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My app failed: lessons learned

rithm.app

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Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#141

Post by kylebolt »

Ancapistani wrote: post #116
nowherebeen wrote: post #52

> The app landed as the #4 product of the day on ProductHunt, had some good initial traction which proceeded to fall off a cliff. This is why you don't post on ProductHunt. Your target market isn't there. Its nothing more than an ego trip for so many founders.

Full disclosure: I've not been down this road, so I'm talking through my hat here. Posting a project to ProductHunt is unlikely to get it in front of your target demographic, but that doesn't mean it's worthless. People will download your app and if all goes well some of those people will leave you a positive review. That matters for ranking, which gets your app in front of people. If you get some good reviews, that…

We also launched via paid ads (spent around 2k on Apple Ads and FB ads)

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#142

Post by kylebolt »

blacktriangle wrote: post #103
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…

Number 7 is a subtle but huge problem. I ran into this way back when I was trying to sell a small, education-focused GIS system I wrote as an alternative to the monstrosity that is ArcGIS. Students loved it since it was easy to use (only had maybe 5% of the functionality of ArcGIS, but it was the functionality that covered 90% of basic analysis.) The department heads I spoke to loved the idea since it was drastically…

The worst part about a lesson like this is that it can take years to really get to this conclusion. I'm trying to ask myself "who is the buyer of this product". This is happening a lot in digital health where the payor isn't the end user.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#143

Post by rcurry »

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…

Sure, this is true. In 500 BC I would have lived in a cave. But now I have a garage, it has a door, and one thing I need is an app that lets me open the door when I get back from cycling. Fortunately, there’s an app for that!

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#144

Post by kylebolt »

tdaltonc wrote: post #121

Great write up! I wrote a book on habit formation in apps. https://usetemper.com/digital-behavioral-design/ I run a sub-reddit that get's at least 1 post a month from someone launching a new habit tracking app. https://www.reddit.com/r/Habits/ My last company made SaaS to help app publishers understand and strengthen the habits in their app. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dopaminelabs I'd add one item to you…

This is true, "habits" is too general of a topic. This is why Strava chose cycling as their first sport and expanded from there. Smart of you to focus on fasting, hot topic! Wishing you all the best.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#145

Post by kylebolt »

JoblessWonder wrote: post #106

Stack Rank reminds me of a mistake our owner made... We purchased a tall Sprinter van for mobile work. When we went to purchase a second, he asked for feedback/complaints and heard it was "blown around in heavy winds." To compensate, the next one they bought was not a tall model. No one wants to use it because being able to stand up straight while in the rear is much more important than the few times we drive in heav…

Stack rank is very underrated as a prioritization tool

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#146

Post by kylebolt »

asdev wrote: post #95

This seems like a classic case of "build and they won't come". I feel like OP could've validated that the market for a product like this is too competitive quite easily before writing a line of code.

Well I built it, they came but they did not stay! Would love to know your thoughts on how to validate something for retention.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#147

Post by dnautics »

brianwawok wrote: post #99
dnautics wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Marketing on a bad product sometimes lets you make money. No marketing on a good product seldom lets you be successful. The mistake of founders is to let burns from the first bucket, stop the second from having a chance.

That's a paraphrase of what I wrote

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#148

Post by granshaw »

allenu wrote: post #33

I think the biggest myth with apps today is "if you build it, they will come". I think it was true 10 years ago when the iPhone App Store was getting started, but not today. The thing is, having a ton of competitors in the space means you will have to work extra hard for your app to be seen and then picked. "Lesson 4: Distribution" in the post is probably the most important thing here. Marketing and SEO are huge in t…

> the biggest myth with apps today is "if you build it, they will come"

Are there really people who still think that? I thought it was common knowledge that market knowledge, sales, and marketing are an order of magnitude more important than the tech.

I shudder to think of those who quit their jobs and jumped all the way in without knowing this basic fact

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#149

Post by wsc981 »

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'd say it's also just not fun. For example setting up a product page on Steam and the iOS AppStore is just a royal pain for me, and I would think most developers would feel the same. It's much more fun to code.

Re: My app failed: lessons learned

#150

Post by tjs8rj »

kylebolt wrote: post #80
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #21

Here's my take on selling: 1) Sell to people who can write the check, and have a budget to spend That's my entire advice. It seems obvious. If you're selling to an individual, choose a demographic with money to spend. And charge a price to fit into their budget. If you're selling to a team, don't. Sell to the person buying products/tools for the team, the one with signing authority. They make the ultimate decision. A…

My next product is going to be totally focused on this single point -> Sell to people who can write the check, and have a budget to spend

Note that this isn't the first step. In order: identify a problem, talk with people (first with those you think have the problem) to learn more about it: Is it actually a problem? How are people addressing/solving it? What are the pain points? Is it severe enough to warrant a better solution? Would anyone pay for a solution? How much would they pay? How many people would pay for that solution? Can I make the solution? Can I distribute the solution?

If you get a bad answer to any of these, you need to do some thinking and talk with more/different users, and if no change then you probably can't make a business on this (and don't need to continue along the chain until then). Once those are true, then yes, sell to the people who can write a check.

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