[HN Gopher] My side projects always fail. This time is different.
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My side projects always fail. This time is different.
Author : timjones
Score : 137 points
Date : 2020-11-16 17:15 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themvpsprint.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themvpsprint.com)
| throwawaytemp27 wrote:
| Cool article, love the insight into the thought process and best
| of luck. But that name HelloHailey seems like literally an insane
| choice. I would never use it. As far as I know I'm the target
| market so may want to look at changing it if others agree!
| timjones wrote:
| Thank you! Definitely interested in hearing others' thoughts on
| the name as well.
|
| Here was my thinking: As a solo, bootstrapped founder, I think
| people are interested in the person behind the product, at
| least at first.
|
| I've been using my personal story and the process of building
| in public to grow an email list and waitlist. The HelloHailey
| name gives me an opportunity to re-enforce that personal story
| in the product messaging.
|
| That being said, I'm not ruling out a name change when it comes
| time for an official launch.
| throwawaytemp27 wrote:
| Sounds like you need to "kill your darling" as it were. The
| number of people who you will reach if you scale is
| exponentially more than those who have already connected with
| your story.
| dkarp wrote:
| why is the name "literally an insane choice"?
| legerdemain wrote:
| From the blog post: > Twitter is full of
| interesting and influential people sharing > thoughts and
| having public conversations. And they're all > accessible -
| just 280 characters away.
|
| Yes! Yes! Marketing has changed 1000% since the Dark ages! People
| forget that you can now marketing your product effortlessly and
| completely for free to everyone in the world. No more complaining
| that "my awesome product failed because no one knows about it" --
| just press that Tweet button and you're on!
| Descartes1 wrote:
| Ah, but getting your tweet actually read is a whole other ball
| of wax.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| Step 1: Have 100,000 followers Step 2: Instant Marketing
| Success Step 3: Tell everyone how easy social media is
| justiceforsaas wrote:
| Literally describes 100% of IndieHackers threads about "I
| sold 540 copies of my products on Twitter in 8 hours".
| b20000 wrote:
| where do I sign up?!?!? marketing today costs money just like
| it did years ago, you are still paying for visibility and there
| is no "free" traffic anymore like there was in the late 90s.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Here are the steps to success:
|
| 1. Go to http://www.twitter.com.
|
| 2. Click Join Twitter today.
|
| 3. Type in this Tweet: "I have the perfect product! Email me
| for quote. #Growth #Product #MVP"
| nullsense wrote:
| How did that work for you when you did it?
| legerdemain wrote:
| Sounds like you might be interested in my personalized
| Product Marketing Workshops series to turn your idea into
| a success! Email me for a quote! Let's talk #Product!!
| timjones wrote:
| I hope it's that easy! Until about 3-4 weeks ago, I'd rarely
| used Twitter for professional purposes.
|
| It can be a bit intimidating at first to put yourself out
| there. And there's certainly strategy required to use it well.
|
| But I think consistency is the name of the game to be
| successful with it. We'll see!
| dvt wrote:
| > Distribution before product
|
| I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it
| actually works.
|
| Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog
| post is claiming. They _did_ have a product: Hotmail had the
| service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and
| there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it.
| There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are
| gimmicky Kickstarter-style (and often derivative) products.
|
| I mean, think about Dropbox or Slack: how could you possibly sell
| (or even validatea) those products without actually giving some
| sort of demo? Without people actually _using_ that thing? It
| might work for something like the product in the post (people
| understand what "video chat" is), but I don't really see it
| working for any kind of particularly novel or value-generating
| product.
|
| Thoughts?
|
| [1] https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-
| before...
|
| [2] https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists
| timjones wrote:
| I'm only advocating for __reducing uncertainty __around
| distribution before building; not eliminating it entirely.
|
| It's important to at least have a strong growth hypothesis that
| you've validated _to some degree_.
