Hey fellow IHers ! Just finished the Gumroad 14 Day Product Challenge and I launched my first product today, the Honest Instagram Growth Dashboard ! It's available here : https://gum.co/AgfbW
Here's a summary of my experience :
1) Finding the idea
I've been lurking on Indie Hackers for a few months, and I have been thinking about launching a proper online product for even longer.
Even if technically, I had nothing to lose, I would always find a reason not to do it : "I don't know how to code", "I'm not an expert on anything" "I have no audience, who is going to buy a product I made ?"
Finally, a few weeks ago, the stars aligned :
During the call, I mentioned that I had created a dashboard to help me manage my clients' accounts, and she told that people might be interested in buying it ! For some reason, I had never thought of selling it, but having the feedback of somebody else on it made me realize that it could be a viable product, as I only built it for myself.
2. Making the dashboard : my no-code stack
I only know a tiny bit of Python, but not enough to build a real product. Thankfully, it's 2020 and you can (almost) do anything without code !
Here's the "low-code" stack I used :
Phantombuster : it's an amazing no-code automation tool for marketers who don't know how to code. They don't only have automations for Instagram, but for Quora, Twitter, LinkedIn... I love this tool.
This ImportJson script on GitHub that allows you to import Json data into your sheets, for free. This is especially useful to work with APIs. You don't even need to code, all you have to do is copy and paste it. (https://github.com/bradjasper/ImportJSON)
Google Sheets, of course. I feel like Google doesn't get enough credit as a powerful "low-code" tool, especially for analytics & automation... One of my favorite features of GS is the "QUERY" function, which works like the SQL Language. It allows you to use database-type commands to manipulate your data in Google Sheets.
The end product ? A dashboard that helps you :
3. Pricing & earnings
Now, let's move on to the part you're probably interested in, the money 💸💸💸 !
I literally had no idea how to price the product, so I used a strategy used by several makers such as Janel from Newsletter OS & Steph Smith, the author of Doing Content Right : beginning price is $10, and every 30 copies sold, the price will increase by $5.
So far, I've made $40 (2 pre-sales) and 2 sales today.
My end game is to create content on Youtube and on my blog, rank those videos/articles well, and then have a steady stream of sales. So far, I've only written one article, and I'm preparing at least 2 other ones, and a Youtube video. We'll see if this strategy works in 3 months !
Awesome stuff! Congrats on the sales!
thanks !