Start Small - Stay Small - is the advice from the book still relevant now?
Hi IH!
I've been watching the community for quite a bit and I'm slowly getting my hands dirty with some ideas. Before doing a deep dive, I wanted to do some reading on the topic and I've found the "Start Small - Stay Small" book by Rob Walling. I really liked it (it is pretty specific advice) but I have some doubts about one thing, in particular: using Adwords as a means to generate initial traffic to validate a business idea.
In the past I've tried to do it once, but this didn't turn out to be very successful (basically no one converted). I am not really sure whether it was because I have set up the campaings in a poor way or this strategy doesn't work so well anymore (the cost per click is higher than it used to be in 2011). Do people still do it? Or do you rely on other strategies (blogs/content marketing, building audiences with mailing lists etc).
Cheers!
Hey! I'm the author of Start Small, Stay Small.
I was just re-reading the book myself to try to determine how much of the advice is still relevant (I published it in 2010). I think about 80% of it is more or less timeless - things like the entrepreneurial mindset, positioning, email marketing, copywriting, CRO, using VAs, etc.
Then there are the tactical pieces such as using the Google Keyword Tool (which doesn't even exist today), using AdWords to validate ideas, and a few other highly prescriptive pieces of the book.
As I've been considering updating and expanding the book, I've realized that the tactical pieces were out of date within about 18 months of publication. So in a re-write I would leave most of them out (but try to provide guidance on how to accomplish them no matter which tools you use). Having such tactical info requires updates more often than a book should be updated, IMO.
The timeless stuff is obviously still relevant.
All that said...I still use landing pages to validate ideas or determine interest levels (the landing page at https://tinyseed.com proved there was an enormous amount of interest, very quickly).
But I don't do it with AdWords. As @Primer pointed out, it can still work. It's just more expensive (and complex) than it used to be.
Today, I would use my audience (blog, podcast or email list). If I didn't have an audience I would use social media (specifically Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Hacker News, IndieHackers, Reddit, etc.) Not through ads, but through posting/asking in those communities.
If your idea isn't for the HN/IH crowd...then find out where your niche market lives online. What forum, Facebook group, Subreddit, niche social media site do they inhabit? Go there, watch and learn. Post some helpful stuff, then ask what people think.
Just be sure to give before you take.
Remember that it's better to have conversations than collect emails. A lack of success on a landing page can tell you that it's not working. But it can't tell you why.
With that said, having even a small email interest list gives you a pre-seeded customer development list. And can lead to early customers/revenue. Invaluable.
As a side note, I would also consider using Facebook ads, but only if I could't make the approach mentioned above work.
Coincidentally, Start Small, Stay Small is on audible for the first time ever. Just went live yesterday: https://www.audible.com/pd/Start-Small-Stay-Small-Audiobook/B07LB7KBWD?qid=1544825621&sr=sr_1_1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=FZS730AB3EKVSQP8DXZD&
Wow! Haven't expected you would chime in :)
Thanks a lot for the advice! I'll definitely try it out.
If you follow Rob Walling and Mike Taber's Podcast, Startups for the Rest of Us, you can get insight as to what he thinks now. He has mentioned in some recent episodes that almost all the information from that book is still valuable but a lot of the links are not. In the case of adwords he does say that it is not the best strategy for a bootstrapper these days if you have little cash as it is expensive to get to work and you have to test it out - it's hard to optimize out of the gate. However, it always depends on your specific use case.
Anyhow, if you don't listen to that podcast I highly recommend you do. It's the best advice I've heard about bootstrapping startups and they release a new episode every week. Good luck with your product!
Thanks! Will check it out definitely.
Cost per click is higher, no doubt. Although, using his advice (as well as Neil Patel's), I did find niches that were low competition with decent size audiences.
While I can't speak from experience (I've been doing battle with Google ads for nearly a month), I do think the exercise of finding the most lucrative niches is highly valuable and definitely relevant!
And I would argue that your experiment was successful, even if not the end result you wanted. If no one is converting, then you either need to massage your message, your niche or your product!
Thanks! Yup - I'll probably refine it and try again.
As another point of reference: I've blown 14 USD to date. 6.6% CTR, 13 clicks, 9 took me up on the CTA.
Quick question: have you started with automatic bids (recommended by Google) or have you fixed the max? My guess is the latter - but would be great if you could confirm.
I started with the latter, but shifted to automatic bids to garner more impressions.
When we first started KickoffLabs, one of our early goals was to automate a lot of the idea validation ideas from Rob’s book (and four hour work week). Even seven years ago we quickly learned it was too costly and complex for most.
For a pure indie app (https://scottw.com/market-size) I look at landing pages as a means:
The last is a big change in mindset for me and in the process overall. I don’t think you can say you have a validated idea based on a landing page and email list. Validation only happens when money changes hands.
My very simple approach was to check if people would be willing to add themselves to a "waiting list" (i.e. they see the pricing, they hit the sign-up button but instead of the actual webapp they would see an invitation to enter early adopter waiting list, and they would be served in near future). This would be a proxy for the actual sign-ups. Before building the product, this is the closest I think I can get to a successfull sale. Thoughts?
Maybe you can just mention him, @robwalling, as he chimed in recently on one of my threads with a super valuable comment! :)
It took me about 3 months of testing & tweaking to get Adwords working correctly for both my products. Not very efficient as a means of testing.
The biggest issue I have with that strategy is that it doesn't allow you to gather feedback on why it's not working. There could be a hundred reasons someone didn't see your ad, didn't click your ad, didn't signup, didn't convert, etc.,
Can't hurt to test but I prefer testing using something with a better feedback loop, like direct sales.
Totally agree - I don't have a clue what might be the reason it failed (I actually suspect, based on analytics, that the ad wasn't showed in the location I set it up in - instead of UK I had visitors from Phillipines). When you say "direct sales" in context of validating the business idea, how would that look like? Cold emails asking to register for a waiting list (maybe with some early adopter promo codes)?
Hi!
I like the idea - a lot. But it assumes that (a) you know what you're doing with Google's (horrible) system, (b) that you're on the ball with landing pages, and (c) that you have a budget to really dip your toes in.
I don't want to think about how many people have done this the wrong way, and made some very wrong decisions.
Are you using a different strategy? (e.g. Rob mentioned in his comment about becoming active within an existing community)
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Wow! That is a good result. I had a similar budget but no emails left.
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