Please can we move on to a better term than 'bootstrapping'. It is non specific, means little to non-HN peeps and is just hard on the ears. How about self-funding?
Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
41–50 of 110 posts
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#42Is it possible to block all websites from asking about enabling notifications? Every time I have allowed it have I regretted it, and every time I see the little dialog box asking for my permission do I feel slightly more desire to just close down the tab and read something else.
In Chrome, Preferences → Advanced → Content Settings → Notifications → [Enable Blocked].
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#43here's my problem if anyone is willing to lend a helping hand: i'm building an enterprise saas product that involves some cool buzzwords and potentially really adds value in the space i'm targeting but i'm getting no traction. i have an mvp (phone app and webapp) to demo to customers. i have the decks and sales pitch. i'm a reasonably smart and articulate person and communicate well (able to "speak sales"). yet becau…
It's a networking and numbers game. Did you guys pick this product out of the blue, or do you have industry experience? If you have industry experience, reach out to your network. Both for trying to get actual leads and for simply soliciting their feedback, even if they won't be a customer themselves. The feedback in and of itself will be valuable, and after you've exposed it to them, they may know of someone to conn…
good advice all around. thank you.
> If you have industry experience, reach out to your network. Both for trying to get actual leads and for simply soliciting their feedback, even if they won't be a customer themselves. The feedback in and of itself will be valuable, and after you've exposed it to them, they may know of someone to connect you with, and eventually you'll land on someone that's willing to bite.
i didn't have industry experience when i started but the rest of the team does (decades worth). we've been doing essentially this - leveraging their network to "solicit feedback", i.e. pitch the product.
> Is the added value worth the headache of integrating your tool?
this is probably the crux of the issue for me. there is too much operational cost in actually rolling out the product i think. a lot of it revolves around the customer essentially reselling this product. we've considered taking reseller sales in house (i.e. customer signs a contract with us and we resell our own product on their behalf) but that basically multiplies my problems ten fold.
> Are you BANT qualifying them
no and i should be for every call. thank you. i need to make a list of thing i'm trying to learn about each lead on each call.
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have to target enterprise customers rather than small businesses? Enterprises have very complicated decision-making processes that can be hard to navigate if you're not experienced, and even harder if you don't already have traction. Small businesses on the other hand will normally try out a demo of the product and decide on the spot if they like it or not. They aren't all that way, but if you talk to 50 10-pe…
it's true that one of the difficulties has been finding who exactly in the larger organizations to pitch the product to. early on we figured out that it should be people with a budget (i.e. those directly in charge of p&l) rather than executives or product teams but we've actually been "gatekept" from getting access to those people. but this is a good idea. i've tried cold outreach but to larger organizations. i'll t…
I had success with pitching to consultancies. They have the right contacts and are probably interested in re-selling your cool and innovative product. Contact details of the right managers are usually published on their website because they want new customers to call them (but no one is stopping you to contact them for pitching :)).
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#45Hire cheap and hire people smarter than you. Good luck with that.
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#46Is it possible to block all websites from asking about enabling notifications? Every time I have allowed it have I regretted it, and every time I see the little dialog box asking for my permission do I feel slightly more desire to just close down the tab and read something else.
My recommendation: leave. Websites won't stop doing something intrusive and annoying until it costs them more than it gets them.
Yeah but how are they going to realize people are leaving because of that one specific thing?
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#47Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#48I’ve been building a SaaS product for the last year or so while working a day job and raising a family, and am only now close to the point of having something I consider beta-able (https://www.contabulo.com).
I think I made the mistake of getting too fancy with the architecture (but designing architecture was too much fun to resist), so I’ve ended up with something that’s a collection of Clojure services on the backend, running on several linodes along with rabbitmq, elasticsearch, etc. Well, at least it should scale decently, if the need arises :fingers crossed:
So this project has probably taken way too long to get to a MVP. But hey, the day job won’t let me do cool stuff like use FP languages, design architecture, do front end work, etc., so I need some sort of creative outlet :)
Now if I can only find some folks willing to test this thing. So far I’ve only gotten a small handful of email sign ups via my landing page. Maybe it’s time to spend some money on AdWords, etc.
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#49Sorry: Wrong Thread.
Does this study also consider that children remain living at their parents' for longer and longer? For example, it is not bizarrely uncommon in Spain to find people in their late twenties or thirties still living with their parents.
Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping
#50I’ve been building a SaaS product for the last year or so while working a day job and raising a family, and am only now close to the point of having something I consider beta-able ( https://www.contabulo.com ). I think I made the mistake of getting too fancy with the architecture (but designing architecture was too much fun to resist), so I’ve ended up with something that’s a collection of Clojure services on the bac…
Start with things that don't scale. Approach people directly.