It took me over 5 months to acquire the first 10 customers - Here are my 5 learnings

Sharlene from Bannernote
14 replies
It took me over 6 months to acquire the first 10 customers. This feels long but embarked a lot of failures and learnings. I would love to share with you a few learnings: Ship as early as possible I can not recommend this more. Your product might have a lot of bugs but this is ok. Just manage expectations of your users by adding a "In Beta" batch to your logo or product so users are aware of potential bugs or a non perfect product. I shipped translatestack.com 's website first, to see first interest and potential first leads. It helped to gather first feedback. Your landing page is your MVP. Engage with your first users Make sure to build a first audience around your product. Ask for direct (and honest) feedback. Jump on a call with your users and help them integrate. Ask for the "Magic button" that they see missing in your product Build in Public I started to share my story as early as possible on my twitter account. It helped a lot to interact with your community and even track your own progress. Make sure to follow the right people and post interesting stuff. Content is King Start building a content engine around your product. Focus to write about the benefits of your product. Use the Google Keyword tool to identify potential keywords with interest. Try to post every week a content piece to your blog. After 2-3 months, Google will pick up your content and it turns into an organic flywheel. Iterate as Quickly as you can You think your product like you imagined is product market fit ready? Ups, you are wrong. I had to tweak translatestack over 20 times to get to the first 10 paying customers. Start to track how your users use your product. I used in the beginning hotjar to analysze how users actually behaved in the app and it was eye-opening Let me know if you have any feedback. I can also answer some questions. Please feel free to share your side business so we can give feedback to each other.

Replies

Kritika Oberoi
Thanks, Sharlene! Very helpful insights :)
Gabrielė Jusaitytė
On point! Great products/experiences takes a long time, so managing your expectations is crucial.
Shovon
Thanks for sharing. This also happens to be the timeline I have made for myself. I am currently in between first two phases with my product. Let's see how the next phases work for me.
Jenny Nicholson
I love this, especially the thought of building in public. It can be tempting to wait for a big dramatic "Ta-Dah" but I've never thought of how much power there is in inviting people along for the ride. I'll definitely be following you!
Simon Blok
Agree on the fact that you have to build an audience! Just launched my first product/tool. Ended as #3 on Producthunt on Sunday. So, a lot of visits and comments. At the time of launch i had no Twitter account set up or other ways to stay in touch with users. So, those first users are now out of sight/reach
Al
@simon_blok If they signed up for your product, can't you just email them?
Simon Blok
@justfitnessguy At this moment, no signup is required, so no.. :-). Version 2.-0 adds functions for which you have to signup (saving designs, favourites, etc..). It's a balance, because you want to make it as simple as possible, so no signup, but you want also the possibility to reach out this users..
Al
@simon_blok Wow. I should have gone to your site before commenting. Sounds like a tough position to be in. Let me know how it works out. Side note: I needed this exact product a couple months ago. Do you plan on monetizing MockMagic or is it a funnel to a larger service?
Simon Blok
@justfitnessguy Planning to monetise it, but only for premium options, so there will be a free version. The idea is to build the best tool for (non-)designers to quickly generate mockups in different formats and designs. Just send a sneakpeak for version 2.0: https://www.producthunt.com/upco...
Parag B.
Great story to share. I loved the part about using google keyword planer to link to content you create.
Nova N.
I am on my third step, and it is a roller coaster, so the best thing to do is have fun, and not take things too seriously.
Kim Johnson
this is awesome. thanks so much for sharing and congrats on the growth!
Usman Dembele
what a great point that you shared i recently started working on it and this will be very useful for me to understand and learn from it you can see my work here on https://topbestnespresso.com/
Edward Park
This is great. Thanks for sharing your insights!