**Saturday Edition: Daily Stand Up!**
Saturday Edition: Daily Stand Up!
#daily-stand-up
Note: This will be interesting. I wonder how many folks will see this/participate given the new format. What do y'all think of the new format?
Back to the regularly scheduled program...
Why?
That extra nudge of accountability to achieve even a small step on your IH journey each day.
To join in:
01 Share your epic (a big chunk of work with a meaty objective) you'd like to complete by the end of January.
02 Share what you accomplished yesterday.
03 Share what you commit to accomplishing today.
04 Comment on at least one fellow hacker's progress and give them an IH Point for their check in.
Optional:
05 Share your Work In Progress to underscore your accomplishments.
Then tune in the tomorrow to share how you did on your own tasks!
01 EPIC BY END OF JAN: Get the new community design and code out the door for Indie Hackers, and improve it to the point where it's really solid.
02 YESTERDAY: Made a bunch of fixes to the new IH homepage, reached the end of my "to-do before launch list," and launched! It was pretty important to do this on a Friday, so I'd have the weekend (relatively low traffic) to follow up.
03 TODAY: Begin working on my "to-do immediately after launch" list. For today that includes supporting deleting posts, supporting editing posts, making a handful of aesthetic improvements, adding a few admin tools to help me curate the feed, and responding to ppl's comments about the changes.
05 WORK IN PROGRESS:
Was listening to a youtube presentation about systemd earlier today where the presenter joked "we all like change, as long as it is us making that change"...
Kidding aside, personally I would also prefer the start post blend in better with the rest of the page. Although I can see why you did make that change.
As for the new feed view I will have to play with for a bit and get used to before I can actually comment on it.
Thanks for all you do.
edit: Oh and I love the popup, it makes navigating the site faster.
Hi, pls change the post background back to dark coz the transition from the post to comments hurts my eyes. Or at least we should have some light/dark theme options.
I agree. I've really come to love the IH dark color scheme!
The party has officially started! @csallen is here!
Thank you kaizen-ing the shit out of IH! I'll admit that I miss the comfort of the previous UI, but look forward to exploring the new! So far, the only oddity has been the lack of delete/edit. But I see it's on the to-do list!
I think you explained this previously, but just in case... How does one get their hashtag to show in the sidebar? Should the hashtag be in the title? Post? Or does it just not show until a minimum number of posts use the same?
oh whadya know, I was all turned around with the recent changes, but it looks like this actually is up today! :) thanks @Harlem
EPIC
By end of 2019:
100 users for Scheduled Memo (had 2 people in testing things with me last night)
YESTERDAY
TODAY
Not everything happened the way I wanted to yesterday, but between the day job and an interview for a new one, I have to call that a success.
KUDOS: @csallen for iterating on the IH interface, I'm unfortunately slow on the uptake re new discussion/post entry path. Feels faster lately too, so thanks.
WORK IN PROGRESS: Scheduled Memo
1 WEEK BACKBURNER (I've given myself a week to complete Scheduled Memo MVP): WallabyVault.com, AutomatedApi.com
Are you working on 3 different businesses simultaneously??
Unfortunately yes :P...technically, but the lines are blurry.
I had started Automated Api after years of fighting with creation of enterprise web APIs, it was a natural outgrowth after I realized about 80% of that can be generated automatically if you just design the interface in a smart way. I have a prototype of that but the day job put it on the back burner until recently. It's my primary focus business-wise but I'm leveraging some of that infrastructure to experiment some too.
Wallaby Vault was an answer to an interesting problem at my day job related to encrypted storage and HIPAA compliant file sharing.
Both of those are nearing alpha, but I needed a sanity break so have allowed myself a 1 week build of a tight and focused project. Hence, Scheduled Memo, which actually was just an idea to help me organize followup items from several disparate platforms that I submit notes to and inevitably sometimes miss.
(Laughing!) I was a bit turned around myself!
#daily-stand-up
EPIC
By end of 2019:
100 paying customers. 3 earned to date.
By end of January:
YESTERDAY
Not a damn thing. Day gig.
TODAY
WIll give yesterday's tasks another go!
KUDOS: @jimbol For getting closer to his February epic!
WORK IN PROGRESS: Happy Endings
Super close to the first 100 chapters, nice!
Do you measure how many people get through those first few steps of your funnel? Click a button on the homepage --> pick a story --> pick genres --> writer a chapter --> etc.? I'd be curious to see where the biggest drop-offs are occurring.
Is the app specifically about kink? If so, it may be worth making that clear on the homepage. If not, my guess is lots of people will drop off at the "select your genres" page.
Consider getting new users (e.g. more women) via targeted advertising. My guess is Facebook and Instagram would be the best channels for you. Since you're still working your day job, you probably have more money than free time, and ads are one of the fastest ways to get new users in the door.
I like the design. It feels sleeker than the last time I looked.
Thanks, @csallen, for checking in! It is very much appreciated! I just listened to your guest interview on Y Combinator. Which was awesome. But I can't tell the difference between being tenacious (the whole goal is to not quit) and being dumb (picking a business model/industry that's hard as hell). Thoughts?
