I’ve made the unfortunate mistake of building things that nobody wants and will never make any money.
These three questions help me know I’m on track:
I’d love to hear about your product! Can you post a link and answer the questions about your product?
I’ll post mine in a comment 😁
premiumjs.com
Is this basically a private NPM repo consisting of packages that pass certain quality filters? I mean I'm asking about the technical side of things, not the business aspect.
Edit: Yeah, the landing page says it is. I shouldn't submit comments after 11pm lol.
@hkanaktas, on the technical side, yes. There’s an npm-compatible registry under the hood.
It doesn’t necessarily have to pass quality filters (although that’d be a cool feature), just that someone lists it for sale.
Let me know if you wanna talk more. You can ping me at [email protected].
I think a certain minimum quality barrier may bring a lot more customers to you.
Once the word is out that whatever purchased on premiumjs.com has awesome documentation and fully tested code, people who want good libraries and are not afraid to spend a few bucks on it will be all over your website.
I think that's how Envato websites (ThemeForest especially) got popular.
Just an idea though, I might be wrong.
@hkanaktas, you could totally be right :)
I have to admin. I like your design. Simple yet nice.
Thanks @rogovdm! Appreciate it ... but also I can’t really take credit. It’s mostly a theme from carrd.co they I just tweaked. :)
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Thanks @Gshock. I’d love to hear more thoughts if you’d like to share 😀
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Thanks @Gshock. You’re the second person in 2 days who has said something similar about vetting packages... I think it’s probably a key thing to ensure high quality/reputation of premiumjs.
Divjoy
Love this.
Nice!!!
Really intrigued by your JavaScript-based product. I’m not as experienced as many, but I like to think I write (mostly) neat code, so I’m gonna dig into it in a sec :)
But first! Here are my 3 answers:
Thanks, @zakke! Really fun design and interesting idea. I hope you succeed! :)
zohunt.com
afrisurvey.com
Market and academic researchers plus any one that wants to quickly and affordably sample the opinion of people living in Africa about anything.
It makes it easy and affordable for anyone to get quick survey responses from real and targeted African consumers.
We charge $1 per completed survey and pay respondents a cut.
I really like the idea. Can I ask how do you find the respondents, and why they're all based in Africa?
Thanks for the like.
We created and promoted a landing page targeted at Africans who wants to make money by doing tasks online.
The market for survey responses is super wide. We are focussing on Africa partly to nitche down and because we have a couple of plans for the African audiences.
Moon for Indie Hackers
Hey, I like what Moon is all about. Just wondering, Are you creating the application for Android platform as well?
Hey Vaibhav I do plan to make an android version but I gotta admit that is pretty far away right now. I’ll keep you posted though!
This is a cool landing page. Since you made the theme match, for a split second I thought it was under the official domain. The name may be a challenge for organic discovery. Are the maintainers of IH backing you on this project?
Thanks Neea :)
Would you mind expanding? I'm not sure I follow.
Not "backing" me but not stopping me. In fact Courtland has thrown a few pointers my way out of good will.
Regarding the name, I mean for a user to find it in the app store, do they need to know it is called "Moon" before they can find it, or is it sufficient to type "indie hackers" in app store search and it comes up?
Ah I see. Yea I plan to title it
Moon for Indie Hackers
in the app store when I release it. So hopefully anyone searching forindie hackers
will find it 🤞Sounds great! Let me know if you need a hand in android development. I would be happy to assist you :)
Do indiehackers have an API?..
No, I don't think so.
http://mightyforms.com/
https://anyform.co/
@alexfur, love the simplicity of the solution and how clear it speaks to the pain point. Nicely done!
http://centori.io/
Thanks! What's the link to your product?
No problem, updated!
MyMyriad
https://www.mymyriad.ai
No Code Predictive Analytics powered by Machine Learning
Yomi.ai
People who like great coffee
We roast to order so its fresh as can be. We also grind it to the size you want.
Every sale generates revenue and percentage for charity
Www.maidabeans.com
Thanks
Hey @ypatel! I’m a coffee fanatic ... and London is a great place for coffee :)
I was working a bit on how to help coffee roasters with software and I’d love connect! What’s a good way to get in touch?
browserreplicator.com
www.capitalcurbside.com
waterdeep.io
Who is your product for?
