Finding your first users.
I'm in the process of getting the first users for a product I'm working on. Here's the questions I'm asking myself:
- How can I explain the benefit of Here (the product I'm working on)?
- Who will get the most benefit from using Here?
- How do I find them?
- How do I get them to see the value in Here to them?
Is anyone else going through / been through this process? Is there anything I'm missing?
This may be help. first100users.com
@shree Thank you so much for sharing my project!
If I could add further advice for @docal56 You need to talk to these people.
Identify a set of potential users who might most benefit from journaling this is known as your initial customer persona.
The easiest thing would be to go niche, pick one ICP and start talking to those people. An example for you could be new mums, business owners in London, people travelling, or students about to enter exams. Within the group you probably want to identify those who currently journal and understand the frustrations or benefits they feel from the current way.
Use these conversations to craft your product and your message.
Jumping back - why did you make this product? What was the original reason?
Also: As your product isn't on your IHers profile. I had to click from your profile, to your Twitter, to your product profile, to your website. I think you should link to the product to give people context when asking for advice.
Yeh we've been looking through first 100 users :)
The product has been on an interesting journey... I started it as a mindful social network: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/leo-widrich-buffer-co-founder-is-launching-a-mindful-social-network-1a74fe8ef3?commentId=-MUK3tzMfeziaLnNlFGQ - the main thing that came out of our early feedback was the value in the journaling part of the experience.
But we've been working on refining the idea more and more since Leo left and became an advisor.
It's weird because I have a ton of experience building products - it's literally my job, but when it comes to my getting my own thing started all that seems to go out of the window 😬
This is really great advice though! Grateful to be part of the IH community 🙏🏻
@docal56
So what types of things did users tell you about journaling? What did it help them achieve? What topics were they journaling about? Were they journaling to create an outcome or? Were they journaling before, or was this the first time? What is journaling vs mindful journaling.
Speak to these people, understand what they see in it, and reflect what you see as the reason to journal, and start working from those types of use case and benefits.
Can you answer any of the questions here for me? If so I can give you some next steps!
In the original app, there was a spark - which was a short video with some context and then a question. You then answered the question and submitted your response. Once you submitted you're own, you could see everyone else's and everyone could see yours.
We heard that people really enjoyed seeing other people's perspectives on a single subject and that it helped broaden their own perspectives.
We also heard that people like the daily act of answering a question that they wouldn't normally think about.
But we also heard and felt that some people weren't comfortable in sharing their true selves, which was an issue as the mission for us as founders were to help people connect with themselves.
We also found that we needed experienced people to create the "sparks" as some of the community ones didn't really connect, but it was a lot of work to create the content for the apps so, some community leaders we spoke to were reluctant to commit that amount of time and energy.
Personally, I experienced a huge benefit in the journaling part of the process, especially around the prompts and I wanted to explore ways to bring this into people's lives. I tried some of the journaling apps out there but they felt a bit soulless like they had no real energy behind them so I wanted to create some with more life to it. Something to truly help people connect with themselves and get in touch with what makes them truly happy and work through how they can create that life for themselves.
It was around this time that I started learning more about breathwork and how that opens up your consciousness which felt like the perfect precursor to journaling.
But this process of discovery took around 8 months and we kinda left abandoned the app along the way as we went on this journey.
I feel more strongly than ever on the idea of guided journaling and breathwork but I feel like it's quite a departure from where we started so I'm still trying to figure out how to communicate what we do and where we can reach people who would benefit.
[sorry for the life story]
@docal56
Some thoughts:
Sparks was a unique concept and opened up new types of journaling for users. This is a strong marketing messaging: The only journaling app that includes daily sparks to fire your creativity and reflection
Users didn't always want to share their journals. Make a call her.e Public journaling, private journaling, or toggle between it. And run with, and validate it. Don't over think. Make a call.
It was hard to get high quality sparks. How about you reach out to existing influencers in the wellness space to populate them in return for publicity for their channels in the app. This way you're curating great content AND building an acquisition channel.
It's good to hear you experienced a benefit. What did that benefit look like? What did it help you with? Did anyone else mention benefits? What were their stories. If you could group people by stories, what would the most popular be?
How does journaling compare with: yoga, apps like Calm aka guided meditation, going on walks, therapy etc. Can you prove it's effective in certain situations? Which ones?
'Energy behind it' 'truly connect'. These things are deeply subjective. What did you build to cultivate that with users? Apart from sparks, was it the design, the function, the community? Can you get into some details here?
Yeh so with the sparks we removed the need for them to be in video format and they're just in text format now and they're still available. The job of a spark is to make you think about something you wouldn't normally think about and broaden your day. We are trying to get people to contribute these but we're also looking at categories too like Stoicism, Gratitude, Philosophy - to help create an experience where users can choose a spark that will help connect with them. It also enables us to do some of this work ourselves and not have to rely on external people to create part of our product.
Yeh cut the shared journaling - it's just private journaling now.
The benefit I experienced with journaling was a reduction in stress, because I was able to write my thoughts out and get a better perspective to think things through and come to a solution. I had more space to think because I was constantly releasing pressure. By using the prompts I was questioning things like "i am on the right path in life" which helped me make better goals and feel like I'm actually working toward a happier life. We also have journaling exercises to help in specific situations which I've used to work through particular challenges I've faced.
In terms of the people in the group, the main benefit was the act of writing down what's in their head on a daily basis and broadening their perspective by answering something which is beyond their day-to-day view of the world.
As someone who's gone from not journaling at all to being a huge advocate for it because of the benefits, I've seen. Having some guidance in getting started through the sparks was a huge help. I tried journaling before but found it really difficult to just write down what I was thinking. But answering a question is much easier to get started.
So in terms of comparing journaling to other mindful practices. Journaling is a way to release what's in your head which is an effective way of relieving pressure. How I describe it is, imagine your head is like a glass of water. If you start the day with the glass 3/4 full, it isn't going to take much for it to overflow. This is where stress, feeling overwhelmed, anxiety etc kicks in. If you spend some time in the morning journaling, you're able to process your thoughts and effectively empty your glass. Which means you're able to take on more before you get overwhelmed. If you pair this with breathwork (which is the foundation of meditation and Yoga) it's even better.
I believe there is a huge opportunity to help guide people to create space in their minds through breathwork and journaling, that's where I feel Here can help.
In terms of cultivating the experience with the users, that came from the sparks and I see that being the case going forward. The main value in Here is the the content that helps users connect with themselves, which is breathing exercises and guided journaling exercises. Much like the meditiations is what makes calm. With the design we want to offer a spacious experience that allows the user to journal in a distraction free space to help them connect without distraction.
I think it's worth noting too that I've gone deep on the journaling thing and explored the benefits of journaling in general, lots of different exercises, dug in on how they help and tried to pull the best into Here. It's the same with Breathwork.
I try to think about the "pain" the users are feeling. How deep is it? How do I know they have it? What would I google if I had that pain?
The google part can be a gold mine if that keyword is easy for SEO. Talking to potential customers will surely help.
Yeh that's a really good shout! "what would I google!"
The only thing I would add is, first off clearly being able to articulate the problem. Once you can clearly articulate the problem, then you can move on to explaining how Here helps solve it