Ask IH: Should I continue my side project or start a new one?
Hi Indiehackers, I'm currently doing a challenge where I need to get to $2k MRR by New Year's eve.
I built my second project in about a week. It's a site where you can check out crowdsourced, geolocated trends around the world.
I posted it to Show HN and got a fairly positive response, it got 71 upvotes and was front page for a while.
The big problem however is getting people to actually put in data.
Here are some possible solutions:
- Scraping the web or using APIs
- Creating a login system and incentivising people through gamification
- Keep it as is but appoint “ambassadors” per city/country to help seed content
All of these require a lot of work and at this point I'm wondering whether I should continue or just move on to a new project. What do you guys think?
the project: http://www.hypewatching.com
more stats about the launch: https://www.toomas.net/2017/10/25/my-first-small-success
This project is a good idea, but doesn't have quite enough data to be interesting for me personally yet. The bigger problem with it is there's no active monetization, so how are you going to get to $2k MRR so quickly? If things continue as they are, you will fail with that goal. I think instead of improving the product, you should monetize with some MRR. What was your +5K MRR business? Could you do something else in that niche? You clearly knew the market.
good question. I think the only way to properly validate the idea would be to monetize it straight away.. The +5k MRR business was a productivity app to change your habits. I do know a lot about this market but I don't have any interest in doing something similar at the moment! I believe I also have a non-compete clause
An alternative to Google trends would be nice but I don't think it will scale if people have to enter trends.
It would be better if you scrap the web yourself and offer on top of the data meaningful statistics. For the statistics you could charge a monthly fee to access the data.
Another possibility would be that you focus on the data alone and provide the best API for developers. Listen to Rachel's interview from Intrinio . Maybe their business model suits you.
Thanks for the advice :) If you don't mind me asking – how would you go about testing whether people would pay for this kind of data?
I like this advice. It is a longer term play, so you may not be able to hit your $2K MRR goal, but I think you've come across a possible problem. How do you aggregate trending data across multiple sources?
There may be a market out there for people who are looking for an easy API for trends across the internet. Marketers are a good audience for this type of data.
As far as how to test, that's a tough question. You can post a question on one of the many marketing forums out there. You can throw you a landing page with a email capture and run some ads against it. You can ask your mailing list. I'd want to test here is whether or not this is a big enough problem for people that they would be willing to pay for it.
Yeah actually I'm thinking to creating a landing page and ask for money straight away. Maybe at first turn it into a mailing list type of thing, localized to a certain geographical area of your choosing.
If people actually pay for it I'll start aggregating data (+ maybe ask people from that area) and start sending emails.
Then later on maybe API.
Big question is idd is this a big enough problem!
Reach out to your potential customers and start talking to them. For me, I'd figure out who my target customer segment would be - come up with narrower segments, start having conversations with people and log them into my CRM. Eventually, follow up and assuming you have an "MVP", let them have a go at the product.
Hard to tell. You have to provide value to customers first and foremost. If it's easier to just use Google Trends, people probably won't use your solution. Also, you would have to figure out who your ideal customer is. Indiehackers who are look for an emerging market? Content creators who like to write about stuff which will be trendy in the near future?
By the time you provide value and you have figured out your ideal customers, you simply have to let them know that you exist. After that you'll see if they are willing to pay or not.
Maybe try narrowing the focus a bit at first? For example, you could start by only mapping fashion and tv show trends, then expand as you get more users on board.
Crowdsourcing is always hard to get started. What is the benefit to a user for putting in info?
have you looked at how pieter levels launched hoodmaps? he blogged his entire process and i think it might be worth checking out. good luck. journey > destination
I saw it yeah, I don't have anywhere near the amount of followers he has though. I'm doing it as publicly as possible already at http://www.toomas.net (short of actually screencasting)
Maybe it's just me, but I'd try to do a B2B product to get up to $2k MRR. The end of the year deadline sounds really really difficult.
It is :/
Your big problem is to get people to put in data. Is there anyway that you can scale it down and narrow your focus so you wouldn't require substantial effort for inputting data?
As a strategy and analytics guy, your service has incredible value if it actually works. It might not reach your MRR right away and it might be a while before MRR comes in but once you have collected all that data - I can see it being used for marketing agencies, advertising, strategy depts, etc.
Thinking to turn it into a mailing list, localized to a geographical area you can choose. I'd send you 1 email a month with the latest trends in that area per category including detailed explanations/sources etc.
I'll test whether people want to pay for this service and then start aggregating/asking for data from different sources.
Thanks for the advice!
I think that would interesting. I used to build a location analytics platform that had the data segmented by FSAs.