Organized developers who work in teams
What problem does it solve for them?
Having to search for backfilling or one-time operation scripts in JIRA or Slack, instead they can organize these in one place and have them readily available.
How does it make you money?
Monthly subscription for premium customers who want all the nice features
https://azhantest18.pythonanywhere.com/ (domain coming soon).
Thanks.
hey nice I use pythonanywhere for hosting too!
Dytto.co
JustFitness.io
https://knowyourworth.site
1 - Everyone who has a stable job or is searching for one.
2- It gives you a better idea of how much you should be earning.
3- At the moment just by ads. Once I collect more salaries charging recruiter agencies for using the API.
Really interesting project @ngranja19. I sense that there are other good monetization models .
Yikes, look at that gender pay gap in the charts. Eep!
Story Creator
https://smalltuts.com
Who is your product for?
Originally targeted for indie hackers/programmers/entrepreneurs who want to learn things in small bites
What problem does it solve for them?
Entertainment & learning when they don't have enough time
Not monetized right now
Nodewood
Love seeing quality nodejs projects :)
Thanks! Hopefully I can encourage more folks to use it to start their businesses, too!
embarque.io
My product is for those who want to rank on the first page of Google through premium SEO articles that also turns users into subscribers.
It helps companies rank on Google through SEO content strategy.
People pay for the articles.
Oof, easier than I expected!
Our website is: www.cruu.io
Cruu stands for Create React UI UX
It's super easy to answer them. It's incredibly hard to answer them well.
mindfulsuite.com
My mediocre answer:
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hey thanks for asking. updated.
1brand.co
upstamps.com
Very important questions to ask. Here's how I answer them for the project that has my primary focus right now, SoVisual.co:
Who is the product for? Three distinct audiences with different problems to solve:
(a) Social media managers
(b) solopreneurs
(c) graphic designers
What problem does it solve for them?
(a) Takes too much time to create social content (with visuals) every single day and it's hard to come up with new ideas every single day (especially if you're doing it for multiple clients). SoVisual.co Social Packs give (at minimum) a starting point so you can do as much (if not more) work in less time with more effectiveness. Hello increased profit margins!
(b) Solopreneurs wear ALL the hats. So the idea of taking the time to figure out what to post on social media every day to grow their audience, and then having the time to actually MAKE IT is daunting, and ends up just not happening. OR they spend WAY too much time using something like Canva and other important tasks get neglected. OR they have to hire someone to do it for them. Social Packs = low cost, easy-to-implement solution.
(c) Coming up with branded themes for graphics is a LOT of work. Starting with a template saves TONS of hours and creative energy. That means you can charge the same amount for less time/energy. Hello increased profit margins!
How does it make you money? Customers purchase the Social Packs.
I think one important question to ask somewhere between questions 2-3 is this: Does the audience know they have this problem?
One of the things I ran into with previous businesses is that I solved a problem for an audience that didn't necessarily believe they had. And the amount of education it took to "convince" them was too much. This led to me losing a lot of money for 11 months.
This is something you can easily discover by doing a proper product validation process--which I didn't really do 100%.
My product: Kingmailer.co
My feedback:
Who is your product for?
The "small user with big dreams and small pocket", that want to focus on their project instead of focusing on email delivery. Indie hackers, webmasters, developers, bootstrappers, small and medium businesses, solo founders
What problem does it solve for them?
It solves email delivery for an affordable pricing -- delivering emails to the inbox, sure you can use Sendgrid for $10, but your email delivery will be very bad, unless you are prepared to throw some cash and have your own private IP there. Which can cost easily $90 p/mo (18x more expensive than Kingmailer.co, lolz)
How does it make you money?
SaaS-model, users are charged montly, starting at $5 p/mo
rawerse.com
Let's Bookmark
✅ For everybody, but target 🎯 are frequent flight travelers
✅ They can read offline all the articles they didn't have time to read when they were online
✅ None at the moment, but I'm planning to limit number of saved articles for free users
onlynights.com
The MVP was "soft-launched" on 5/8, so I've been very slowly getting my feet wet (as this is my first true product launch) prior to doing any announcements.
