how would go about hunting for clients
with a custom eCommerce site?
The reason I created it is because my current clients had specific needs for their online store and nothing that is out there fitted 100%. Was mostly too expensive to modify. On top of that various opensource eCommerce solutions get really really slow when you install a bunch of plugins.
I'm currently perfecting the site for the current clients and at the same time I'm thinking to build a few simple live or demo sites to showcase them. I can then throw some $ into advertising them and get some traffic with potential buyers.
The thing that I ask my self is if that is the right way to go. At the moment I can't afford to get a dedicated marketing/sales ppl of this. But my initial goal is get enough income so I can offload this to new team members asap.
My business model is that customers pay monthly fee for using the store and it comes with cloud hosting on my k8s cluster. Initial one-time cost would be for fitting the store to their particular use-case. After the site is launched they pay subscription.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
@rmamba congrats on your first customer.
You should do sales at this point. That is the way to find new customers. Write down the persona of your first customer - who is the customer (business owner etc), what are the problems (your product value), where are they hanging out (channels).
Once you put this down you can do 1 to 1 email out reach. You can use tools like this - https://www.pneumatic.app/ for free to manage your scale. Target reaching out to 50-100 people in a month and see the results.
I wrote a detailed post about sales - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-many-of-you-are-struggling-to-grow-sales-e1f1b6298c
Let me know if you need any help.
Sandeep
Consider the following:
-Use your existing customer base to build referrals. Offer them something in exchange for every 5 or so referrals that sign up with you, and work with them to select the best ones and deliver the right messaging.
-Look at companies that are using your competitors. Give them a strong reason to make the switch to you, and test it on a few to tweak the pitch before going full steam.
-Research your current customers to develop a list of the other services they use for their business. When you start to see the same company used by multiple clients, reach out to that company's biz dev team and see if you can offer a discount to their customers in exchange for shared marketing (and maybe they provide discounts to your clients as well).
Thank you for the reply, much appreciated.
My main problem at the moment is that I only have one customer and so I'm not going to be able to use this tactics until I have at least 5 or so?
Honestly, I would ask as many people with your current customer as possible. If you get one, you've doubled your base and doubled your opportunity to get more referrals.