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Launching a product in just 3652 days

medium.com

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Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#51

Post by benediktdeicke »

goblin89 wrote: post #48
benediktdeicke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that the pricing isn't perfect, yet. I'm currently segmenting by visitors/day as it seems to be the only way to separate bands into the different plans based on their popularity and success. It's also directly bound to the costs on my side (more traffic -> more server resources). I'm happy to hear suggestions on how to make sure a band making tons of money doesn't end up on the smalle…

> I'm happy to hear suggestions on how to make sure a band making tons of money doesn't end up on the smallest plan I can’t help thinking that coarsely segregating customers into plans and overly streamlining the sign-up process might not be the optimal choice in your case. Why not just drive everyone to contact sales directly like, for example, landing page for Ellington CMS does[0]? You can still market a cheap new…

That's a good idea. I'll experiment with that. Thanks!

I'd probably bill Metallica a lot more than that… ;)

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#52

Post by raverbashing »

benediktdeicke wrote: post #33
raverbashing wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate more? Does the CMS has things like /news, /bio, /photos etc and then the designers/front-end work on top of that? Great project btw! I am a fan of these bands as well

The websites don't have a fixed structure. As a front-end developer/designer you're able to define templates with a set of elements (text, image, datetime, concerts, twitter integration, collection of other templates, …). The schema of the templates define the forms in the content management section of the CMS. I hope this screenshot helps to clarify things a bit http://drif.tt/1KfpfoI :)

Cool, thanks!

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#53

Post by p0larboy »

brobinson wrote: post #25
shubhamjain wrote: post #21

The point in the article that deserves more attention is how creating a landing page was the most useful tool for the author. Sometimes I feel, before writing the first line of code of the project, the more important thing to do is to create a landing page and market it to the concerned audience. This solves three problems - 1) You won't build something people don't need. 2) You get into touch with people who actuall…

The "idea/market validation" landing page + $100 advertising budget is a key concept from the "Start Small, Stay Small" book the author mentioned. It's saved me from wasting time/money a few times so far, and I'm sure it will continue to do so in the future!

Read the book and launch my own landing page: http://www.getcueapp.com/. Spent around $120 on adwords and had around 2% conversion rate.. I am not so sure about the quality of conversion because I didn't do the double opt-in method as suggested.

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#54

Post by jblok »

nstart wrote: post #9

This is such an awesome story. I've been two features away from launching my product from April. And that's just launching like an Alpha version of it. Beating procrastination is never easy. Just have to motor through. I'm determined to launch before end of the month. As a side note, I recently got someone who promised to bug me each week on my progress. I've also arranged to have a meetup with him once every month.…

What about this as a new side project idea:

A platform that allows you to find other random people at a similar stage in their side project and become 'buddies' and have to have a weekly catchup about your progress. Then you're both sort of accountable to your buddy, or at least have to report to them what you've done!

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#55

Post by luxpir »

Just wanted to chime in with a few words of support - have been working on my own 'side-project' on and off for some 2000 days myself. Did pick up some 200 users along the way, but finally got the working MVP ready to go this year. A few tweaks required still, but testing can finally get underway now.

Good luck with Stage and to everyone else good luck with your longterm bootstrapped projects!

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#56

Post by zhte415 »

benediktdeicke wrote: post #38
medikoo wrote: post #30

Product makes great impression. Still I have a slight problem with pricing scheme. If for a band 5GB is not enough, and needs e.g. 10GB instead, it needs to put out 120€ per month more. That sounds hostile. It would be probably better if pricing scheme is more modular, and pure hosting capacity aspects are priced reasonably. Additionally option of yearly licenses with hosting on side of a client would be a big plus

Thank a lot for your feedback on this! Based on my past experience the storage limits are well over the actual needs. It usually only grows when bands have a lot of photos on their website. At the moment I'm implying that a band with a lot of photos has been around for quite some time and is probably also somewhat successful by then, so they'd have to choose a larger plan anyways (because of increased traffic). Yearl…

It might be worth outlining a bottom-line for yourself, from which to value-add.

Start with your value added.

For the extra:

For example, 40GB monthly bandwidth on DigitalOcean currently costs YY, therefore my cost is bandwith cost is XX depending on how much extra (new resources to spin, and people to admin this) is used.

Don't pick a number from the air. Have some bottom line to, first, make sure you're in the black, and second, can re-buff pricing challenges.

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#57

Post by mdpopescu »

hbhakhra wrote: post #3

I think this is something much of the HN crowd can relate to, starting projects and not completing. Great work on finally launching a product. Hopefully I can get to the other side of the tunnel. My goal for this year is to just bring in $1 from something outside my full-time job and hope that snowballs into more motivation and a growing business.

$1 doesn't help; I sold about $100 worth of indietracking.com in four years. It was really disappointing :(

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#58

Post by mdpopescu »

jblok wrote: post #54
nstart wrote: post #9

This is such an awesome story. I've been two features away from launching my product from April. And that's just launching like an Alpha version of it. Beating procrastination is never easy. Just have to motor through. I'm determined to launch before end of the month. As a side note, I recently got someone who promised to bug me each week on my progress. I've also arranged to have a meetup with him once every month.…

What about this as a new side project idea: A platform that allows you to find other random people at a similar stage in their side project and become 'buddies' and have to have a weekly catchup about your progress. Then you're both sort of accountable to your buddy, or at least have to report to them what you've done!

Maybe couple this with a gamification idea, getting points for successful weekly reports? I don't know if that would be useful or really evil...

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#59

Post by nstart »

jblok wrote: post #54
nstart wrote: post #9

This is such an awesome story. I've been two features away from launching my product from April. And that's just launching like an Alpha version of it. Beating procrastination is never easy. Just have to motor through. I'm determined to launch before end of the month. As a side note, I recently got someone who promised to bug me each week on my progress. I've also arranged to have a meetup with him once every month.…

What about this as a new side project idea: A platform that allows you to find other random people at a similar stage in their side project and become 'buddies' and have to have a weekly catchup about your progress. Then you're both sort of accountable to your buddy, or at least have to report to them what you've done!

Here's a pretty hardcore version of that idea https://gofuckingdoit.com/ . Put your money up, and if you don't make your deadline for your friend to verify it, your money goes to your friend.

Re: Launching a product in just 3652 days

#60

Post by brobinson »

p0larboy wrote: post #53
brobinson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "idea/market validation" landing page + $100 advertising budget is a key concept from the "Start Small, Stay Small" book the author mentioned. It's saved me from wasting time/money a few times so far, and I'm sure it will continue to do so in the future!

Read the book and launch my own landing page: http://www.getcueapp.com/ . Spent around $120 on adwords and had around 2% conversion rate.. I am not so sure about the quality of conversion because I didn't do the double opt-in method as suggested.

I really like the site layout! Would you mind sharing it? I'm looking for a base layout for an app I'm close to launching at the moment, actually.
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