Nice! Hope you succeed! Good luck @mattdood
It sounds like the story of my life, lol!
I'll answer about my most recent macOS app, PopNotes:
https://targetaudience.app
programmingproblems.app
As a teacher I understand this is a pain and coming up with new creative problems over and over again is hard especially when you are trying to design an exam. It takes me 6 - 8 hours from start to finish to create an exam at the moment. Also creating a series of lab exercises that need to be engaging and educational is a huge time sink. Teaching students about "for loops" you need practical examples to go with that during lectures. I want to ease some of these pain points over time.
HelloMixy.com - Five $20 gift cards to five amazing brands for only $39.99
https://protege.dev
Thanks @pickleat! I dig the design.
For monetization, a strategy I've seen on a lot of products like this is to a) charge for companies to post or b) charge companies to feature posts.
It's a bad idea to try to charge the junior devs looking for jobs...they don't have any money :)
100% agreed there. I think that’ll be our model but we’re open to more unique ideas as well.
pingr.io
Who is your product for?
For people who have sites with high traffic, people launching ad campaign, PH or something similar, e-commerce sites
What problem does it solve for them?
Notifying them when their site is offline and they loose traffic and thus money
How does it make you money?
Monthly subscription
animesongcovers.com
Who is your product for?
For people who like anime song covers
What problem does it solve for them?
Provide efficient searching, let user manage playlist with ease
How does it make you money?
Expected to use ads & affiliate links
noorahq.com
https://toddmoses.com
https://knowhup.com
plagiashield.com
Hi Spencer - thanks for triggering this thought track.
https://engineeringcollective.io
Sketch Runner
It used to be a completely free and well-maintained plugin for 3 years. We started charging for the Pro version ~1 year ago after a complete overhaul.
I’m a huge fan of Sketch Runner and I recommend it every designer I know. Keep up the good work!
https://manyletter.com/
People who are subscribing to too many newsletters and their inbox is always full. Creators of newsletters who just want to send regular newsletter messages and invite their audience to their webpages.
Reducing the number of messages from newsletters (no 3rd party service installations or download) to one email a day. Reducing the number of notifications. Automatic unsubscription from the newsletter if you are not visiting it at all. Sorting newsletters based on your interests and directly in the mail inbox. Keeping track of the history of newsletter messages within the ManyLetter admin panel. Keeping your email private if you wish, so the creator of the newsletter can not see who is subscribing to his newsletter but only know that someone is subscribing and if you are active or not.
Small one-time payment for subscribers who want to have full functionality of ManyLetter for subscribers. Subscription for creators of email newsletters who wish to send email messages, base on the number of messages sent.
1.- People that work multiple projects.
2.- Saves them time
3.- We charge a monthly fee.
simpletasking.com
Site: https://tranzlate.io
Hi @jones_spencera, this is a great reminder on what we need to focus on as builders.
Here is mine for opensourcecapital.co
Designtack.com
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This is a really cool project! Please don't feel discouraged because of the 3 weeks, I think every success story should be taken with mountains of salt.
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Sure thing! I'll be honest, your landing page really roped me in. If you want some candid feedback I think that the 'How to get started' section could use a bit more detail.
It's what held me back a bit because once I started considering how I could use it with MightyfForms, I started questioning it more technically. Like, is it responsive, will it clash with Intercom, how does it pull the data, cookies, and so on.
Sorry, I know you didn't ask for feedback. I think this is an awesome project, and it's definitely bookmarked. Good luck!
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3 weeks ago is nothing! This is a long haul, keep iterating and talk to as many people as you can.
I can't help but notice though, 1&2 are both about the product in your answer. Remember, think about the customer. Customers don't care about us, they care about their goals and the problems that get in the way of their goals. Our products aren't the hero in their story, they're the tool that gets them where they want to go.
Keep talking to people and listen to their stories and take that back to the product, I've iterated a ton over the past year and with each step you end up getting closer to finally 'making it', good luck!
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For sure, right there with you it can be really hard at times - but that could be after months of iterating until they finally got it. That's the funny thing about hearing about everyone's success - the struggles along the way are left out.
And closer but that's not a problem - that's a solution. What problem are you solving? What painpoint do your customers have?
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