Just hit 100 today!
Here are the stats for the last 3 days (including today):
Hit the home page: 105
Picked a type: 97
Picked a genre: 80
Published a chapter: 7
I can't get a feel for this conversion. Is it awful? Average? Half-night stand decent?
There's no question the drop off is huge between the frictionless pick a genre and the intensive write a chapter. But like... writing a chapter is the whole point of the site. Any ideas?
It's not all about kink. Of the chapters published (and not pruned): 20 are Love, 19 are Kink, 27 are Lust, 5 are Like. I think that's a healthy mix, no?
As for targeted advertising, Facebook won't have me. I tried. They said only authorized dating apps are allowed to advertise. And when I asked for the process re authorization, they literally copied/pasted their prior response. Their customer service was horrible .
Thanks for the compliment re design! (Smiling) I ripped off Netflix's A/B experiment.
Super annoying. My advice is remain persistent: keep pushing, keep trying, as long as it's not a huge time sink. Look into other ad channels, too.
You need at least a rough model for the numbers you need to succeed. Hypothetical: Users need to see 200 new chapters/month to have a good experience. If 7% of visitors create a chapter, you need roughly 3000 visitors/month. Can your user acquisition strategies accomplish that? Obviously this is overly simple and involves lots of guesswork, but 🤷♀️
The difference is subtle, but I'd say the point of the site is to find a partner, and writing a chapter is merely a point of friction you must endure as a user in order to get what you want.
I'd put the profile browsing experience before the write-your-chapter experience. As a user, I don't want to invest time unless I know it'll be worth it. (Also, I don't know how to write a chapter until I see real examples from real users.)
Founders are optimists. That's good, necessary even. But it can lead to being lazy or delusional. The right kind of optimism is ruthlessly seeking out obstacles and confidently attempting to overcome or avoid them. The wrong kind of optimism is ignoring obstacles and blindly believing your numbers will go up and to the right just because.
In your particular case, I'd guess the biggest obstacle for dating apps is the empty-room growth problem — nobody wants to be the first to a party. Are you aware of this challenge and working hard to become an expert who can overcome it?
My thoughts:
Like, Love, Kink, and Lust? Seems like 4 different target audiences to me. You're playing on hard mode. I'd pick one niche.
Niche down on your location, too. Being open to everyone on Earth is, again, playing on hard mode. You'd need millions and millions of users for someone in any given location to have a shot at finding someone near them. Compare to say, a bar on a Friday night. They're super niche when it comes to location, so they don't even need 100 "users" to make matches happen.
I'd read as much as possible about how other social apps grew. Growing social apps is very counterintuitive if you don't know the various obstacles and solutions, and very difficult even if you do.
Alternatively, find a way to make your product appealing and your business model viable without necessarily needing a ton of growth.
Ooh. I forgot to address one important decision. One that's been consistently challenged.
Showing published chapters before the customer has skin in the game. There's no other (successful) dating site that does this. Tinder, OKCupid, eHarmony... they all insist the customer contributes something, whether it be a profile or ridiculously long questionnaire, before you can see the goodies. Why would Happy Endings be the exception?
For happy endings, the equivalent of a profile or questionnaire is a first chapter. What's more, by keeping the first chapters under wraps, it's less likely to bias a potential customer and form an opinion as to whether they're a fit.
I don't know much about the history of other dating apps, so I could be totally wrong here, but one common mistake I've seen from interviewing lots of other founders is to assume that what big companies do today is also how they got started. Do you know how these other dating apps overcame the empty room problem in their early days?
Today, I think they are in a very different position than you are. if I join Tinder for example, I already know that there are many people on Tinder that I can match with. They don't need to prove that to me. So I can be confident in taking the time to fill out my profile.
(Also, aren't profiles optional on lots of sites? If so, it's likely they allow you to skip profile creation and get straight to the good parts, then return to profile creation later. I wonder how many people would do that on on Half Endings if it were possible.)
Finally, I'd recommended not shying away from having customers form an opinion about whether they're a fit. Your goal is to make your app so good that people want to pay for it. The most important thing you can do is get solid data on what people think about the riskiest parts of your app, so you can iterate and make it better.
re Early days. Yep. No goodies until there was skin in the game.
re Profiles. I don't know of any dating sites with optional profiles.
re Shying away. Duly noted. But I do think it's provides good intel to witness how a customer chooses to glean value from the site. It's early days and I'd hate to limit before I know scope.
(Grinning) But we'll see if this becomes an "I told you so" moment.
[I'm not expecting a response! You've been overly generous with your time. But to respect your investment and just in case anyone else is reading and learning alongside with me, I'll respond and ask questions. You've already given me plenty of gold.]
re Framework to determine whether my conversion rate is decent. The traffic required for a meaningful experience isn't beyond the realm of reason. But the traffic required to make a living, may be. Thus far, 100 new chapters has garnered only 3 paying customers. I need 1,000 paying customers to match my current income. That means, I'd need 33,334 new chapters, which means I'd need 476,200 in terms of traffic. Ouch. Definitely not decent. My only hope is that once I increase engagement, I increase the conversion rate for paying customers. In February, we'll see first if I can increase engagement.
re Empty room. Aware and focused on the issue. But can't say that I've been able to solidly address such. I'll keep at it with strategy, creativity and part of my paycheck.
