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My app failed: lessons learned

rithm.app

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Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#81

Post by sizzle »

jfengel wrote: post #34
rexreed wrote: post #15

Good lessons. But so many common mistakes To summarize: 1) Build something people really need, not a nice-to-have 2) Keeping customers is more important than just acquiring them 3) If you're not keeping your customers that means they don't want or need what you have 4) Changing people's behavior is really hard. Unless you have a significant amount of marketing budget, don't try to change people 5) "Distribution" is k…

Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need". People buy stuff they don't need all the time. Games and other entertainment are the very definition of "nice to have", and they're vast markets. Even business tools are usually not "needs" if all they do is improve an exis…

unless you target necessary industries niches e.g. banking, big pharma, etc.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#82

Post by kylebolt »

somenewaccount1 wrote: post #37
kylebolt wrote: post #2

So early 2020, I launched Rithm, an app that helps you build habits, reach your goals and stay motivated. The 1st version was a chatbot app, think of it like an accountability coach that you text with to track habits and stay accountable. Rithm landed as the #4 product of the day on ProductHunt, had some good initial traction which proceeded to fall off a cliff. Here are the 8 lessons for a failed version 1, see vide…

Looks like you are still working on learning distribution. I'm typing on a mac, but own an android. i still can't use or try your app :(

I thought failing on 1 platform would be more economical than failing on 2 :)

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#83

Post by brianwawok »

cortesoft wrote: post #61
rexreed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to run a business, then yes, it needs to be something people need, because you're asking people to give up something of value to them. Money and/or time. If you ask for something of value you have to provide something of value in return. Of course, the need can be anything that people find valuable. It could be a product or a service or just a way to stay connected or entertainment. Whatever it is, i…

I don't really understand your definition of need. You define a 'need' as anything that people find valuable, but I would classify 'nice to have' as also being things someone finds valuable. How do you distinguish something that is a 'nice to have' and a 'need'?

If you sell to a business, your software makes a job go from needing 3 employees to 1 employee to do. You saved the business say $6000 per month. As long as your software cost less than $6000 per month, it helps the business be more profitable.

Selling to a person, to learn a new habit.. what is the dollar value to that? If a user cannot learn something on their own, that shows low commitment to that task. What then makes them open their wallet to commit to something else?

I think it's really hard to make money off bettering yourself, and really easy to make money selling to businesses. At least that is my view, and why I do B2B SAAS.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#84

Post by [deleted] »

jfengel wrote: post #34
rexreed wrote: post #15

Good lessons. But so many common mistakes To summarize: 1) Build something people really need, not a nice-to-have 2) Keeping customers is more important than just acquiring them 3) If you're not keeping your customers that means they don't want or need what you have 4) Changing people's behavior is really hard. Unless you have a significant amount of marketing budget, don't try to change people 5) "Distribution" is k…

Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need". People buy stuff they don't need all the time. Games and other entertainment are the very definition of "nice to have", and they're vast markets. Even business tools are usually not "needs" if all they do is improve an exis…

[deleted]

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#85

Post by LeonM »

jfengel wrote: post #34
rexreed wrote: post #15

Good lessons. But so many common mistakes To summarize: 1) Build something people really need, not a nice-to-have 2) Keeping customers is more important than just acquiring them 3) If you're not keeping your customers that means they don't want or need what you have 4) Changing people's behavior is really hard. Unless you have a significant amount of marketing budget, don't try to change people 5) "Distribution" is k…

Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need". People buy stuff they don't need all the time. Games and other entertainment are the very definition of "nice to have", and they're vast markets. Even business tools are usually not "needs" if all they do is improve an exis…

> Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need".

Replace "need" with "desire" and suddenly it makes sense.

People have a desire to socialize (facebook), people have a desire to be heard (twitter), people have a desire to communicate (messenger apps, phones), people have a desire to travel (automotive, travel), people have a desire to be entertained (netflix et al). Etc. Etc.

You don't really 'need' any of it, but there is a very high demand, and thus a big market.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#87

Post by dnautics »

mdorazio wrote: post #72
rexreed wrote: post #15

Good lessons. But so many common mistakes To summarize: 1) Build something people really need, not a nice-to-have 2) Keeping customers is more important than just acquiring them 3) If you're not keeping your customers that means they don't want or need what you have 4) Changing people's behavior is really hard. Unless you have a significant amount of marketing budget, don't try to change people 5) "Distribution" is k…

To your #5, I find that developers tend to be allergic to the term "marketing" because it's easy to think it's a waste of money or the department of flashy do-nothings if you've never tried to actually build a business yourself.

I doubt that's why they are allergic to it. Perhaps I'm projecting, but I suspect that developers have seen their fair share of products which succeed (for some measure of succeed, e.g. "raised a round" or "founders cashed out") with only marketing and a crap or, worse, vaporware product. It's a very common and easy fallacious inference to go from there to "all marketing is bad", especially in a field where there are a handful of success stories (e.g. craigslist) where the success was built with very little or no marketing, and "the product spoke for itself".

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#88

Post by kylebolt »

bambax wrote: post #58

Slightly OT: I built myself a journaling app that sends one email every day to remind me to write about that day; I respond to that email and the response gets stored in a db as an entry for that day. The system doesn't try to be clever in any way, it just sends and receives emails; it's proven quite effective. It's been running for about two years now and there are only a couple of days missing, if that. It's very i…

This sounds interesting, I think the advantage here is that you've focused on 1 use case where I was focused on many habits. Keeping it focused on one niche like journaling makes more sense.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#89

Post by kylebolt »

mdorazio wrote: post #78
bambax wrote: post #58

Slightly OT: I built myself a journaling app that sends one email every day to remind me to write about that day; I respond to that email and the response gets stored in a db as an entry for that day. The system doesn't try to be clever in any way, it just sends and receives emails; it's proven quite effective. It's been running for about two years now and there are only a couple of days missing, if that. It's very i…

Also OT: I built something very similar, but with text messages and asking for a positive thing that happened during the day rather than a journal entry (forcing myself to look for positive things in a day helped snap me out of a spiral toward depression in the early days of lockdowns). I spent a weekend getting it to the point where it was good enough to share with friends and family, and about a dozen of them signe…

Yes people find it hard to stick to new habits let alone tracking them in an app. Good experience building these things nevertheless.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#90

Post by pacman2 »

kylebolt wrote: post #2

So early 2020, I launched Rithm, an app that helps you build habits, reach your goals and stay motivated. The 1st version was a chatbot app, think of it like an accountability coach that you text with to track habits and stay accountable. Rithm landed as the #4 product of the day on ProductHunt, had some good initial traction which proceeded to fall off a cliff. Here are the 8 lessons for a failed version 1, see vide…

You app with the chatbot is a bad nightmare. I would never use something like it.

Combine a Tamagotchi with your app, have the user "feed" them with his "habbits". At least you would combine two things.

With the chat bot? Move on.

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