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I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#31

Post by vvvnnnnvvv »

Jugurtha wrote: post #27

Incentives, my friend.. This is the situation where both the Boss and the Employee have nothing (or little to gain). It may appear weird, but indulge me. I have seen this happen over and over. - Say employees are paid X amount a month. Now, with their current method, they can be slimey and not deliver, and then tell the boss it's complicated, Photoshop, etc.. So it's just few cards to deliver per day. Maybe they have…

One of my CS professors gave us this advice about starting a company (which I think generalizes what you're describing):

Companies don't care about saving money. Even when the amount is the same, they're much more receptive to pitches that involve them making extra money.

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#32

Post by logicuce »

I think you should fight this problem with larger availability. Create a website and put it online for people to download.

Moreover, if you can make it a webapp, even better where you can charge per ID card generated.

I have seen people having this problem and they paid decent money for the ID card generation. You are just targeting wrong audience. Don't talk to people who generate the cards, appeal to people who want the cards.

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#33

Post by plicense »

Open source your code. Let it get noticed by recruiters from big companies. Get hired by one of them. Make money. This is the current career model and is counter intuitive. Hey, Google and Facebook are free products! Imagine what would've happened if they were paid?

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#35

Post by muyuu »

_random_ wrote: post #15

What if you implement in-app purchases. It will look like a free program, but when they get used to it: "Bang! You have used all your id-card-coins for the week. Would you like to buy more?". This is how consumers are owned these days and they seem to enjoy it.

A lot more dishonest... but haha so true!

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#36

Post by dragons »

plicense wrote: post #33

Open source your code. Let it get noticed by recruiters from big companies. Get hired by one of them. Make money. This is the current career model and is counter intuitive. Hey, Google and Facebook are free products! Imagine what would've happened if they were paid?

This is a legitimate suggestion. Just keep in mind not everyone wants to be an employee. Maybe OP wants to run a little business, rather than just make money. OP is asking a specific question, not looking for life coaching.

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#38

Post by clutterjoe »

> Why do people want everything for free when other > have put a lot of effort on making it?

Ask yourself this: do you like to pay top-dollar for every product and service you buy? There's your answer. If given the choice, you would also want everything for free.

What was the asking price for the software? $1 or $1,000 changes the calculus in the customer's mind. Did you consider a subscription-based service? Charge a small amount every month and you get a steady source of income, and the customer thinks they're getting a deal.

> The creation of ID card is generally done with > photoshop and separately edited for each card

This may be true for an institution you're familiar with, but cannot possibly be true everywhere. ID badges are ubiquitous and creating them en masse is a common problem (Google the competition: http://bit.ly/1sW6BKq). Photoshop is expensive, and while it's great at putting mustaches on the faces of the ID photos, it's not great for creating a ton of badges. Not to mention that it's difficult to find administrators with Photoshop skills that want to remain administrators.

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#39

Post by eddieroger »

graeme wrote: post #18

>Why do people want everything for free when other have put a lot of effort on making it? I don't think that's the problem. People will pay if what you build solves their problem. More specifically, they'll pay if they see that what you build solves their problem. Before building, you should check: 1. Do they have a problem? 2. Do they know they have a problem? 3. How much of a problem is it for them? 4. Who, exactly…

I actually just had this experience. I was in need of a simple REST client to test APIs, and I know I could write one, but I figured I'd do a quick and dirty search and went to the Mac App Store to see if there was a decent free one. None of the ones in there were free (which I expected, because putting stuff in there isn't free). I found the highest rated one, went to the developer's site and downloaded the trial. The software is great, and it has more features than I could possibly have imagined, many of which I won't even use. It also has some idiosyncrasies that don't fit in with my workflow. So now I'm stuck with the question of whether or not I want to buy it anyway, or build my own, which I know I could.

OP is fighting that urge, especially since they're not selling a full packaged solution outside of badge creation - namely, identity management, or security access controls, etc. Customers may not be thrilled with the manual process, but don't find it a problem they'd spend money on. You have to know your audience, and either appeal to their problem, be cheap enough that it doesn't matter, or abort.

Re: I built an application to solve a problem but got nobody to buy it

#40

Post by pathy »

brudgers wrote: post #23
pathy wrote: post #2

You are probably pitching your product to the wrong audience. Your customer is not the one actually making the cards, rather their boss. Making the cards only costs the employees time, something they don't mind wasting for the most part. For the manager or owner it directly costs money, time wasted on making cards costs the employer money in the form of wages. They are also the one with the purchasing power in an org…

To me the right customers are bosses who are making the cards...or rather owners who are doing so. This is a tough sell to a bureaucracy because it's a bureaucracy.

This is certainly true. Saving the owner of a small-ish business several hours over the course of the year is valuable, and probably an easier sell than selling the same to a large state-run school.
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