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Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#11
post #10

I'd focus Bugmunches on a very important piece of that is buried: Send feedback reports directly to GitHub, Trello and others

I'd also add many screenshots of what it does. Don't talk about what it does, show it. Check sites like mixpanel and intercom to see how they present stuff.

Also, make the video shorter and more entertaining (check crazyegg video)

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#12
Don't give up! You have a lot to improve on your website, marketing & UX.

Here's what I think: 1. I only saw the "Feedback" widget AFTER seing the movie. Either make it bigger or point a big arrow on it. 2. I'd love if I could adnotate highlights with some text. 3. Your prices are too close together, so the cheapest one still seems expensive. Try testing with 2x price for Start up and 10x for enterprise.

BTW, I am using http://www.criticue.com to get feedback on my websites, you can use that too.

Good luck with the project!

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#13

Don't throw the towel yet, You can sell the technology behind your site. You can package the whole thing and sell it so that people with big software QA shops can use this on their own sites.

I've started down this road a few times, with some fairly high profile companies, but it's never come to anything. Probably because I have zero experience selling enterprise software.

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#14
post #11
post #10

I'd focus Bugmunches on a very important piece of that is buried: Send feedback reports directly to GitHub, Trello and others

I'd also add many screenshots of what it does. Don't talk about what it does, show it. Check sites like mixpanel and intercom to see how they present stuff. Also, make the video shorter and more entertaining (check crazyegg video)

Thanks for the feedback. Updating the homepage is now top priority, as it seems to be the most common advice here. I'll be sure to make the third party integrations more prominent.

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#15
This might seem insignificant, but it's a good example of how you could improve your marketing with little tweaks.

On your pricing page, the 'Personal' plan has one check mark and three red "X"s. Why have the Xs at all? It's not that your personal plan is bad, it's just that the other plans are better. It makes me feel like I shouldn't be clicking "Start Free Trial", because it's right below three symbols of negativity.

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#16
From my experience advising other SaaS product owners, this is unfortunately a tough but common spot to be in. You have a product, a few customers, but not enough and don't know how to grow it.

Of course, like others have said, you could change your landing page and your pricing and a few relatively important things, but in my opinion these are just surface things and you need to first ask yourself a few questions:

- do you really understand your customers? What keeps them up at night? What do they look for? Do they look for solutions on Internet? Do they buy things? etc.

- go into full focus on your ideal customer. Describe it precisely. Look into personas.

- now, how can your product fix one problem for your ideal customer? Make it real, not vague statements everyone can say yes to (fix bugs like a boss, imho, is not the root of the problem)

As far as I understand, you need to shift your mindset from focusing on your product to focusing on your customers. Go interview them, get on the phone with them, look at them using your software, get a feel of why they don't use it or stop using it...

Lately, I've written several blog posts on this topic if you like, you will find it here: saasfoundry.io/blog

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#17
post #16

From my experience advising other SaaS product owners, this is unfortunately a tough but common spot to be in. You have a product, a few customers, but not enough and don't know how to grow it. Of course, like others have said, you could change your landing page and your pricing and a few relatively important things, but in my opinion these are just surface things and you need to first ask yourself a few questions: -…

Thanks for the great advice, I've been considering this a lot. I'm currently working on a whole new landing page that will focus more on the customer and what they gain from BugMuncher.

I'll definitely check out your blog.

Re: Ask HN: Should I continue with my bootstrapped startup?

#20
My name is Florian, I'm one of the co-founders and CEO of https://usersnap.com Since we're competitors, I won't add specific advice. However I'd like to encourage you to stay in business as I'm absolutely convinced that the market we're in is big enough and that the idea behind the products we're building is a great idea.
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