Where do we go from here?
We launched presskite.com a few months ago. Since then, MRR has decreased and the trial to conversion rate isn't very high. The vast majority of users register, poke around, then never come back. We have a bit over 1200 users on the mailing list for the product (registered) and an additional 5500 on a related list for a product I launched as a growth hack https://calendar.presskite.com
Here is where I think the problem is:
We made a product that solved a problem I personally had, but not many other people share. Whoops. I needed press kits for side projects so I could display the content (images, videos, links to blog posts) for our brand in a slightly more professional manner than a google drive folder could.
The problem is, I think we're catching the downtrend of a turn. Google Drive is becoming more of a reliable source for hosting and sharing with anyone. Users that still want to integrate a better press kit into their mix do so by adding it to their website using their existing workflow and match their brand's style.
That leaves a small shrinking sliver of users in between who either isn't aware that they can just use Dropbox or google drive or think we're able to integrate more fully into their site.
So, what are the next steps? I decided to split test two ideas I had for growing the product through other products and leaving the tool to be a lead gen aggregator. I sent out an email to our list with two different, unbuilt products:
https://writer.presskite.com (Content marketing as a service)
https://tailwind.presskite.com (Better launches as a service)
Writer generated about 15 sales meetings and I closed 1 for ongoing revenue at $500/month. I turned down 2 additional clients and ended relationships with the $500/month user. More on this later.
Tailwind generated 17 sales meetings and I closed 2 at $799 (one-time) and one at $2000 (recurring). I also turned down 7 other possible offers and ended relationships with the $2k recurring user. More on this now.
Whoa? Revenue! Great. The problem is they're both services with razor thin margins and I have a full-time job. My two co-founders are both very talented developers, but that meant I was wrangling several service businesses for way below my hourly rate and then profits were being split three ways.
Service-based businesses are very tricky with a full-time job as most of it is handled during the daytime when you're expected to be on hand for the full-time gig :) Software-based businesses can be hacked on at night without too much disruption to the working schedule.
So, now we're a bit unsure of where to go from here. I pointed us in the direction of a problem I had that isn't shared by many and we've built a platform to cater to it. MRR is low $XXX and shrinking. We have a few ideas of other tools we could build to cater to the crowd, but none have really grabbed us yet.
Ideas
Create a service similar to HARO that scrapes tweets containing #journorequests on twitter. These are tweets from journalists seeking comment from public relations people. We could charge $5/month for instant alerts and have a free plan to compliment it.
Data brokering. Sites like press hunt and Cision make buckets of cash scraping journalist's contact information and selling it en masse. It's a guaranteed $XX,XXX in MRR but it doesn't make me feel great.
Sell the business.
That's it, open to any suggestions you might have. Thanks!