|
| That's all I have right now - hypotheses.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Funny you mention Dropbox because they did exactly what you say
| not to do, provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it
| just looks like it's working [0]. Their Show HN thread has more
| details [1]. In general though, you definitely should work on
| figuring out if customers want your product without building it
| if at all possible, and most times it is possible. I run a SaaS
| that's a project management tool (todo list + calendar,
| basically, at https://getartemis.app) and the main page is
| simply a video demo that I made with Figma and an animation
| tool called Principle. People signed up and it works great for
| showing users what they'd be getting in the future.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
| dvt wrote:
| This is not true. The video used a few clever techniques
| (cutting/editing) to make it seem snappier and more
| responsive, but Dropbox was very much a real (albeit beta and
| buggy) product when the video was made.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| That is true, the founder did have an alpha version working
| by the time they did the Show HN, but still, if he had made
| the video without having anything technically made (but
| just by visual effects), would it still have been less
| effective? I doubt it, people know what they want and don't
| want when watching the video, and it would have been clear
| to the founder that people wanted it and he could've
| started building it after people expressed their demand. So
| in the end, even if he hadn't made the full product,
| Dropbox would still be where it is today.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I think the idea is you _do_ give a demo, just that you dont go
| crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes
| scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you 've tested the
| market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP
| down a notch to BVP (barely viable product).
|
| I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the
| engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can
| just do the first jump and test the idea.
| detaro wrote:
| What's the definition of MVP then?!
| thelastwave wrote:
| What is NASCAR login?
| TuringNYC wrote:
| A NASCAR login is a stack of login options (Login with
| Apple, Login with Google, Login with Facebook, Login with
| Twitter, Login with Github...) where you end up having so
| many stacked logos that it starts to look like a NASCAR
| racecar (because they have tons of logos on them.)
|
| NASCAR logins are particularly great (easy entry to convert
| interested users) and at the same time having a huge number
| of super-ugly edge cases:
|
| 1. If you log in with john.q.doe@gmail.com but originally
| had registered your gmail as johnqdoe, then your login
| automatically changes to the non-dot form.
|
| 2. If you have already registered via email on
| john.q.doe@gmail.com, then you cannot login-with-Google in
| the above case, as both accounts are separate and distinct
| in the host system.
|
| 3. If you have two accounts under your school and work
| account, but log-in-with-Facebook, and Facebook has both
| your emails, it gets confused.
|
| 4. There are cases where you simply cannot log in due to
| the network of conflicts across the identity services.
|
| ...and yet this is also awesome because you get to convert
| a registered user ASAP in 95% of the cases.
| hamburglar wrote:
| A login page that has a million logos on it (login with
| facebook, login with google, etc)
| smarx007 wrote:
| Just today Redpanda hit HN front page
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739 and I cannot
| see how would you give a demo of such a system without having
| such a system developed in the first place. At the very
| least, the whole of HN would laugh at such a salesman trick.
| I do think there is a spectrum of fake-it-before-you-make-it
| ability for each idea. For some like Instagram is close to
| 100% and for things like Redpanda it's close to zero.
| macNchz wrote:
| Yes I think you described this approach well. I've worked on
| a bunch of things built this way... as an overall approach it
| will certainly minimize the chance that you waste time
| building something totally un-sellable.
|
| On the other hand, I've seen organizations using this "BVP"
| approach for absolutely everything they build, which I've
| come to view as a sort of product development antipattern,
| reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the
| top. It's like the polar opposite of a moonshot: building
| things in such tiny increments that you can only ever achieve
| a local maxima, because the higher summit requires a bigger
| leap.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at
| the top
|
| Sure, but my assumption would be -- if you suddenly get
| registrations, signups, or even conditional trial accounts,
| great! Now I have some validation, and I'd jump in
| immediately and start building out the product.
| smarx007 wrote:
| I think I understand both viewpoints: it is indeed not feasible
| to fake it before you make it in case of Dropbox. However, if
| you are offering automated reports once a week, there is no
| problem putting together an HTML template, some excel sheet and
| an email script where a person does the work for a few pilot
| customers. So I think when you mentioned "particularly novel or
| value-generating product" you meant that the idea scores close
| to 0 on a "fake it before you make it" scale? Is there even
| such a scale? Barrier of entry is closest I can think of.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I don't really agree with a lot of what's being said here.
