First customers after almost a year of $0
This year I’ve mainly been working on 4 products. All of which are located on my profile.
Trydraw is the product. It use to be called DrawAcademe but I changed the name and relaunched it after a failed launch a year ago which is still on product hunt. It initially got 39 upvotes and no paying users.
This time, almost a year later it got almost 200 upvotes and a few paying users.
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/trydraw
Stats:
1300 visits
3 paying customers
20 new accounts
What did I do differently?
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Spent time making a much better promotion video using premier pro. Added useful and much needed features, redesigned the ui, and made it work on mobile devices.
I also decided to launch without a website / landing page and just straight to the app. Still unsure if I should make one or not.
Why did I decide to relaunch DrawAcademe(TryDraw)?
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Believe it or not but a user from Reddit saw a promo video I posted in January of 2021 and direct messaged me about the product.
“Hello I absolutely love your draw academy website and am considering a subscription and was just wondering if you were still updating it. Also I apologize if this is not the correct place to contact you I am new to Reddit.”
This is after almost 1 whole year. I wasn’t going to touch this project again but this random message gave me motivation to fix the very apparent bugs lol and try again.
So I did. I spent 7 whole days reworking the application logic, adding new features, and redesigning the ui. Added new lessons and launched.
So thank you to that user from Reddit.
This is a lesson to not give up so early after launching.
That's super exciting! And a good humbling story: sometimes things will take time to catch on.
Reddit can surprisingly be a good source for new customers. I found my first beta customers there in some smaller subreddits and a few are still with me.
What's next on the docket for TryDraw?
Thank you. A humbling story indeed. Never give up too early. I think it's hard to stay motivated when things aren't going your way but it's something I am still learning.
As I was revamping Trydraw, there were a ton of more things I wanted to add before relaunching but I kept telling myself "MVP" so I don't get caught up in developing too many features before launch.
The next things are:
I will provide more context between each step / lesson. For example, if a user is drawing the "retina" within an eye, I will add a little informative diagram so the artist is aware of the terms of each part of the human body / animals, etc. I believe it's also important to know each part that you are drawing as it will help with informing others and educating yourself / remembering. :)
Continue to add new user requested features. A user suggested multiple brush / eraser sizes via discord so that's on the roadmap next.
Add more lessons.
I will continue thinking of the best ways to teach new artists and experienced artists.
Thanks for the comment.
Good story, Jordan! How fortuitous that you got such motivating feedback! Also, cool product.
Now that you've updated the app, what are your plans for marketing Trydraw?
Very luck that people like that person exist. Such little comments can spark a lot of motivation. It's a reminder for us to pay it forward.
Marketing is definitly a challenge. The past few days, I have been thinking of certain ways to get it out there more.
Here's what i've come up with:
I believe if I solve the marketing problem, I have an opportunity but I need to get it right. Only time will tell if it will work or not but I am willing to give it a try!
Thank you!!
"Such little comments can spark a lot of motivation. It's a reminder for us to pay it forward." Absolutely! It's amazing what an impact even a little bit of genuine positivity can have. Everyone is hungry for affirmation... That's why I feel it's important to share positive thoughts as often as you have them! We've got to lift each other up!
Good luck with your next steps. Keep us posted!