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I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

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Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#311

Post by kukkeliskuu »

lbotos wrote: post #67
bluedino wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually agree, but Lemonade (insurance) has an amazing support bot.

uh, I beg to differ. I felt like an autocomplete with a knowledge base and "direct links to the right email forms" would have been faster than the fake chat interface that the "bot" uses. (Also, if you own a home in NY and use lemondade -- do know that they don't cover cast iron piping (extremely popular in NYC). I found that out at renewal...)

I am implementing a support system for my side project, which combines the knowledge base (FAQ) with the chatbot. You can access all the answers by browsing the FAQs. If you want to contact me, you first talk to the chatbot, which has been prompted to only answer based on what the FAQ says. If it cannot answer based on that, it will make sure all the details and problem description is there, and then forward the ticket to me. In other words, chatbot is the first line of support.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#312

Post by maerF0x0 »

hermitcrab wrote: post #270
jimbokun wrote: post #152

This reminds me of the book 4 Hour Workweek. That book is really about Tim Ferriss figuring out how to automate and delegate everything in his business, until he only has to put in 4 hours a week to keep it going. Until you reach a similar point, as this article shows, you don't really have any "passive" income. You just have another job.

Does anyone really believe that Tim Ferris only works 4 hours a week?

I think it's common sense that the title was chosen for marketing reasons, not as a factual description. (iirc He even talks about testing titles for the book in the book)

I do believe there could be weeks where it's only 4 hours of maintenance. But no one in their right mind believes they can build an asset base of recurring income sufficient for living on 4 hours of total effort per week. The real message of the book was about arbitrage. Geo arbitrage to live somewhere that costs 1/2 the price to work 1/2 as many hours. Eliminate the "80%" of the low value work. Use the same arbitrage to outsource the remaining low value/low skill work. Only do the high value hours yourself.

That's the idea at least.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#313

Post by aussieguy1234 »

I have a side project. Its fairly easy to use and self explanatory. I get about 2-3 emails per week, that is with around 15,000 monthly active users and ~$400/month in revenue which is growing slowly over time. The service is stable and I don't usually have to keep an eye on it.

For any "difficult" enquiries when a customer is not happy for any reason, I just refund them, its not worth my time arguing about $10 a month. Over the life of the project that has only happened once or twice.

By the time the emails get hard to manage, i'll probably already have hired someone else to respond to them.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#314

Post by Marsymars »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #262
Marsymars wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My worst customers were the ones that ask for discounts, or are otherwise looking for a deal. I get where you're coming from, but it's hardly surprising that a business's favourite customers are those who are happy to get fleeced. And as a customer, if you're not already a subject-matter expert, you have no idea which business is trying to fleece you or not unless you price compare and try for discounts everywhere.

If you think getting charged asking price is getting fleeced, then you are kind of illustrating my point. I don't want a customer that thinks they are getting fleeced by doing business with me. I don't want a customer who thinks that paying asking price for a product is me taking advantage of them. I don't want a customer that thinks I am starting the relationship as an adversary rather than a partner in a mutually b…

> If you think getting charged asking price is getting fleeced, then you are kind of illustrating my point.

No, that's explicitly not what I'm saying.

Of course, you, as an honest business that stands behind their work, prefers customer who are happy to pay your asking price while not being a pain in the ass. But that's going to be exactly the same stance as your competitor who spends half the effort on their product and double the effort on marketing. They really don't want savvy customers to ask many questions, because they don't have a product to back it up.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#315

Post by hinkley »

tailspin2019 wrote: post #111
nashashmi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being ghosted after helping a customer I am one of those people. Gotta keep in mind to let people know that the solution worked

Me too but I only ever do this unintentionally, and it usually corresponds with a delay in the reply from support coming back to me. (Ie I’m now focused on other things or have solved the problem a different way). Whenever I’m conscious enough of it I do try to thank people - trying to remember how hard it must be on the other end!

I wonder if there's a kind way for the manufacturer to prod the customer and ask for a followup.

Coupon? Careful phrasing? Sending puppies?

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#316

Post by hinkley »

perlgeek wrote: post #186
authorfly wrote: post #9

Wow I can really relate. The customer support efforts when you don't feel like it, being ghosted after helping a customer, the random or fraud disputes. It's really tricky at that stage between hiring help and having the time/motivation to maintain those very non-tech parts while trying to continue doing other core parts of the side project / startup. The first sale feels great, as does first showing the prototype. B…

> being ghosted after helping a customer I guess that's a matter of expectation. A ticket system I've worked with in the past had an "autoclose" state where you could set the ticket to automatically close after a set date if no reply comes in until then. If a reply comes with the info that it worked, I get a smile and close the ticket. If not, I never see the ticket again, no hard feelings.

I wonder how often I've given up and switched to a competitor when it just seemed clear we were going to go back and forth and make no progress.

I know it's more than once, but less than 100%.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#317

Post by hinkley »

Waterluvian wrote: post #47
authorfly wrote: post #9

Wow I can really relate. The customer support efforts when you don't feel like it, being ghosted after helping a customer, the random or fraud disputes. It's really tricky at that stage between hiring help and having the time/motivation to maintain those very non-tech parts while trying to continue doing other core parts of the side project / startup. The first sale feels great, as does first showing the prototype. B…

I wonder if there's often a mismatch between what one thinks a business is going to be like, and what a business is actually like. One of the things that keeps me away from doing stuff like this is that I _hate_ every part that isn't the engineering part, and the engineering part is a minority share of what it takes to run a business.

And if you get a partner, they will insist that the part that is engineering is even smaller than it objectively should be and end up leaving you with a minority position in the product you invented.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#318

Post by hinkley »

zerkten wrote: post #62
Waterluvian wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's often a mismatch between what one thinks a business is going to be like, and what a business is actually like. One of the things that keeps me away from doing stuff like this is that I _hate_ every part that isn't the engineering part, and the engineering part is a minority share of what it takes to run a business.

We know the answer to this even before modern tech businesses existed: running a business is a very different experience from what people expect. This is exacerbated with certain experiences that create worldviews which are closer to the opposite of running a business. This is why startup people straight out of school are often unencumbered with ideas that impact their mission. If you go into a large organization, yo…

It was practically dogma ten years ago that the CEO that built the business was not the CEO that took you public. In the late '00s and a big chunk of the '10s they swapped board members in order to go big.

But if you kill the culture before the IPO, then you have nothing and nothing.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#319

Post by sam_perez »

anticorporate wrote: post #38

Some advice: If you're going to monetize a side project, and you do it in a way where you're providing direct support, be sure the customer base it targets are people you actually want to deal with. Whatever the niche, imagine the worst people you've encountered on it, and be sure you want to use your spare time talking to them. Otherwise, the juice is likely not worth the squeeze.

How do you ensure this? Are you suggesting more analysis pre-building the product, or doing things like increasing the price until you've effectively filtered out enough of the people you don't "want to deal with", assuming that works.
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