|
| If you have something that solves real problems, you should be
| able to fight for users. Yeah sure, just because you built a
| great thing doesn't mean people will flock to it, you need to do
| SOME marketing.
|
| It might take two years to get ten users, because turns out it's
| very hard to run every aspect of a business by yourself. But it's
| progress, and if you maintain a high bar of connection with your
| user base and product quality, as long as you continue to market
| and improve it will grow.
|
| There are no "get rich quick" schemes here, I don't believe in
| that nonsense. There is hard work and there is giving up, that's
| it.
| justiceforsaas wrote:
| I think you've gone from one extreme to the other. Yes, building
| a product with no distribution sucks. So does doing distribution
| without having anything to show for it.
|
| Take this from a guy who spent 2 years studying distribution
| channels [1]. There's nothing wrong about spending a week or two
| developing a MVP before focusing on distribution.
|
| I think the key is to start with a) The minimum thing you can do
| and call a 'product' b) Try to promote/distribute it, see the
| response. So far you've done:
|
| a) A web page explaining what your product is about
|
| Some steps to (progressively) get to a "better" MVP may be:
|
| b) Make a video showcasing your product (which can be a simple
| Figma design with static screens that show once you click on
| them)
|
| c) Build a feature that's high on the ICE Scoring model, build
| it, and promote that
|
| d) Build a meaningfully different feature than c) and promote it
| as a SEPARATE product. Let your features be like split tests you
| promote on the same/different distribution channels and see how
| they perform.
|
| [1] https://firstpayingusers.com [2]
| https://university.hygger.io/en/articles/2288376-ice-scoring
| Closi wrote:
| Well written blog post! A few observations from an outsiders
| perspective:
|
| * One interesting thing I have noticed from being on HN is that
| lots of start-ups that focus on the tech industry / IT / helping
| developers. I think it makes sense to pick a niche you
| understand, but possibly not if it is a 'niche' which is filled
| with developers.
|
| * Workplace collaboration in a 'knowledge work' environment = red
| ocean. Application of workplace collaboration tools to
| new/unexplored industry segments I suspect has lots of blue ocean
| areas however. I think you have picked something in the red
| ocean.
|
| * As a small note, you started with a solution (always on video
| room, inspired by a twitter post) and worked backwards to a
| problem to solve (teammates not being fully engaged). The usual
| process would be to start with a problem and then work out how
| you are going to solve it. I know it sounds like semantics, but
| there are lots of potential solutions to "teammates feel
| disconnected" and an always on video room is just one of them!
| (e.g. coffee roulette, remote pizza parties).
| timjones wrote:
| Thanks for the thoughts!
|
| I agree on your first point. This is the easier niche for me
| right now, but probably not the best niche.
|
| I 100% agree with your second point too. My first step was
| _supposed to be_ "Choose a problem"
| (https://www.themvpsprint.com/p/choose-a-problem). But I can
| spot the flaws in how I presented this - it looks like I was
| starting with a potential solution someone asked about on
| Twitter.
|
| That being said, the solution I'll be building is actually
| quite different from an "always on zoom room" - more focused on
| teams that operate largely asynchronously.
|
| I'll be formalizing and sharing my product vision over the next
| week or two :)
| markdown wrote:
| Honest question: If you're going to pick hello<randomName> as a
| name, why not pick one with a .com?
| polote wrote:
| One new guy trying to tell the world that there is a process to
| start a successful business, there is not. Sometimes you fail,
| sometimes you succeed.
|
| Some succeed more than others, but they never always succeed.
|
| I wish you good luck for your project but changing your approach
| is not going to ensure you not to fail.
| kevsim wrote:
| I've got to applaud you for thinking about distribution first.
| Many tech folks turned entrepreneurs (myself included) think that
| if they build a great product, they'll get usage. Doesn't work
| that way.
