Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#51

Post by nwsm » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

Checked out the website and I still don't really know what it does. Why is it better than any of the popular dataviz products?

Your site says "forget excel", but the only example is something I could easily make in excel. I suppose you have better options for "gathering data from any data source", but I don't think that's apparent currently.

I agree it's probably most about marketing!

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#52

Post by amelius » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

Perhaps telling us what the app is really about would help.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#53

Post by skmurphy » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

You may not like Excel but most people who "NEED A QUICK ANALYSIS FOR YOUR BUSINESS" (to quote your copy from https://www.jigdev.com) rely on it.

I think you have a solution in search of problem.

Showing it to more people is not the answer. Adding features only helps when you have someone who has a clear point of dissatisfaction with Excel.

Who is so dissatisfied with Excel that they will take the time to install and learn a new tool.

Excel has a lot of debugging checks built in to catch mistakes and if they make a mistake in an Excel sheet they can ask many people to double check their work.

If they are the only Jig user in the firm they are completely on their own.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#54

Post by ngokevin » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

I highly recommend going through YC's startup school. After having gone through YC once and in the middle of my second attempt at startups, I'm still learning every single day. It's extremely difficult, and I feel I need to absorb everything to even have a chance. Doing anything else besides their playbook and mantra is going blind.

https://www.startupschool.org

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#55

Post by junon » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

Get a content writer. There are a lot of words saying very little on your front page.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#56

Post by ReflectedImage » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

Yeah, I got to front page of hacker news but I'm only getting 80 unique users per day on my website. Through there are now also 200 unique bots per day. (Where do all these internet bots come from?)

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#57

Post by anm89 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

> CEO OR CTO?

> NEED A QUICK ANALYSIS FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Coming to this site for the first time I had no idea what your were talking about. If I had come randomly I would have left right away.

2 recommendations:

1) Put a one sentence literal no marketing description of your product at the top so I know what it does, maybe " Jig: A programmable tool for generating metrics for startups" or whatever it is.

2) Use full sentences. When the context isn't clear "CEO OR CTO?" is confusing. After establishing what the product is, then start your pitch in complete sentences :

"Are you a CEO or CTO?

etc.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#58

Post by encoderer » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

If your goal is to build a free tool that will be used and beloved by millions, you probably need to continue building on a deeply technical foundation and blog about it the whole way. It's ancient history now but a master class of this is when Damien Katz built and live-blogged Couchbase, like 2004.

If your goal is to build an indie software business with hundreds or thousands of customers where you're making like 10-100k a month, i can give you more specific advice.

Based on your website, it's not clear what you're after.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#59

Post by nickff » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

d--b wrote: post #22

GianFabien wrote: post #19

I read all of your site and checked out Observable as well. In spite of that I still can't succinctly answer the following: Who is the target market? What urgent, important problem does it solve? You claim "Jig makes writing business apps faster than ever before." But I can't find any compelling evidence to backup that claim. Sales and marketing are harder than it appears. If you haven't done it before then your best…

Thanks so much for taking the time. I will try and refine the message and target.

I would suggest that you describe someone's problem, and explain exactly how you solve it. This should be a relatively narrow group (like restaurant franchisees, or people running Shopify stores selling soap), who will recognize how your product can help them.

Re: Ask HN: I built it, nobody came, now what?

#60

Post by anitil » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 12:03 AM UTC

d--b wrote: post #31

d--b wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok sounds like an easy first step. Thanks for the tip.

What it does: Jig helps CEOs/CTOs get custom insights about their businesses without using much developer time. Install the beta from https://www.jigdev.com

"Jig. Gets you from CTO to CEO"