Should I abandon a functioning SaaS with no paying users?

I just quickly swooped through the page and I think there is a major problem in pricing. Are you only aiming for the UK market? If not, then change pounds to dollars.
Also - lower pricing to like $5/mo. It's better to have 10 - $5 conversions than 0 - $20 ones. You can increase it once you will get momentum.
Also, remove information about payment options.
Stripe should be the default one. When someone clicks on the "Order" button redirect them to the page, where they can choose a payment processor (with Stripe being default).
If I would check the page I would be like "damn, that expensive, and it seems focused on UK, nah".

I think Ekko is a great product, but you're probably marketing it wrong. I'd guess the greatest need for this product is businesses that don't have much web presence and don't know that they need that. So you won't find your customers online - you have to go to the real world to find them!

Many restaurants could use this product, but they don't have time to set it up. You could contact these companies locally and set up their site and then promise them results. Or you could partner up with a social media company that could do the selling for you.

I honestly believe this product is ready and could get customers. Another even more obvious thing would be to try Facebook Ads.

Hi Ben!

No ideas for you, just a gesture of support. I'm a very good software engineer, but frankly know less about marketing than I do about women (I'm 48 and single). I launched mobilit.ee a week ago, and I have a strong suspicion that, a year from now, I'll be where you are. It's a great product, but my marketing is crap. (I haven't looked at your site, so I'm not suggesting that this reflects on your abilities!)

I strongly suspect that a successful venture involved a team. A great software engineer isn't enough. And a great marketeer is quickly going to find themselves massively out of their depth if they try to outsource (especially if they offshore) development.

Also... if you look at the CVs of successful people, they very often have a string of failed businesses behind them. But a venture is not a failure if you learned something. Even if all you learned is about your own limitations - often the hardest and most valuable lessons to learn.

I wish you the best of luck with this, and your next, venture!

You ask "what the heck do I do with it":

gone through various phases of motivation to properly push/advertise/market it, but that side of it feels completely unnatural to me, I'm far more happier sitting behind the screen, building the product

Focus only on this. Stop all development, turn off your screen.

Since then, I've occasionally tweeted about it, and gone through various phases of motivation to properly push/advertise/market it, but that side of it feels completely unnatural to me, I'm far more happier sitting behind the screen, building the product.

To me, this screams that you should be looking for a business/marketing co-founder who enjoys that stuff (building up a funnel) and give them a decent portion of the business/equity.

Definitely don't abandon this without thoroughly exploring at least 6 marketing channels and 4 pricing models. That could go by quickly.. like 5 weeks of work if you hustle.

If you're going to walk away, you don't want to regret it and wonder if it could have paid your mortgage or put your kids through college with a just a little more effort.

edit: grammar

Concrete issue -> If I google for: "update website from facebook status" your website never shows up. If you don't rank in the first 100 results for the main concept I think that's an issue.

Failed sideprojects happen all the time and usually this happens when you build a product without knowing about the market too well
The other issue is when there is no one needing your product as a solution to their problem(s).

A lot of maker start building things because they're so SURE they will find customers after their polished MVP is ready but that's SO WRONG: Gathering feedback is one thing, getting committed users is another, but you probably know that.
Furthermore - Squarespace, Wix and many other websites will allow just about anyone to create a professional looking website that can be updated in minutes without having to touch one line of code.

Try to find some use-cases for your product, find some guest posting opportunities and start advertising yourself organically without paying money. Or do cold calls. Or both! Either way don't give up.

What a coincidence! You're on my list to get in touch with. I've read all your articles on Medium about Ekko, and inspired me on tech side for the project I'm working on. Thought I remembered your name when I read through the topics!

My advice:
I'd start with researching your current free tier customers. They have the key to why no one is converting. You won't solve that issue by bringing in more new customers (who probably act similarly).
So make a survey, send it to them, promise an upgrade to payed-tier for every 10th survey you receive (this would be an extra check if they care at all about the paid benefits. If they care you should get some responses), and try to figure out what they are using the product for, what they are thinking about the price, if they ever thought of upgrading, and more of those questions.
This probably will give you insights into what the 'no conversion'-problem is.

My guess is the value difference between free and paid tier is too small for customers to switch. But instead of adding more features to the paid tier, I would:
Remove the free plan and make it a 14-day trial or less. What's the value of around 100 free tier customers who won't convert to a paid plan?

Another option would be: find a co-founder with marketing experience. At the moment business is worth zero with no paying customers, so you won't lose anything by taking on a partner.

Further, I agree with the other two points made already:

• Change £ pounds to $ dollars
• Lower your price. Somewhere around $10 p/m I'd say. But hey, perhaps test this out by sending all your current customers this offer, to test it out. You might convert some, if not, the price might not be the issue for the moment.

