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I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

indiehackers.com

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Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#211

Post by oulu2006 »

nunodonato wrote: post #137
oulu2006 wrote: post #93

3 products 1st one didn't sell 2nd one sold for 000s 3rd one sold for 000000s 4th one ? so really went the other way, quality over quantity

what do you think was the cause for that kind of increase? quality? different target? complexity?

right people mostly, I partnered with someone different for the 3rd startup; from my experience with the first 2 i realized the sort of person I needed as a co-founder.

Someone to compliment my deficiencies, domain expertise and with the same focus and mindset to succeed -- most startups fail because of founder issues.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#212

Post by somename9 »

phkahler wrote: post #191
nzach wrote: post #19

I just want to share my recent personal experience. Recently I've finally decided to try creating something new that people would find useful hoping that some day I would be able to turn a profit from that. So I vibe coded a pretty bare-bones (but fully functional) version of my idea and started to talk about it in several platforms, including IndieHackers. And the main "advice" I've got after talking with a few peop…

IMHO you should not be marketing a product to software developers. That market is completely saturated and most of the tools are free. Today's super-simple big market idea: We got my elderly mother a flip phone and it's too hard to use. I'm going to describe what would be ideal for her now, and by all means DON'T think up additional features to "make it better". She needs a phone that when opened/activated it give a…

[dead]

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#213

Post by pbrum »

This stuff is hard. Today was the first time my little startup started sending out little videos of demo features to the group of about 20+ people (all friends/family/close colleagues) I'd interviewed in round 1 of customer work. How did it go? Ok, but not great. The disappointment in there is not from any negative reactions, but rather to the large amount of non-reactions (simple things like "oh cool" and nothing else from someone who knows full well how important this is to me).

But that's ok! I know maybe they'll have more time later. If not, I will nudge them. And I have other people to ping and later will move on to cold pitching anyway. And I've read in countless founder books, testimonials, etc about how hard and laborious this is. Keep a firm mindset, be systematic about going through all the steps, never skip a day of work, meet your own deadlines, have a bulletproof work ethic. Rome wasn't built in a day!

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#214

Post by siwatanejo »

TheDong wrote: post #160
jimkleiber wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol I love it, been hoping something like this existed, thank you

If you want an overly long slightly different version of that video, you could check out the Folding Ideas video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw

Haha brilliant. I remember my ex going to courses from guys that claimed to have become successful "entrepreneurs", and when I asked her what's their main income from? She told me: well, selling courses. (PS: So the course basically consisted of teaching them how to speak in public lolololol.)

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#215

Post by monocultured »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #170
eddythompson80 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I package shovel-industry futures into financial instruments and sell them to speculators.

and I create a cryptocurrency whose name is shovel but has nothing to do with the shovel but its just for the hype.

May I offer you an animated shovel NFT that will cement you as an early trailblazing thoughtleader in the earth-moving space?

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#216

Post by AndrewOMartin »

fxtentacle wrote: post #128
fxtentacle wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely, they booked some advertisements to push revenue but didn't honestly account for the ad expenses. I've seen that way too many times with Indie products that they brag about large revenue numbers and "forget" to mention that profit margins are negative. I remember once hearing about a start-up that resold baby diapers at a loss. Obviously, they were easily able to scale up customers and revenue ...

found it: "Critically, he did not understand margin. At the end of December when things were getting truly desperate, he said to me “Phil, just bring me a forecast that shows how much we need to sell to break even.” He did not understand, after three years of negative margin, that increased sales resulted in increased losses." from Ecomom Post Mortem by Philip Prentiss

"We lose money on every sale, but make it up on volume"

> https://barrypopik.com/blog/we_lose_money_on_every_sale_but_...

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#217

Post by DanielVZ »

bob1029 wrote: post #72

37 is one of those numbers that keeps popping up in certain places. Whenever I see it in a headline, I go in feeling like I'm about to be bullshitted by the author.

It’s because it’s what people think of when trying to come up with a random number. So when people use it it’s generally not because they naturally encountered it but they needed a relatively high random number to make a bullshit point.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#219

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #82

"After launching 37 different products over the last few years, I've had one go viral and almost all the others struggle to get any traction at all." Imagine if these "products" were subject to the laws of product liability in the United States like real products sold there. Why do software developers call websites or apps "products". Why not just call them "websites", "apps" or just "software". For example, "After c…

Is social media a "product"

By "social media" I am referring to websites that only as intermediaries (middlemen) and fail to produce any content themselves

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