Ask HN: 100 people on my beta list?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245898

by mtrn • 15 years ago

6 11 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi, this is my first 'Ask HN' post; please educate me if necessary.

I wrote down a bullet-point list of features for a desktop app I wanted to implement and published it.

During the last months I got around 100 people leaving their email-address, basically saying, yes, I'd be interested in this product - let me know when it's ready.

Now 100 is almost nothing, since the price could only be in the $20-50 range, and I'm not really motivated to provide support, once people would really pay. It is just not my dream product, although I can see, how it could help people with their workflow.

How would you handle such a situation?

bmelton• 15 years ago

What exactly is the situation? You've got 100 people interested in buying your product based on a landing page.

I take it you were expecting more? How much more? You've got 100ish leads on your project for sales that should be easyish to sell to (at least compared to random people). You won't get it, but if you get all of them at the bottom price, that's $2k a month.

By all accounts, I can only see this as a good thing, especially if your landing page indicates that there's cost involved. If the landing page gives any indication that the service might be free, it's easier to discount some of those leads, but if you're advertising a for-pay service and got 100 hits, I think you're looking pretty good, from my perspective.

mtrn3• 15 years ago

I wasn't expecting anything. I started it, because I had the idea, I saw one dominant competing product which sucked and I just wanted to get a feel for the market.

Yes, these leads may be precious. But it's just a desktop app, just a one-time payment.

(P.S. If it were a webish app with $20/month price tag and 100 people ready to give it a try, I would be really busy implementing the stuff right now ;)

sagacity2• 15 years ago

> But it's just a desktop app, just a one-time payment.

In which case, consider building a feature or time limited freeware version initially, without support, offering users to buy/upgrade, and submit it to all the shareware/freeware joints out there. That should get you a decent number of potential buyers, a good percentage of which should convert.

Test the waters this way and if you still don't get enough numbers, ditch the idea of full commercial version.

HTH

sagacity2• 15 years ago

One possible course of action:

email these 100 people explaining to them that while you have a good number of 'intent to buy', you can't launch the app in absence of more buyer interest. Next, ask/request their help in terms of getting more signups.

(As per Richard Bach's Cosmic Law,) Like poles attract i.e. people are likely to know others having common interest. If your app is useful enough, (hopefully it is,) the current 100 will help you get more leads.

HTH

mtrn3• 15 years ago

Thanks; I like this approach.

Zakuzaa• 15 years ago

   you can't launch the app in absence of more buyer interest

If somebody mails that to me, I myself would lose interest in the product. And I don't think that's just me.

arielcamus2• 15 years ago

What about charging monthly? If you could set a lower value than 20-50$ per month and your client life-time is something higher than 6-8 months, you can create something more interesting.

mtrn3• 15 years ago

It's - as I think of it now - genuinely a desktop app and therefore somewhat difficult to set monthly price tags.

arielcamus2• 15 years ago

Spotify is an example, but you can find many others like Evernote, Steam or WoW. It depends on your users willing to pay on a monthly basis. But you are the one that best know your product, if you say it'd difficult, it must be true :)

zipdog• 15 years ago

If you're not motivated to provide suuport and it's not your dream project, I'd treat the opportunity more like a contract position: you're likely to be paid around $2k for doing a certain amount of work. If that's worth it for your time, then go ahead.

If you're concerned about support taking time, then think of time spent on support as time invested in getting more customers (since you're either improving a relationship that might lead to recommendations or improving your product).

maguay• 15 years ago

What's the app? What platform are you targeting?

Ask HN: 100 people on my beta list?

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