|
| But I will also say that I suspect your strategy is possibly a
| little naive. I hope it's as easy as you've laid out, and I'm
| envious of the viral aspects of your proposed product. However, I
| suspect the "top of funnel" portion (hypothesis 1) won't be
| enough to drive your "land and expand" portion (hypothesis 2). At
| least in my own experience currently trying to build a B2B SaaS
| tool [0], it's an absolute grind. And while some of these
| communities you're mentioning will engage, it's hard to convert
| that to people entering your funnel in a reliable fashion. You've
| got to combine it with 19 others things like content marketing,
| speaking at events, etc.
|
| That being said, we're not engaging in as transparent way as you
| are so YMMV. I wish you the best of luck!
|
| 0: https://kitemaker.co - a crazy fast issue tracker that
| connects all of your other tools (GitHub, Figma, Slack, Discord)
| better than anything else out there
| timjones wrote:
| Thank you! And I agree 100% with what you've said. I could
| preface every sentence with _maybe_ and _I think_ but then it
| wouldn 't be on the HN front page :)
|
| I know that everything I'm laying out will be much harder than
| I've made it seem. I see this strategy as being a north star,
| but necessarily a hard and fast path.
| awillen wrote:
| Good on you for breaking out of a cycle that wasn't working. I
| think you're really speaking to something that's becoming
| increasingly true - distribution is at least as important as, if
| not more important than, products themselves. We've moved past
| "if you build it they will come" to something more akin to "if
| enough people are already coming to you, you can build something,
| and they'll try it."
| timjones wrote:
| Agreed! I think this is becoming even more important as the
| barriers to building software products shrink.
|
| Every day, there are dozens of products being launched on
| ProductHunt - many of them without code.
|
| The "easy" distribution channels are being flooded.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| That's "marketing" not distribution. But maybe your term sounds
| cooler...
|
| Thinking of open source development, some of this is implied, by
| platforms like github, and ideas like "release early, release
| often". So developers are dependent on this promtion/distribution
| platform, without even realizing they have one.
| b20000 wrote:
| I applaud your success. To me it seems that by putting
| distribution first, or focusing on problems to solve, that you
| typically end up with markets or problems you are personally not
| really excited about. I've done this exercise many times. I can
| either work on something I think is cool and there is a niche
| market for, but does not really "solve" a problem but addresses a
| "want", or I can work on something I have zero interest in but
| for which there probably is a market and clear distribution
| model. If I like adventure games, and want to make one, those
| don't solve a problem, and it's a niche market with a lot of
| competition (gaming in general). Or I can work on some online tax
| prep software for expats. Niche market, addresses a problem, zero
| personal interest, probably a big market.
| elcomet wrote:
| > Niche market, [...] , probably a big market
|
| Which one is it then?
| Kye wrote:
| Maybe weird example: most fursuit builders also take mascot
| commissions from non-furries. They target a small niche, but
| also a big market.
| zdbrandon wrote:
| A niche of a giant can still be considered "big".
| timjones wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| There are some people for whom _growing a business_ is the
| exciting part. They can get excited about tax prep software if
| they see the opportunity.
|
| I'm more like you (not one of those people). If I don't care
| about the problem, and (maybe more importantly) the users I'm
| solving it for, I won't solve it well.
|
| Another point - not everything has to be a business - you can
| always work your day job and build adventure games on nights
| and weekends purely for fun.
|
| Sometimes the best businesses come out of hobby projects. If
| not, whatever - it's fun and fulfilling.
| b20000 wrote:
| I think most people want to run a business around something
| they really care about or are excited about, so when you have
| to run one around something you have zero interest in then I
| don't see the advantage anymore compared to taking a day job
| at some company.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| Yes. Maybe it's possible to use this idea of "distribution
| first" to select between different ideas you are
| intrinsically interested in? e.g. which niche is easiest
| for you to reach?
|
| Also, to consider ways to make your ideas easier to
| distribute - not to force it, but maybe you'll come across
| an idea that you intrinsically really like.
