of MVP then?!
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