Finding customers is hard (at least it is for me)!
Finding customers is hard (at least it is for me)! Let's work together to brainstorm customer development.
Post what you are working on, links to your landing page, and share as many of the points below as you can. Even better if you can share where you are stuck! Then help brainstorm ideas for what other Indie Hacker have posted. I'll take a look at your product and share my ideas about your customers (be they good or bad).
Like a lot of people here I have a background as a coder. Even though I've been a founder before, I have not (yet) developed the skills needed to validate an idea, find initial users, or sell. So of course I have been struggling to find initial users for the product I'm working on.
I asked a very experienced marketing friend for help, and here is the process we outlined (and some links to concepts from one of my favorite books):
What is the value proposition? Is it cool, save you time, help you make more money, make you sexy? Everyone is motivated to act based on a few core drives, use those to frame why someone would use your product.
What does the ideal customer look like? Is it B2C or B2B? Work logically from what your product does, and its value proposition. What are its constraints, ie do your customers need to have iPhones, an office, drive a car? Who are the people that have the problem you are solving? It can help to think about who wouldn't need it to narrow this list too. What are the constraints you have to work with to find qualified customers?
Who are they? Now that you know some basic constraints, start breaking your ideal customer down into addressable market segments. You want to identify groups of people where some portion of them will meet your ideal customer constraints. Is it doctors, celebrity chefs, marketing agencies, moms who have chickens? Get specific and list as many as you can. Creating Yes, No, and Maybe lists is helpful.
Where/how can you reach them? Do they hang out in sub reddits for erlang developers, maybe a professional association? Post on social media, make an offer in a professional association publication?
Reach out! Now you have something actionable, try it and see what kind of response you get. Remember each channel is going to have different rules of engagement, stay within those so your aren't creating spam, and maybe even ask permission.
Track the results Keep notes, a spreadsheet, metrics about how it went with each segment. Increased traffic, registrations, got banned from a sub reddit? This is critical to the next step...
Repeat Take what you learned and try again. You will be wrong, and need to refine your approach. That's OK! Even expected.
All of this takes work, creativity and insight. Let's help each other brainstorm the who, why, where, and how. The only bad idea is the one you don't share!
Great post, this is exactly why i joined this site. I launched bennees.com about a week ago with little knowledge on building a customer base. Thanks for the succinct knowledge now i'm going to go learn and implement.
Looks like a much needed service Elijah, kudos. As promised here are my thoughts.
You clearly know the veterans and have a landing page geared to them. A job board seems like a two sided marketplace to me. Maybe a second landing page for recruiters and hiring managers that helps them see the value in hiring vets and explains your value prop for them, that you can help them reach a highly skilled and dedicated workforce.
I'd think you would want to start talking to recruiters from various industries and start learning about their needs so you can bridge the gap to vets. Linkedin and other job boards would be good places to start finding some to talk to and Linkedin would probably be the place to start marketing. Video content could be a good way to get started.
Is there a way to work with programs like LambdaSchool? Maybe @austenallred would be a good person to have a conversation with.
Keep us posted, sounds like an awesome project!
## Front Desk
I'm building Front Desk, a simple to use visitor management system that uses an Alexa skill to check in visitors and a Slack app to manage your team and receive notifications when visitors arrive.
What is the value proposition?
This is the primary business case for using Front Desk. Coupled with the simplicity of setup and use it positions Front Desk for growing business' that have passed their threshold for having its visitor traffic be handled by whoever sits near the door, and need records of who has been on site.
This is really only a tertiary concern. I did get feedback early on that it would be valuable to agencies and voice companies.
What does the ideal customer look like?
Who are they? <- Stuck here
Who else am I missing?
Where/how can you reach them?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! What am I missing?
This comment was deleted 7 years ago