| If I like adventure games, and want to make one, those
| don't solve a problem, and it's a niche market with a lot
| of competition (gaming in general)
|
| Minecraft had a viral element of people discovering and
| sharing new craft recipes. Dark Souls had async gameplay.
| Journey has some coop gameplay.
|
| Of course there's danger you'll then start thinking more in
| terms of distribution, which can undermine intrinsic
| interest. "Servant of two masters" and all that.
| tlarkworthy wrote:
| you get to choose what to validate. So you can figure out
| which of the ideas that are acceptable to work on is worth
| it.
| szemy2 wrote:
| You really hit the nail here! I have written about this
| (https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-myth-of-interesting-
| bo...) and I am still struggling to break from this. If the
| problem is interesting, it is probably cutting-edge in some
| way, ergo it is hard to solve, hard to bootstrap.
|
| The best way imo to break this is to build a bunch of small
| things that individually work but collectively fulfil point and
| solve a more difficult problem. Kaleido.ai is a good example of
| this, they have created it remove.bg and unscreen as individual
| products but are building something full-fledged.
|
| I'm doing the same with CAD tools for Architects. I started
| building https://cadcheck.xyz which brings me slightly closer
| to a larger solution that would be nearly impossible to build
| without VC funding.
| anoncow wrote:
| Fun ideas without any possibility of a viable business model is
| what I am struggling with too. Ideas take away a lot of your time
| when you are chasing them and only once the prototyping is done
| or sometimes when the initial product is out you realise that
| there is no chance of making any money.
| dmarlow wrote:
| Sorry to nitpick, but some of your examples illustrate that they
| certainly had an MVP and THEN did the distribution. How could
| hotmail perform distribution without first having an MVP?
|
| I agree with the premise of validation, then building. While this
| is a good rule of thumb, it's not always possible. I like the
| focus and thinking behind getting users. It can't be "built it
| and they will come". Having a good, sound plan and sticking with
| it is the key.
| timjones wrote:
| My main point was that these companies likely had strong
| hypotheses about how they would grow before building an MVP.
|
| You don't always need to _prove out_ all your growth channels.
| But it 's important to have strong hypotheses and remove at
| least a little bit of uncertainty around those hypotheses
| before building.
| blobbers wrote:
| It seems like you need a strong hypothesis for growth and a
| strong hypothesis for customer acquisition. It seems like
| knowing what you're going to build can help drive how you
| will distribute, and but vice versa seems less obvious.
|
| It is a situation where both are required (`&`).
|
| Good luck with the projects!
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| I see that, but you don't talk about this - your main point -
| in the case studies, at all. Of course it's difficult to,
| since they don't discuss it and so you have to infer it, but
| if it's your main point, you probably do need to mention it
| in the case study.
|
| Your heading "My side projects always fail" makes me think
| the problem is getting initial adoption (not going from small
| adoption to huge adoption). The network effects of those
| three examples don't kick in until after some adoption.
|
| I like the idea of considering not just the product or the
| market, but also how you to reach that market. It can change
| your choice of which idea to pursue in the first place.
| Really, to evaluate as a business idea, not just as a product
| idea
| [deleted]
| timjones wrote:
| You're right; I certainly could've delved deeper into those
| case studies.
|
| I suppose at this point in the article, if you're not yet
| convinced that distribution is half the battle, you won't
| care about the rest of the article.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| OK, it makes sense as support for the importance of
| distribution ("distribution is half the battle"), but
| there are other claims made, and it wasn't that that was
| the specific one you were supporting.
|
| Now I know what you meant, this really is just
| nitpicking.
| fourseventy wrote:
| 4.) Give up and move on <-------- There's your problem
| mac_was wrote:
| Great post mate.
|
| I followed a similar pattern and created https://sayoname.com, an
| app for remotely located workers so they can record names and
| call each other directly from the browser. A tool so people can
| easily find how to say someone's name, sneak on what someone does
| in the company etc.
