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The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

kitze.io

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Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#221

Post by openknot »

willcipriano wrote: post #165
openknot wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter ads are widely seen as ineffective versus other advertising channels (to verify for yourself, you can check r/PPC, r/marketing, and other subreddits via a site:reddit.com Google search). Results are likely lower due to poorer analytics, which translates to your ads not appearing to the most relevant people. Google Search Ads and Facebook/Instagram ads are seen as more effective in comparison (results are like…

Let's say you are a guy in a basement spending your own money. What is the minimum spend that you see for advertising to be at all effective?

It depends on what you’re selling, but roughly $500 per month is seen as solid on the r/PPC forum (that is, no major objections when brought up), with $100 a month as not outrageous (especially as a starting point). My assumption is that the forum is credible and not astroturfed (which seems fairly reasonable from intuition).

I wish there were a scientific study to lean on as a more credible source. I personally don’t have direct experience for budgets smaller than $1,000 a month, back when I did work with some non-profits.

Roughly $100 a month sounds plausibly viable at the lowest uncomfortable end with skill, but you also need that skill in graphic design to make an effective ad, persuasive writing, and a good idea of how to target the right audience. That perspective also costs time to learn from books and/or money if outsourced.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#223

Post by alexalx666 »

anothersullivan wrote: post #69
pflenker wrote: post #3

A big fallacy that I always see - and that is implied by this post - is that the work ends after shipping, a.k.a. "build it and they will come". That doesn't happen any more. So after you "ship" it, you need to promote it, advertise it, create buzz around it and make people use it. And that is a totally different kind of beast than coding something. But on the flip side, if you develop a side project just for yoursel…

I completely agree. A couple months ago I received the same "Ship It" advice on a HN Comment. I did, but no one came. Marketing feels like an orthogonal skill but can not be overstated enough.

I think it was the book called Blitzscaling that talked about the fact that some kind of "unfair advantage" with regards to access to market should be built in to your product. They mentioned LinkedIn and their "import address book" feature

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#224

Post by rozenmd »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #213
rozenmd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sitting here running the 200th uptime monitoring service, laughing at the notion you have to be first to ship a solution to a problem. Build something good, that people want, and iterate rapidly as feedback comes in.

It seems a bit rich to say that when your SaaS has https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30427048 I'd say it's even contrary to "laughing at the notion you have to be the first to ship a solution to a problem".

Why?

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#225

Post by pkrumins »

aliswe wrote: post #205
pflenker wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations! Though in claiming that since it worked in your case, it will work in the majority of cases you commit the anecdotal evidence fallacy.

aka Survivorship bias.

Aka the best type of bias.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#226

Post by pkrumins »

pflenker wrote: post #175
pkrumins wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so wrong. I built it and they came. And when I say they, I mean millions of users. Here's my blog post about it: https://catonmat.net/if-you-build-it-they-will-come

Congratulations! Though in claiming that since it worked in your case, it will work in the majority of cases you commit the anecdotal evidence fallacy.

Thanks! I love the anecdotal evidence fallacy. It's my favorite fallacy.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#227

Post by VMtest »

psygn89 wrote: post #155
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They "can" but will they?

If it prints money and can be made in a weekend then of course. However, the more niche it is to an audience or knowledge needed beforehand (i.e. simple music generator) it would no longer be a weekend project.

this is with regards to GP

GP asked 'They "can" but will they?'

No, they won't

in reality most people won't do it because they don't know whether it will print money

your comment "If it prints money" doesn't apply in reality and it comes off as if you won this argument to HN readers, which in fact no

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#228

Post by hansonw »

donatj wrote: post #158

I have been working on a side project for going on 12 years now. In that time a bunch of competitors popped up. I gave up on the idea several times. All the competitors shut down their public APIs though, which is why I started up on it again about 5 years ago. I've got it in a place I really like. I use it daily. The biggest blocker for me right now to making it open is wanting improved security. I ideally want all…

plug in https://www.etebase.com/ and ship it :D

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#229

Post by VonGallifrey »

executive wrote: post #72
konschubert wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, thank you for having a go over it! This is great feedback. I find it really, really hard to take good pictures and even harder to take video. I am getting help with that and I hope the situation will improve. yes, there is a companion app, should I make that more clear? The contact page is labelled imprint because that's the law here in Germany... I could have an additional contact page though. The two privacy po…

Looking better already! On clickthru Shopify page, there are some decent photos. But would replace/remove the Amazon text in one of them. Also would show the back / cord & connector. Yes, would have apps page with direct links to store. Re: contact page. Is this actually true? This page for example still says contact when viewing Germany version of page. https://teenage.engineering/contact Re: privacy: you could have…

> Re: contact page. Is this actually true? This page for example still says contact when viewing Germany version of page.

That is a Swedish site and as a foreign organisation, they are exempt from the Imprint requirement in Germany.

Imprint is generally something that should be present on a german website, though it isn't really enforced. You could get sued though if you don't have it.

Re: The saddest “just ship it” story (2020)

#230

Post by MaKey »

LVanguard wrote: post #80

I had this experience a couple of months ago when I noticed a gap in the shopify app ecosystem. I saw some comments discussing this need, found nothing in the store, and had a friend starting a shop that could potentially use it as well. Worked on the app for 2-3 months, polishing, coding, learning tailwind and a bit of formal UI design in the process. Kept thinking "It's not ready yet. Just needs this hook into the…

You could still ship your first app, even if you've now got competitors.
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