How to Find Your Earliest Users • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Find Your Earliest Users

#41

Post by tnolet » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 8:50 AM UTC

atinchandel wrote: post #36

tnolet wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits home. Literraly signed up the first paying customer for my monitoring SaaS [0] two days ago. It was done through discussing issues over mail, a tiny bit of “hand holding” and treating the customer as a launching partner (which they totally are). That first Stripe notification is pretty awesome [0] https://checklyhq.com

Hi tnolet I am co-founder of SenseGrow ( http://sensegrow.com ) would try out checklyhq. Was looking for something like this.

Awesome, don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions. Looks like the API checks would really be a good match for your IOT endpoints.

Re: How to Find Your Earliest Users

#42

Post by tnolet » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 8:51 AM UTC

rashthedude wrote: post #32

tnolet wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits home. Literraly signed up the first paying customer for my monitoring SaaS [0] two days ago. It was done through discussing issues over mail, a tiny bit of “hand holding” and treating the customer as a launching partner (which they totally are). That first Stripe notification is pretty awesome [0] https://checklyhq.com

Very happy for you. I'm on the same exact boat, first customer signed up on the 6th of this month which I'm ecstatic about. Wondering if you are German since it says Berlin as the HQ at the bottom of your page?

Hi, I'm not German (Dutch) but live and work in Berlin. The office on the site is indeed my "buro".

Re: How to Find Your Earliest Users

#43

Post by TomK32 » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 10:32 AM UTC

I'm still weeks from where I want to accept customers... and I'm getting nervous.

Re: How to Find Your Earliest Users

#44

Post by mattio » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 11:18 AM UTC

greysteil wrote: post #5

For us (Dependabot) the best advice I ever got was that your initial customers should come from sales, not marketing, even for a really low-price SaaS product. I was literally giving Dependabot away for the first 6 months of its existence, but I was still doing concierge sales on it. When you sell to customers directly you get to hear their reactions and get a much better sense of what's valuable to them. You also ma…

Interesting, indeed you would want feedback from users that want to pay for your product, rather than those who just want to take it for a test spin.

Re: How to Find Your Earliest Users

#45

Post by mattio » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 11:19 AM UTC

tnolet wrote: post #17

greysteil wrote: post #5

For us (Dependabot) the best advice I ever got was that your initial customers should come from sales, not marketing, even for a really low-price SaaS product. I was literally giving Dependabot away for the first 6 months of its existence, but I was still doing concierge sales on it. When you sell to customers directly you get to hear their reactions and get a much better sense of what's valuable to them. You also ma…

This hits home. Literraly signed up the first paying customer for my monitoring SaaS [0] two days ago. It was done through discussing issues over mail, a tiny bit of “hand holding” and treating the customer as a launching partner (which they totally are). That first Stripe notification is pretty awesome [0] https://checklyhq.com

Good luck!

Re: How to Find Your Earliest Users

#46

Post by Gcam » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 11:21 AM UTC

greysteil wrote: post #5

For us (Dependabot) the best advice I ever got was that your initial customers should come from sales, not marketing, even for a really low-price SaaS product. I was literally giving Dependabot away for the first 6 months of its existence, but I was still doing concierge sales on it. When you sell to customers directly you get to hear their reactions and get a much better sense of what's valuable to them. You also ma…

We [0] took the same approach since launching (which has been a while now). We focused on: 1) Outbound calls/emails, and 2) Networks

Rather than relying on the ROI of long term marketing techniques such as content marketing early. Otherwise, it takes too long to learn from your users/iterate on the product.

[0] https://telointerview.com/