Good luck!
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
Thanks for the reply :)
I kind of know it's an unrealistic goal. I will likely fail, but it does motivate me to work and try a lot of stuff!
Having said that, I did have a +5k MRR business before, sold it after 3 years for a good multiplier. So kind of know what I'm getting myself into :) It just feels a lot harder now – I'm not motivated about any one specific idea. Makes me want to give up if it doesn't immediately get traction (which is unrealistic).. Struggling a bit with idea validation! Easier to just start building :/
"Struggling a bit with idea validation! Easier to just start building :/"
It's less fun to spend time and energy validating, but it saves SO much time in the long run. Sometimes, building a simple prototype is all it takes to show people and validate/invalidate an idea. Well, that and talking to people. :)
As for this project, it's tough to tell without a clear path to monetization. Do you have ideas for monetizing it to see how it could do?
I've seen a lot of people think of things in terms of scale first, but in my experience it's a lot better to apply the "don't keep pouring water into a leaky bucket" mentality and make sure that you can make a decent amount of money from one person.
I once created a website that got very few visitors early on, but it made over $2 in profit per visitor. So, I started with a super targeted PPC campaign (exact match only) and bid $2.00. Over a few years, I optimized it and scaled it into a nice six-figure business.
Now that you have some traffic, see what you can do with it. If that part feels like an uphill battle, and you don't feel like putting more work into it, then start your next experiment. Best of luck!
Hi Kyle, I completely agree, I have to focus on idea validation.
Right now I'm thinking I'll turn it into an email list and ask people for money straight away, and run some ads. The traffic from HN has pretty much died down completely unfortunately.
$2 in profit per visitor on average, that's insanely good! Was this an expensive product?
I'm familiar with the Strides app actually, my previous project was a habit tracker as well. Very cool :)
I think ezekg's comment is really interesting. I work with a guy who did a project that got to $50k MRR in 2 months. Just him and one other dev. So I know it's possible, just not typical.
He would do rapid app building for a then new platform that was experiencing high growth (Facebook apps). Their model was to build, test and if it didn't hit a high growth number, shut down and move on.
So he rode a wave and there was a platform wave to ride. He sold that company.
This rapid testing he did again, years later, for his current company (where I now work). It took 2.5 years and 26 experiments to find the same growth.
Or he could have put more time into one idea to iterate it to something sustainable. Difference is, this time he wants to do a world changing idea, not a lifestyle biz (sale from the first one means he never has to work again for money).
But it seems that either path (double down or continuous projects) will be long and time-consuming. But you should probably pick your overall approach ahead of time and stick to it knowing it could take a while.
I'd also say there's a difference between riding fast-moving wave that will grow a lot vs. trying to incrementally improve in a mature market. The former you should pivot quickly and grow with the platform, the latter you'll either need to double-down or try and find an untapped market, which is harder to do in mature spaces.
Very interesting! The whole trends thing is not a wave but I don't think it's a mature space either (only competition seems to be Google Trends really). The only question is: is there an actual market for it? So that's what I'm about to test now..
About riding a wave and quickly iterating and giving up on ideas if they don't grow quickly.. I'd love to do that but I believe you have to be very lucky to get on the wave at the start (not a lot of people can spot these waves). For example you could say VR/AR is the current wave, or maybe deep learning or IOT. But the reality is that no-one really knows when the market for these will really explode. Right now you can only "get in" with a lot of money (unlike Facebook apps at that time or mobile apps at the start of the iPhone). Once VR reaches mass market and there's a clear winner then it's time to jump on I guess?
Yeah, I think of riding waves as more of a specific site/platform than a category. I mean, it needs to be both but typically, like real waves, you want to catch it right as it's breaking. Although better to be late in tech than early.
I wouldn't look at, say, VR/AR or IOT. Those look interesting but aren't breaking waves. They're like mobile phones in the early 90s right now.
I'd look at crypto potentially or something like Shopify. It needn't been a massive platform or a particularly innovative platofrm, just one where there are effective ways to piggyback and build on top of or within.
For signals look at where VC money has poured recently and that's experiencing massive user growth and adoption.
Facebook and Mobile where epic opportunities, those come around every 5 years (maybe). So those massive waves are much rarer (we'd call those King waves in Australia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneaker_wave).
For smaller rev target goals (like not building a unicorn) then you want a strong wave but needn't be as big. In fact, there may be protection in being in a space that's too small for a larger team to do profitably.
I also don't think you need a lot of money except in the platform King waves, where VC investment would make sense and if you try to bootstrap your VC backed, non-profitable competitors will bleed you out on CAC.