How I identified whether the problem I'm solving will make money
In mid-December, I started working on solving a problem that is very annoying for many Notion users: creating recurring tasks. I got the idea from my own personal pains using the tool as an expense tracker and not being able to automate the creation of reoccurring expenses like rent, internet, etc. Looking at different forums and Twitter, I noticed many people had the same problem.
I built the App as quickly as I could next to my full-time job, resulting in around 2 months of development (you can check it out at albert.so). After those two months, I launched the App and got some positive feedback form the community - I was solving a real problem!
Soon, I had some success with content marketing and even getting some organic referrals on Reddit. The app was growing daily, if just by a few users, without me needing to contact potential users directly. Again, this suggested there could be something here.
However, quickly, the next doubts started to form in my mind - I needed to make money as well. The app was still quite minimalist and at the early MVP stage, with many features that Users requested like advanced scheduling options, page templates and more, still missing.
I realized that instead of building out those features, it was vital for me to see if I can acquire customers. At the time I had almost 100 Users and was growing at rate of about 2 users a day.
Instead of building out those features, I created in-app sales funnels that would pop-up to allow the User to upgrade their account. I added multiple options to click on an "upgrade account" link, where Users can see some of the benefits of upgrading and transition to payment.
It would show the "premium features" (stuff that was requested but no built) as well as pricing, but when the User clicked on "upgrade", it would notify them that the features were still in development and I got an email telling me this.
TLDR; nobody clicked on my fake upgrade button and now I'm pivoting the startup.
What are your thoughts? Let me know!
Would people pay for the basic version if instead of upgrade there was a trial expiring? Maybe your basic features are good enough? It might be worth trying a bit more instead of picking a completely new idea.
It's also possible that your target audience (current users) are too cheap :P, and you need to acquire different type of person (do you have user personas?).
Anyway, good luck with your projects!
Thanks for your comment, really great points which I also often thought about and keep me on edge of course (uncertainty is constant in entrepeneurship after all)! I agree - maybe they would pay if there was a trial. Maybe...
But it's too risky to spend more time based on just an assumption, in my opinion. I think it's not unreasonable to expect some people to pay without experiencing the premium features, if they thought the problem was big or annoying enough. Either way, I would at least expect people to get in touch or negotiate, etc.
I also definitely agree with your assessment that the target audience are too cheap. I'm basically building a B2C product with potential for B2B use. My initial idea was to keep it free and then charge only for teams, but my cold B2B outreach was not successful and again I think acquiring customers ASAP is the strategy of most successful founders I have read/listened to podcasts about.
That's fair, in the end it has to work for you!
Are you planning to shut it down then or try some other things and potentially get back to the app if you don't find anything much better in near future?
Having steady user growth is already quite an achievement, btw, good job on that!
Take my comment with a pinch of salt but I think you have found a nice niche.
Personally I think your landing page and positioning could be stronger and put more emphasis on the value your product provide. Maybe can consider suggestions below:
You may also want to try approaching the many Notion influencers and coach and offer your solutions. I think there is a lot more you can do here with this product, both in terms of marketing and product, before dropping it.
Please also consider talking to your users, many of us will kill to even have users we can talk to. Maybe in exchange you can grant them 3 months free of premium feature when they are ready.
You are totally right and I think it is my constant self doubt is causing me to see red flags where there really are not that many. I will talk to more of my users, thanks for the motivation!
100 returning users is something. DM me on Twitter and we'll see other options to make money with it.
If those 100 accounts were dead, maybe you made the right decision.
Sure, happy to have a chat!
It's interesting to read the comments. Reddit has proved to be a good channel in your case, right? Have you tried other channels too?
Yeah! I tried Facebook Groups and Twitter, both have been decent (compared to other stuff I did in the past anyway)
So what's your strategy with Fb groups, @borzi How did you find the groups to engage with?
As few others have pointed out in the comments – talk to your users to understand their critical problems. Understand their motivations. This will help you with knowing what they need. And whether the pain is big enough that, if solved, they'll pay for it.
I strongly recommend reading the book Zero to Sold, which is jam packed with valuable information on how to find the right problems and validate them.
Thanks for the book recommendation, that looks really interesting! I got a bunch of value just from reading this Twitter thread 😄
Easy. Other people are already solving the problem
I would like to know what are the peronas of users you were trying to target? I am also facing the similar problem. I have developed the list of potential personas that could pay to use our product. Now I am in the market conducting some customer interviews.
Well done, let me know how it goes! Are you pre-selling as well?
My main target audience was Notion creators and businesses using Notion!
Sounds interesting. Sure will let you know about the progress.
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