Long time lurker, created an account just to say this is one of the most genuine interviews I’ve read. Keep up the great work, I can see this doing 5-10x over the next few months.
5
That's very kind of you to say. Thank you!
5
just want to echo these thoughts. what a great read. thanks, @abinoda.
8
This is a fantastic authentic interview and I really appreciate the simplicity of this idea.
1
Thank you!
5
Hey Abi! Love the quote about being a novelist. Excited for your new website!
1
Thanks Allison!
5
Love your book list and notes - what method(s) do you use for effectively summarizing all that content?
2
I'll be writing a blog post about this soon but I take notes myself using markdown and then generate the HTML pages using some custom software I wrote.
4
Beautiful and really inspiring article! Thanks for sharing your story!
4
Cool idea and excellent execution!
1
Thank you Jeremy!
4
It was so great to read your story Abi! Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to read more articles like this.
1
Thanks for the support Tigran!
4
Abi you are a true indie hacker. Hail to you! this is the definition of indie hacking. Best of luck. Cheers
1
I appreciate the kind words. Thank you!
3
Very inspiring read. Incredible how a so "simple" idea can give such revenue!
Good luck and Thanks for the story.
3
Awesome interview Abi. All the best to your product Pull Reminders!
1
Thank you Hoang!
3
Thanks for sharing your story Abi and keep up the good work! It was really insightful to read such a personal story and some of the struggles you documented really resonated with my own experience!
Abi there are many parallels in your story to which I can relate. I’m interested in the status of the other idea you were going to pursue using Pull Reminders as a funnel. I’m currently pursuing the same strategy but one nagging concern is the thought I should be focusing on the main idea. But this is offset by the realization that the main idea requires a much longer time investment. Have you ran into similar detracting thoughts?
1
Hi Michael – the other idea is still alive. I'm actively working on it now and should be hopefully announcing some new stuff in the next couple of months.
Regarding your situation, it does sound very similar. My "main idea" requires a much larger time investment in product development, sales process, and achieving initial traction.
This is why I've continued to focus on Pull Reminders for the time being. It's provided me "access" to my target audience while also helping me build up funds to keep me afloat while I invest in the "main idea".
2
Had a GREAT time reading this post. Thanks for the book recommendation - Nail it then Scale It.
2
Entrepreneurs rarely talk about revenues.
Thank you Abi.
2
very nice interview! I'm sure you can come very far with your product 🚀
2
I'll probably pick this up at my workplace to help remind us of PR's
2
"I believe that validating your ability to reach and sell your customers is as important as validating that your product solves a problem."
Ugh, that hurts. I'm currently building a fantastic Sales suite for State Farm agents and I am finding that it is HARD to get them to demo it. I have been at it for a year and little traction.
I had a list of pros/cons for each idea and this would have been great to put in the list prior to the validation of the idea.
2
Don't lose hope! It might help if you decouple the problems and focus entirely on how to "reach" your customers (state farm agents). Pretend you don't even have a product. What can you create or offer that will bring them in? A free tool? Specific content? A community?
Focus on building that because once you do it won't even matter whether your current product is a hit or not because you'll have a network of agents that you can talk to and build something valuable for.
2
I'm curious about the referral program you're trying out. What's the reasoning behind offering coffee or amazon gift cards as opposed to something product-related, like a free month or extended trial period?
1
I am trying to incentivize individual users to make referrals so I thought that I needed to offer an individual incentive. For example, offering them a free month doesn't do them personally any benefit since their company is paying for the subscription. I thought coffee was fun and could be effective. When that didn't work I switched to Amazon gift cards. That still doesn't seem to be working, though. It could be that I'm not asking users in a noticeable-enough way (though over 150 users have viewed the referral program page). But I don't want to ask for referrals too aggressively. I don't know.
1
That's a really good point on the company paying for it. It may be that referrals aren't a viable channel, but it could also be something you have running in the background.