Keep on going man, you've got a beautiful product. From what I hear you simply haven't tried enough to say this product isn't sellable. Stop development, start selling :)

I don't think you could be able to sell, usually those who buy want an established business, which can be translated in "I want your customer base, not your software". I may be mistaken but from my personal experience, this is how it works.
Anyway, looking at your website and wearing the hat of a possible buyer, the first question that comes to my mind is: what's the value of having that kind of dedicated website? to me (buyer's hat) it looks like a beautified Facebook page. So what's the added value?
If I were you I'd either add new features, like create a more complex website which also integrates facebook (as a feature, not core), or make it free of use and monetize in another way. Third option is always to let it die, but first try to squeeze it until really there is nothing left.
I didn't mean to be rude in any way, I was just trying to think as if I was the one to buy your product, hope this helps!

That's a really cool idea, I think it's a bit expensive. Maybe try a lifetime plan like $29.

1. Talk to your users and ask them what they like about the service, what they dislike, and what they would pay for the features they wish to see. See my posts on this:

https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/how-do-you-know-if-a-product-that-doesnt-exist-yet-doesn-t-exist-for-a-good-reason-af58ee270d?commentId=-LDbs42WD2h0M0WSovJC

https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/my-beta-is-live-and-i-know-my-target-market-now-how-do-i-start-getting-more-beta-users-b0d733defe?commentId=-L9rlii7qJgD3WL7RMWq

1. If #1 is successful and you have a path forward, localize your pricing: show pounds to UK guests. Show dollars to those in America. Show Euros to Europeans. Pretty sure there are APIs out there you can leverage for this. But don't bother unless you find users who are willing, able, and READY TODAY to pay for the service.

I think Ekko is good.

There’s a lot of talk on your landing page that wants to convince me how easy the product is - while I found myself thinking "WTH, let me just see my website then!". I would suggest putting the CTA (=Facebook Login) button directly under your top-cener headline, plus under each selling point.

You should try to get excited about marketing at least to some degree. Read books and articles ... and try to think about this as a fun experiment.

"The Lean Startup" is abook you might want to read. You could read "How I Sold 1 Million Ebooks in 5 Months" and apply that Twitter / Blog / Email list strategy to the project. I personally did the "Zero To Launch" course by Ramit Sethi. There are many bitter pills to swallow, but once you manage to see this as a fun challenge things should change - at least that happened for me over time.

I would personally get rid of the candy colors and go with a more premium look and feel. I would write some long copy that addresses a fictional key customer.

Something like "Your website is not your primary sales channel? Awesome! Let us be pragmatic about your web presence - more pragmatic than setting up WordPress."

Most companies use WordPress ... and there are some pain points when using WordPress. Hosting costs, setup and maintenance efforts, redundant content management. You could write your benefits and long copy texts around that.

The first thing I wanted to see was not a setup tutorial. I wanted a gallery to check what the final result can look like. I eventually found the example sites ... tried to open them with the middle mouse button (which did not work) ... then I left clicked them and the example sites either look horrible or there is a "Site not found" message. Not great.

The one advice I see here that I strongly disagree with is making it cheaper. At least I would split-test pricing and see how a $29 plan does with a 1-month trial that introduces some friction during signup.

Here's a few ideas (some have already been mentioned) I'd do if I were in your place:

• change currency from pounds to dollars
• make it cheaper: $9,99 maybe? Or the lowest price to cover the costs and then in a few months raise the price a bit.
• Make a free tier where you'd have your site running for 1 or 2 weeks maybe?
• Reach out to small, upcoming instagram and facebook pages with +1k followers that might be looking to build a quick little site (through facebook and instagram ads)
• Spend some time surfing facebook and collecting pages who you think would buy your product, then send them personal messages offering it (yeah, it's one of the most oldschool marketing things you can do, but I've found it's incredibly effective).
• Add more designs (that's time consuming though, shouldn't really focus on that right now but consider it in the not-so-long term)
• Let everyone you know know you're building ekko: occasionally upload instagram stories, tweets, fb posts, etc. about you working on it, promoting it, coding it, whatever, but try to make it subtle, not something like "I WANT YOU FOR EKKO"

Hope it helps, cheers!

I would suggest keeping going with the new feature development, blogging, tutorials, and tweets. Have you considered attending and speaking in meetups?

My story with https://webhookrelay.com is quite similar, for almost a year I didn't have any paying customers, just a few hundred free users and did consider maybe putting it on life support, moving infrastructure somewhere where it's super cheap and not that reliable but somehow paying customer started appearing and completely changed my plans for it.

Maybe look for a sales person that could work part-time?

Man, how are you not killing it with this? This is like the best idea I've heard in months! I haven't heard of a product like this, are there any existing ones that you know of?

Don't you give up! Facebook is in such high demand now, you gotta figure this out. I'm sure it doesn't cost you much to keep the engine running while trying to make it work.

If you think that your product is complete software-wise, then stop doing software. Personally I feel that your idea has a lot of potential and your timing is perfect.

Have you tried contacting Facebook page or group owners that are without a website? It's all there, all the info about your target market, and most of the time they'd probably seriously consider your product. You just need to initiate contact with them, just prepare a short message clearly stating your value proposition. If you convert well you could probably automate that process later... oh the possibilities...

