How I Made $4000 Selling A Product I Didn't Have • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Made $4000 Selling A Product I Didn't Have

#71

Post by yesplorer » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 4:04 PM UTC

adii wrote: post #39

gjm11 wrote: post #32

You lied to customers to get something valuable from them (in this case, the information that they were prepared to pay you, and their engagement with your site). You used this, by your own account, to gain $4000. I wouldn't want to make a large bet that that isn't fraud and outright illegal. It probably isn't, unfortunately. But I hope your company fails. You should not get away with such behaviour. A decent person…

You realize that the title is obviously exaggerated and that I didn't gain $4000 on day one. I did however gain the kind of validation that eventually allowed me to gain $4000 in cash when we launched a month later. For every person that has criticized this, I have had another one saying this is great. I also know for a fact that I'm not the first startup entrepreneur to do this. I have already apologized to each and…

You realize that the title is obviously exaggerated

For someone who is hearing of you for the first time, combining the subject matter under discussion and your admission of obviously exaggerating your post title makes you come across to me like a habitually deceptive person IMHO

Re: How I Made $4000 Selling A Product I Didn't Have

#72

Post by j_s » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

rrhoover wrote: post #48

ggreer wrote: post #40

I'm not sure why you posted this. Are the pageviews from the controversy really enough to offset a long-term loss of reputation? Maybe you don't understand the line you crossed. You advertised video courses taught by talented entrepreneurs. Later, you launched what is effectively a forum. These two things are hardly similar, but you charged users for the latter when they signed up to pay for the former. Couch it in a…

Adii isn't forcing anyone to pay and as he stated in his essay, he personally reached out to customers to inform them the video content was ready YET. Adii isn't doing a bait-and-switch without intention of delivering a quality product. He left his successful startup, WooThemes, to build a platform to help entrepreneurs. Before criticizing his approach coming from the outside (with less context), I'd prefer to hear d…

  > Adii isn't forcing anyone to pay

Everyone who did not opt-out was billed (eg. if anyone missed, misread, or otherwised ignored the email explaining the pivot).

I'm more discouraged this guy was given a platform to promote this approach at MicroConf Europe. How sad to 'hear directly from his customer' that he only discovered how he was being scammed when he attended the presentation! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6515095

Re: How I Made $4000 Selling A Product I Didn't Have

#73

Post by vinceguidry » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 8:24 PM UTC

Why in the world would anyone title a blog post this way? It sounds like he purposefully went out of his way to phrase his tactics in the worst possible way. Call it "market testing", call it "product validation", anything but "selling shit I didn't have".

Worst PR ever.

Re: How I Made $4000 Selling A Product I Didn't Have

#74

Post by exo_duz » Tue, Oct 08, 2013, 10:38 PM UTC

drharris wrote: post #26

exo_duz wrote: post #17

I am currently doing a startup too. It seems that I can handle all the design, coding and technical side of things but I cannot market and do sales. Although I agree with some of the points such as launching early and the communication aspect of it. I'm against deceptive tactics to get sales. Even though he said that it didn't feel good, then why continue with the same tactic? Does getting the sales and numbers justi…

Best advice is to not do this, or anything like it. If you're a one-man show, then be sure to blog, tweet, or otherwise communicate with your customers often. Treat them like people, and build a following. When your startup fails (and 99% do), hopefully a good portion of those will follow you to your next venture. Building customers through respect is what builds a lasting brand (you). Don't take money until you have…

@drharris:

That's what I'm doing at the moment. One of the biggest pivot in my Internet habits is that I've changed from being a lurker (just looking and not doing things) to being more active in the community, discussion or post. Even on HN. I've been here for ages but never contributed anything of value.

That will change now as I have to be able to harness the comments and engagements of people who are more knowledgable than me in this respect.

Thanks again for your advice.