It sounds like what you're doing is more of a self-service 1:1 referral program. Have you thought of something more broadly appealing like a giveaway where users earn entries by sharing on social media for example? That might be something easier for a user to get onboard with.
1
Hadn't thought about a giveaway. In general I'm very cautious about trying to push anything sales-y since my users are engineers who are generally pretty averse to those types of things. Whatever I do offer I'd like it to be fun and a truly two-sided – that's where the gourmet coffee idea came from.
If people aren't sharing my product I think I've just got to make it better! I'm half-kidding, but I am working on building some features into the product that might have intrinsic word-of-mouth potential.
2
@abinoda did you ever try running ads? Twitter? Facebook? What was your experience?
2
I haven't tried running ads yet. I've been contemplating Twitter ads but I'm hesitant because I've never personally seen a profitable PPC campaign both on my own projects as well as companies where I've worked at. If you have any tips let me know!
1
I've been able to get CPC way down in Twitter ads, with custom made audience lists (e.g. crawled all twitter accounts that are Product Hunt makers ) and targeting them.
Imho it is at least worth 1 week ~$1k to spend on and see even if it might bring in sales.
2
Nice! Let me know if you want me to hunt it on Product Hunt?
3
Hey @bentossell – I'm gearing up for a PH launch next week. I'd love to get any tips you might have. Will shoot you an email!
Great interview! Just a quick question: if someone purchases directly from your site, does Github gets 25%?
1
Simple and elegant idea. All the best!
1
Hey Abi, congrats! Love how you ride the Slack+GitHub marketplace waves, that seems like a big plus for your marketing. I now understand why you need "new customer" notifications ;)
1
Thanks Julien :)
1
I've a plan on how to create slack bot as well. Do you mind to share where can I find those resources to learn to build a slack bot?
0
Awesome work! You should list Pull Reminders on BotList. We can get you some traffic and help you increase that MRR. https://botlist.co/platforms/slack
Long time lurker, created an account just to say this is one of the most genuine interviews I’ve read. Keep up the great work, I can see this doing 5-10x over the next few months.
That's very kind of you to say. Thank you!
just want to echo these thoughts. what a great read. thanks, @abinoda.
This is a fantastic authentic interview and I really appreciate the simplicity of this idea.
Thank you!
Hey Abi! Love the quote about being a novelist. Excited for your new website!
Thanks Allison!
Love your book list and notes - what method(s) do you use for effectively summarizing all that content?
I'll be writing a blog post about this soon but I take notes myself using markdown and then generate the HTML pages using some custom software I wrote.
Beautiful and really inspiring article! Thanks for sharing your story!
Cool idea and excellent execution!
Thank you Jeremy!
It was so great to read your story Abi! Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to read more articles like this.
Thanks for the support Tigran!
Abi you are a true indie hacker. Hail to you! this is the definition of indie hacking. Best of luck. Cheers
I appreciate the kind words. Thank you!
Very inspiring read. Incredible how a so "simple" idea can give such revenue!
Good luck and Thanks for the story.
Awesome interview Abi. All the best to your product Pull Reminders!
Thank you Hoang!
Thanks for sharing your story Abi and keep up the good work! It was really insightful to read such a personal story and some of the struggles you documented really resonated with my own experience!
Thanks Jackson!
This is amazing @abinoda. Congratulations.
Abi there are many parallels in your story to which I can relate. I’m interested in the status of the other idea you were going to pursue using Pull Reminders as a funnel. I’m currently pursuing the same strategy but one nagging concern is the thought I should be focusing on the main idea. But this is offset by the realization that the main idea requires a much longer time investment. Have you ran into similar detracting thoughts?
Hi Michael – the other idea is still alive. I'm actively working on it now and should be hopefully announcing some new stuff in the next couple of months.
Regarding your situation, it does sound very similar. My "main idea" requires a much larger time investment in product development, sales process, and achieving initial traction.