I would also suggest blogging more. Your last blog post is from a year ago, that's kinda unacceptable, feels like everyone is talking about Facebook marketing so you need to ride that wave.

How much would you sell your product for? I'm too busy so I wouldn't really buy it, but I'm curious so I'd love to know if you're comfortable sharing that kind of information.

Damn, this is a good idea... Try it for at least a few more months.

Good luck.

Looks like a good product but your proposition and pricing are muddled.

1. Let people use it for free on a something.ekko.site domain - if this is already the case make it loud! I couldn't tell form my read through the page.

2. Fix your pricing, it's way off. Put it in USD$ and make it $5/month or $50/year. Get rid of the GoCardless direct debits. Makes no sense outside the UK and looks kinda weird anyway.

3. Paid accounts need more than just custom domains. The amount of 'businesses' I see running on .wix or .weebly domains is just sad.

4. Replace your tour video with a gallery of actual sites using Ekko. This concept is hard to people for grasp so show, don't tell.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Some great advice here Ben.

The only thing I'd add is consider focusing on a single niche... whether it be restaurants / tradesmen / cleaning businesses, whatever...

Doubling down on your efforts in a specific niche then, isn't so daunting.

Selling it right now on the likes of Flippa with no revenue, I'm afraid isn't going to net you an awful lot of return - however setting yourself 3 months - do or die, taking advantage of the thoughts here could well be the answer.

Good luck!

I personally though its nice Idea, but I'm not the user of it. Did you try to talk with your customers and see what they like/dont like, what problem dose your app solve?

You should try to replicate the business model of successful products similar to yours. For example, I know PageVamp has a reseller program, with several tools for resellers. They target it at agencies.

If you're considering selling, I'd definitely reach out to Empire Flippers or FE International first. Flippa is a good fallback option.

Hey Buddy,

Its a great idea. But It's a reverse of what everyone wants to do.
This is my point of view.

1. Share something automatically from website to FB pages, that's existing.

2. But why would someone go through all the trouble to post in a place with less viewership ?

3. I think you are targeting wrong market. No developer wants this.

4. Pricing. Seriously ??? $15 a month?? Just to post something from FB pages to a site ?? Since you are from London $15 per month seems like nothing. But when you go global its not stays true for everyone.

Pricing is the only thing that I feel is too much. Its still is a great idea. Try adding Instagram and Twitter feed also

Start by deciding wether or not you're wiling to invest time and possibly money in this project (I definitely believe it has potential to earn some money). if you aren't than either leave it in maintenance mode, shut it down or sell it on Flippa.

If you're still willing to invest in the project, halt all development and focus on marketing and sales exclusively.

What's the traffic to your site looking like? What's the conversion rate (visitors to signups). What are you traffic sources?

You mention the product has a free tier? However, when I scroll down the pricing page, I only see the $14 p/month plan (I realize that the free plan is directly behind to top signup button, however many visitors will pay a quick visit to the pricing section before deciding wether or not to give it a go). The very fist thing I would change on your site (love the design btw) is make it super clear the service is freemium: shove that free plan in visitors faces!

Depending on the current traffic volume, I would probably start by simultaneously working on increasing traffic as well as conversion rates (split test the crap of the landing page and identify possible leaks in your funnel).

Without knowing more specific data, it's hard to give any further marketing advice. If you're willing to share more and want more advice, feel free to reach out to me.

PS It's late after a very very long and stressful day, so I can't be bothered by re-reading my reply and fix grammar and typos :)

As someone else who's making a website creator, I've experienced similar problems. But I think you're in a great spot!

• Have you tried Facebook advertising to small business owners, photographers, landscapers, caterers, pet groomers, etc.?
• Your designs under "No Technical Jargon" are great, and you should highlight them in your marketing materials and towards the top of your landing page.
• You may also want to find the user's location and change the pound sign to the US Dollar where appropriate.

The idea of Ekko is really great! I would recommend taking a look at what marketing strategies are working for competitors such as pagevamp.com, uKit (ukit.com/lp/convert) and Exai (exai.com/products/convert-facebook-page-to-website).

What compelled you to build it in the first place? How many potential customers did you chat with before starting to code? It seems to me there isn't a big enough pain point being solved with it, or you haven't targeted the right customers.

I'd see if you can get on the phone with some of your users, or Target users, and understand more about what their pains are and if your product can solve them.

Im a dev so can't really help with the sales side of things but it looks like a good product! I have helped out on a couple of non for profit sites with volunteers in the past and it seems like facebook is the main thing they would update so would be a good idea, not sure who your target audience is but could it be too expensive for them?
Could you make the first month free or something? Or make it free for your current offering and offer paid if they want to add in extra pages, widgets, other integrations (youtube/insta/email signup form)

Id try three things as it seems running cost are not killing you at the moment

• Invest some time in content marketing and SEO, make an action Item for each of the next 8-12 weeks
• let it run for another year
• look for a marketing partner to join

If after a year you're still at zero customers, list it for sale or shut it down

Sell it on flippa.com maybe to get same £££ return?!

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