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Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

projectorpm.com

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Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#31

Post by edwinnathaniel »

euroclydon wrote: post #29
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this: March 0.02 April 38.85 May 64.75 June 76.75 July 122.60 August 99.80 September 129.75 October 109.75 November 199.60 December 119.75 January 149.70 February 249.45 March 369.25 So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from…

You sir, are a genius. I'm always surprised with these simple ideas (i.e.: Cupcake Wrapper Creator).

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#32

Post by alexkearns »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

As encouragement to the poster, and evidence to back up what you are saying, here's the month-by-month subscription figures since launch for one of my SaaS projects:

50 155 460 510 730 1200 1225 1645 2180 2185 3085 3310 3805

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#33

Post by facorreia »

bdunn wrote: post #28
jasonkester wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but the only person who considers the "root" of your product blog to be the blog home is you. Everybody else thinks they're reading a blog on your product site, and that clicking the logo will take you to the root of that. In other words, the homepage for your product. When it doesn't, they tend to simply hit the back button enough times to leave.

Agreed. BTW, I just changed this. Clicking the logo while at the blog now returns you to /

Well done for fixing it so fast. You're really serious about being responsive.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#35

Post by bdunn »

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #30

Congratulations on your launch and getting your first few customers. Would you mind to share your strategy on entering a crowded market (in this case, project management tools)? Did you do any market research on your competitors?

Edwin, I spent a lot of time reading freelancer forums and saw a lot of the same questions being asked: "How can I make invoice time less painful?", "I don't like being pestered with status update requests", and so on. Obviously, it's a very focused product - freelancers and consultants who want a tool aimed at bettering client relationships.

I didn't really do any market research, outside of having used other tools in the past. I think we have a very specific audience, and forum activity, etc. showed that there was a gap that had to be filled. We've already had quite a few users thanking us for building a tool that's making their clients happier (=== they make more money consulting!)

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#36

Post by ahoyhere »

bdunn wrote: post #25
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

Thanks for the link :)

That graph is nice but this is the real graph you want to see:

https://img.skitch.com/20120331-ft3faju2jpqseq3ucff1fgi31h.p...

That's the "estimated" (all open trials) revenue growth for Freckle over its whole life time. Look how stagnant it was, then slow, and for how long. And compare that to now :)

NB: real billing, trailing a month behind any given date, is 5-15% less than the estimate (due to trials not continuing etc).

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#38

Post by monsterix »

bdunn wrote: post #25
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

That story from Amy, is super awesome stuff. Not many have made it to that point - 3 years - however.

On the other hand, all this discussion seems more like a silver lining towards disruption in angel investing space too. Sublime for entrepreneurs, disastrous for others may be.

It's threads like these that make my day at HN :)

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#39

Post by bdunn »

follower wrote: post #37

Often I see the advice of "charge more", in light of that, the "Agency" plan at $99 per month seems low and makes me wonder if you could charge more.

I probably could. In fact, I could probably charge more across the board - two of my paid users said that it's more valuable to them than they're being charged (remember: the underlying goal is to help these people get more repeat work + more money!)
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