|
| I almost got a big school hooked up to start paying subscription
| (it is an international school) but they decided on creating
| their own solution due to privacy concerns. Extremely
| disappointing and lowers morale straight away.
|
| I have few hundred profiles but the growth is stale atm. I don't
| really have time to actively look for new users and would love a
| co-founder as what they say on y-combinator it is REALLY a lot
| easier if you have someone you can share thought and can both
| motivate each other. So my advice is add a step and get a co-
| founder.
| timjones wrote:
| Looks like a neat tool!
|
| I had 2 cofounders in my last company - I agree it's easier.
|
| But so far, building in public has been a great way to
| replicate some of those benefits without one:
|
| 1. I have external motivation to produce results on a weekly
| basis.
|
| 2. I have to be able to justify all my decisions to everyone on
| the internet (anyone who cares at least...). I end up thinking
| things through more deeply.
|
| 3. I get continuous feedback from others - not nearly as good
| as a cofounder who's 100% in the business, but still helpful.
| eins1234 wrote:
| Wow, as a fellow solo founder, building in public sounds like
| a great idea! I've always dismissed it in the past, but
| that's because I've never considered it from the perspective
| of getting some of the same benefits as having a co-founder.
|
| Will definitely try to give it a shot.
| timjones wrote:
| Emphasis on _some_ haha - I don 't want to claim that the
| collective power of the internet is more valuable than a
| human that's 100% invested in the business :)
|
| But yes, I'd definitely recommend it! Feel free to DM if
| want any tips - https://twitter.com/AnotherTimJones.
|
| It was uncomfortable at first, but got easier pretty
| quickly (and honestly a lot of fun).
| eins1234 wrote:
| Yeah, definitely not deluding myself that it's anywhere
| close to the full cofounder experience, haha.
|
| But sounds a lot better than the alternative of just
| building things completely in a silo like I have been
| doing.
| greetings wrote:
| Do you have slack/teams integration? The ability to link that
| in would be sweet.
| timjones wrote:
| Most likely will be built entirely in Slack :)
|
| Feel free to DM me on Twitter if you had more specific ideas!
| https://twitter.com/AnotherTimJones/
| mac_was wrote:
| I thought about adding this but due to stale growth put it
| aside. If I can see more people using it and requesting this
| I can assure I'll add integration in a week :)
| justusthane wrote:
| No offense intended, but your landing page is a bit rough. If
| you don't mind some feedback:
|
| - The header "The simplest tool for remote and international
| teams" doesn't mean anything. The simplest tool for doing what?
| I have no idea what this is after reading it.
|
| - On a related note, I'm not really sure what the name of the
| service is. Is it meant to be like "Say Yo Name"? If so, maybe
| you could change the header to something like "Say Yo Name!
| Help your remote and international teammates pronounce your
| name"
|
| - The undismissable floating "start video chat" box is really
| awful, especially on mobile where it takes up almost half the
| screen.
|
| - "the whole team creates profiles and record names" -> "record
| _s_ names"
|
| - "Call users using build in video chat functionality" ->
| "built-in"
|
| - "Add video chat to any website. It is a couple line of HTML
| to copy to any website." is awkward. I'd suggest changing the
| second line to "...with only a couple lines of code" or
| something similar.
|
| - "Pronunciation is different, though, not easier, at all." is
| a really awkward sentence. "Pronunciation is different, though
| not at all easier." is much clearer.
|
| - "Next time don't pretend that your colleague hasn't got a
| name." -> "Next time don't pretend that your colleague doesn't
| have a name."
|
| - "Start video chat, share screen, no camera? Just chat!" ->
| "Start video chat or share your screen. No camera? Just chat!"
| mac_was wrote:
| No offense taken!
|
| Appreciate your feedback, it is probably due to the fact
| English is my second language.
|
| I'll have a look at updating the website taking into
| consideration your comments!
| justusthane wrote:
| Best of luck with your service! I hope you're able to keep
| with it and make it viable.
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(page generated 2020-11-16 21:00 UTC)