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Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

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Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#1

Post by mrtsepelev »

We built a product that nobody wants. Now we are curious — which way is the best to use our work?

Here is the story: in January we launched Landy.io, an automated personalization solution for websites. Everyone in industry who we talked with were pretty excited about our product, but in the end we found out that nobody desperately needs it. It was nice-to-have thing instead of a thing that solves-real-damn-problems.

We received some AWS credits from YC open office hours program and we can keep our project up and running. But now we are wondering — should we give up, open source our code and move to the next project or maybe there are some good alternatives that we should definitely give a try? Like, e.g, to find an experienced salesperson and give him a full freedom with selling our product.

Re: Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#3

Post by mrtsepelev »

sharemywin wrote: post #2

I have a website that generates leads. I have keywords, ads, landing page text, question wizard. How much traffic do I need to optimize for this?

The scheme is simple: the more -- the better. Though, you should not be put back by the false assumption of your traffic flow being too weak -- give it a try and see how it goes.

Usually it requires about 10k unique visitors per month to start with. Concrete answer on your question hugely depends on your audience structure and number of variations.

Re: Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#5

Post by mrtsepelev »

tmaly wrote: post #4

I think this is a great product. Most people may not be at the level where they are ready for this, or they may not understand this in ways that can create value for their business. I think you need to market it a little differently. This has potential.

And what do you mean by "market it a little differently". We played with positioning/wording for a few months and while it affects our registration numbers, it did not help to activate users.

Maybe we did it all wrong - we tried to build a slick product, collect leads, carefully onboard them, nurture with content, optimize our funnels and so on. Perhaps we should just concentrate on collecting phone numbers and selling directly, but this is the thing that we tried to avoid all the time.

Re: Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#6

Post by going_to_800 »

Ok, can you share how you tried to market it?

When a product generates ROI, people will use it. Target the marketers who use leadpages, unbounce, etc, if it works, they will use it.

Register to StackThatMoney forum, the biggest private affiliate marketing forum, they work with landing pages all day long. Post your product there, I guarantee 50 sales in 2 months from there.

You need to target people with high traffic on their landers, i think the product is good(if it delivers), but you failed at sales and marketing....not on the idea.

Nobody wants your product because you are targeting the wrong people, that's my thought.

Re: Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#8

Post by tmaly »

mrtsepelev wrote: post #5
tmaly wrote: post #4

I think this is a great product. Most people may not be at the level where they are ready for this, or they may not understand this in ways that can create value for their business. I think you need to market it a little differently. This has potential.

And what do you mean by "market it a little differently". We played with positioning/wording for a few months and while it affects our registration numbers, it did not help to activate users. Maybe we did it all wrong - we tried to build a slick product, collect leads, carefully onboard them, nurture with content, optimize our funnels and so on. Perhaps we should just concentrate on collecting phone numbers and selli…

By "market it a little differently", could you pick a few specific markets. Say for a landscape design company, maybe visitor A to their site is interested in someone to cut their lawn on a regular basis. Visitor B is interested in someone to maintain the flowers and mulch of the gardens in their yard. Visitor C is interested in a new patio. These are entirely different pieces of content, but they are highly specific to one industry.

You landing page approaches it more generally and does not target a specific industry. You need multiple landing pages to give specific examples like this for a set of industries you would like to target.

Re: Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#9

Post by mrtsepelev »

going_to_800 wrote: post #6

Ok, can you share how you tried to market it? When a product generates ROI, people will use it. Target the marketers who use leadpages, unbounce, etc, if it works, they will use it. Register to StackThatMoney forum, the biggest private affiliate marketing forum, they work with landing pages all day long. Post your product there, I guarantee 50 sales in 2 months from there. You need to target people with high traffic…

Sure. Ofk we used PH & HN and Reddit in the beginning (and many others startup platforms). Tried to reach industry bloggers (had some effect) and reporters (did not succeed here). Tried a content (which brought high quality leads, but quantity was pretty small), tried to reach some local marketing communities. Also tried to reach agencies (failed here).

Even if we received very positive feedback on product / idea and plans on integration - the process of generating hypothesis and creating different variations was pretty time-consuming and in the end people did not complete it.

Posting to StackThatMoney definitely sounds like something worth trying, and we’ll give it a shot. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: We built a product that nobody wants. What’s next?

#10

Post by going_to_800 »

mrtsepelev wrote: post #9
going_to_800 wrote: post #6

Ok, can you share how you tried to market it? When a product generates ROI, people will use it. Target the marketers who use leadpages, unbounce, etc, if it works, they will use it. Register to StackThatMoney forum, the biggest private affiliate marketing forum, they work with landing pages all day long. Post your product there, I guarantee 50 sales in 2 months from there. You need to target people with high traffic…

Sure. Ofk we used PH & HN and Reddit in the beginning (and many others startup platforms). Tried to reach industry bloggers (had some effect) and reporters (did not succeed here). Tried a content (which brought high quality leads, but quantity was pretty small), tried to reach some local marketing communities. Also tried to reach agencies (failed here). Even if we received very positive feedback on product / idea and…

Guys, you need people that use landing pages all day long and have enough traffic.

Your market is huge(I know that because I was selling products for this niche), from solo internet marketers with big email lists to media buying agencies. You just need a few case studies to show them it's working.

Do you have any case studies?

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