What does "playing hard mode" mean? I'm not willing to narrow relationship types just yet. ( 1 ) It's one of the features customers like most; ( 2 ) It's novel. Customers have published unexpected combinations of relationship type and genres, uniquely enabled to communicate what their after; and ( 3 ) I don't yet have enough feedback to know which niche will be the most avid customers (writers, sex-positive folk, cosplayers, etc.) and what type of relationship they're most likely to pick. Is this logic faulty?
Narrow location. I am. I'm only targeting three west coast cities. Would you recommend narrowing further?
Alternate business model. Like ads?
I would narrow to one city, personally. Facebook's growth story comes to mind. They were even more narrowly focused than a single city in the beginning.
Playing on hard mode means trying to accomplish phase 2+ goals when you're still at phase 1. Businesses are like climbing walls — you can't skip straight to later steps without the height advantages you've gained from taking earlier steps.
I'm not convinced on the types. Sure, compared to Tinder et al, the ability to pick a type is refreshing. But those dating apps are humongous. Having divisions only works, functionally, if you have a very large user base, because you're trying to grow separate communities at once, each of which wants something completely different than the others. Try thinking about it from the user's point of view — if you're into kink, would you rather signed up for a network that has a ton of people who aren't into kink, or a pure kink dating app like Feeld? if you're into steak, would you rather go to a steakhouse, or a or buffet that happens to have steak?
A random example of an alternate business model would be to rent out a bar or a restaurant for a night, host a bunch of pre-registered people with similar interests, and charge admission.
re Narrowing to one city. Roger that. Will do so for February.
re Types. I definitely hear what you're saying. But I also hear the user feedback... and they love the feature, men and women both. Plus the type/genre combinations allow the customers to express themselves in ways not supported on other sites, yet what there after is clear as a bell.
Possibly another "I told you so" moment. But I'm going to hold on to types for now and see how it shakes out.
Thanks again for the candid critique! So deeply appreciated! And although I may not incorporate all of the recommendations straight away, I'll be chewing, hard, on the wisdom you imparted.
:D thanks @Harlem
EPIC (For February) Gather feedback from my colleagues using the MVP, get the MVP in front of more people, and do some research/brainstorming to determine whether this is a product worth pursuing.
YESTERDAY
TODAY
KUDOS to @csallen for being so involved and casual in the community. It sets a great tone and example.
WIP https://depchecker.com
Completely agree re @csallen!
Have you received any feedback yet from your colleague?
He's only told me that he's using it and it's adding value to his team (also gave me some public brownie points via our company's #praise slack channel).
Next week's meeting is to learn more about the problem he's trying to solve and how much more DepChecker could take off his plate.
P.S. Congrats on 100! Let's gooooooooooo
EPIC:
February 18th, open up app to beta users.
YESTERDAY:
TODAY:
KUDOS: @Harlem for 98 out of 100 with a few days to go.
WORK IN PROGRESS: https://xaddax.com
Thanks for the kudos and welcome to the party!
Curious wy the 18th? (I may be impatient, but I wasn't able to load the landing page!)
Thank you. :)
I'm need the app in beta by the end of February. I've been saying that is when it will be available in connection with some marketing so I don't want to let that date slip.
I've been working stupid hours for client work and neglecting my project. I decided I needed to set a deadline and I know that there will always be some sort of problem or something that gets forgotten so I decided to give myself a buffer.
I decided I would block out the 15th-17th exclusively for XADDAX. So I set the 18th as my deadline to keep myself honest. I saw your doing this a week or so ago so I thought I'd come on here to give me some accountability.
18th it is! (Smiling) We'll be tracking your progress!
Hey @iampersistent (great name, btw), your site took over a minute to load. Not sure if that's just b/c of a sandbox environment, but thought I'd mention.
Great, simple landing page! It'd be cool and helpful for me to understand a bit (I know what GraphQL is and played with it in Gatbsy.js context, so maybe my suggestion isn't needed to experienced folks) if you did before and after code snippets or something to show what work your service does.
@Ryan217 thanks for letting me know about the slow load time. I had not experienced it before.
My plan is to have a short video showing how the app works. I hadn't thought of doing images. I'll think about how I might accomplish that.
I like the idea of educating more on the landing page. I'll write some content that will help with that.
Thank you so much for your feedback. I really do appreciate it.
EPIC
-First 5 active beta customers by Jan 31st.
YESTERDAY
TODAY
WIP: Mindful
Side note
IH new design took me off guard for a second but didn't prevent me from doing what I came to do. So it's all good w/ me.
Cool. Are you doing a complete overhaul of your landing page. Or just tweaking based on user interviews?
Oh, this overhaul is definitely based on user interviews. I'm done w/ playing guessing games 😂
EPIC
Get more users to the beta (22 right now).
YESTERDAY
TODAY
WORK IN PROGRESS:
KUDOS to @Harlem for almost getting to 100 chapters published 👍
@csallen please make the first post also with dark background.