This is why I've continued to focus on Pull Reminders for the time being. It's provided me "access" to my target audience while also helping me build up funds to keep me afloat while I invest in the "main idea".
Had a GREAT time reading this post. Thanks for the book recommendation - Nail it then Scale It.
Entrepreneurs rarely talk about revenues.
Thank you Abi.
very nice interview! I'm sure you can come very far with your product 🚀
I'll probably pick this up at my workplace to help remind us of PR's
"I believe that validating your ability to reach and sell your customers is as important as validating that your product solves a problem."
Ugh, that hurts. I'm currently building a fantastic Sales suite for State Farm agents and I am finding that it is HARD to get them to demo it. I have been at it for a year and little traction.
I had a list of pros/cons for each idea and this would have been great to put in the list prior to the validation of the idea.
Don't lose hope! It might help if you decouple the problems and focus entirely on how to "reach" your customers (state farm agents). Pretend you don't even have a product. What can you create or offer that will bring them in? A free tool? Specific content? A community?
Focus on building that because once you do it won't even matter whether your current product is a hit or not because you'll have a network of agents that you can talk to and build something valuable for.
I'm curious about the referral program you're trying out. What's the reasoning behind offering coffee or amazon gift cards as opposed to something product-related, like a free month or extended trial period?
I am trying to incentivize individual users to make referrals so I thought that I needed to offer an individual incentive. For example, offering them a free month doesn't do them personally any benefit since their company is paying for the subscription. I thought coffee was fun and could be effective. When that didn't work I switched to Amazon gift cards. That still doesn't seem to be working, though. It could be that I'm not asking users in a noticeable-enough way (though over 150 users have viewed the referral program page). But I don't want to ask for referrals too aggressively. I don't know.
That's a really good point on the company paying for it. It may be that referrals aren't a viable channel, but it could also be something you have running in the background.
It sounds like what you're doing is more of a self-service 1:1 referral program. Have you thought of something more broadly appealing like a giveaway where users earn entries by sharing on social media for example? That might be something easier for a user to get onboard with.
Hadn't thought about a giveaway. In general I'm very cautious about trying to push anything sales-y since my users are engineers who are generally pretty averse to those types of things. Whatever I do offer I'd like it to be fun and a truly two-sided – that's where the gourmet coffee idea came from.
If people aren't sharing my product I think I've just got to make it better! I'm half-kidding, but I am working on building some features into the product that might have intrinsic word-of-mouth potential.
@abinoda did you ever try running ads? Twitter? Facebook? What was your experience?
I haven't tried running ads yet. I've been contemplating Twitter ads but I'm hesitant because I've never personally seen a profitable PPC campaign both on my own projects as well as companies where I've worked at. If you have any tips let me know!
I've been able to get CPC way down in Twitter ads, with custom made audience lists (e.g. crawled all twitter accounts that are Product Hunt makers ) and targeting them.
Imho it is at least worth 1 week ~$1k to spend on and see even if it might bring in sales.
Nice! Let me know if you want me to hunt it on Product Hunt?
Hey @bentossell – I'm gearing up for a PH launch next week. I'd love to get any tips you might have. Will shoot you an email!
yeh please do ben.tossell@gmail.com
Great stuff mate!
I would like to know more about publishing for GitHub Marketplace
@ummahusla DM me on Twitter with questions!
Great interview! Just a quick question: if someone purchases directly from your site, does Github gets 25%?
Simple and elegant idea. All the best!
Hey Abi, congrats! Love how you ride the Slack+GitHub marketplace waves, that seems like a big plus for your marketing. I now understand why you need "new customer" notifications ;)
Thanks Julien :)
I've a plan on how to create slack bot as well. Do you mind to share where can I find those resources to learn to build a slack bot?
Awesome work! You should list Pull Reminders on BotList. We can get you some traffic and help you increase that MRR. https://botlist.co/platforms/slack
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