Product: https://yipgo.com
I was hoping for Yip to become a relatively passive income with perhaps just a few hours of work a day. However, I'm really struggling getting traction. I have a small Google ad campaign and I've posted in the usual places, HN, Reddit, ProductHunt etc.
Anyone have any tips?
A quick scan of your homepage tells me that this is essentially team-based task/management software, and it seems completely undifferentiated from the other options on the market. Now that's not the worst thing in the world to do, but it means you have a lot more competition, and you have to stand out from them somehow.
For example, Asana, Jira, Trello, etc. are all built by large teams of professionals. I know they have staying power and won't go out of business and lose my data next month. I know they are relatively secure. I know lots of people use them, so I won't have to teach them to my collaborators. I know most of their bugs have been fixed. I know they have integrations. I know their design is polished. I know they have mobile, etc.
How are you supposed to compete with that?
You probably can't. You're currently in a position that's worse than being undifferentiated. Your value proposition is identical to everyone else's, but your offering is actually worse, and it would take you years of code/design to catch up. Meanwhile they're pulling further ahead. Even if you did catch up on features, polish, security, stability, staying power, customer service, and all that jazz, you'd still be way behind on brand loyalty and network effects.
My advice is to niche down. Get more specific. BE DIFFERENT. Solve a different problem that they aren't solving.
For example, I made a productivity tool, once. It was essentially a worse version of Asana… but it was different. It lived inside your Gmail inbox and let you turn emails into tasks, and was built on a philosophy that we all live in our emails and that's our primary source of work. All of the marketing was focused on that. It wasn't too hard to get press and people blogging about it it, get SEO from people searching about hitting inbox zero, etc.
Build something hyper-specific for a group of specific people, and tailor your features to them and their needs. (This means that step #1 is choosing this set of people and step #2 is getting to know the problems they have that they find valuable that you're capable of solving.)
If you can do this well, you won't have any competition, because the bigger players are making more generic software for everyone and can't cater to specific needs like you can, since you don't need $500MM in revenue and would be happy with 1/2000th of that.
It will also inform your marketing strategies. If you have a clear sense of who you're building for and what makes them different than other people, it will be easy to find the "watering holes" where they like to gather, and advertise/market/sell your product through those channels.
This is excellent - thanks for taking the time to write it.
I feel like I needed to read this today. Thank you
Damn..this is the reason i come here everyday
To me, it's unclear what Yipgo offers that isn't offered by competitors such as Jira and Trello. Anyone who knows the word "kanban" will surely know about them. A couple of strategies to fix this problem come to mind.
The first one is to start focusing on a very specific market vertical. For example, could kanban boards be useful for construction workers and if so, what features could Yipgo offer that would be valuable specifically for them? If you go with this, preferably pick a vertical that you're somewhat familiar with.
Another strategy, if you want to keep the broad, horizontal market, could be to offer something more unique. Perhaps you could be more opinionated on exactly how the planning should be done. But even if I think it will be somewhat easier to gain traction with this strategy, it will probably still be very hard.
Thanks a lot. Sounds like I need to find a way to make the offering more unique.
I have some advice on the advertising side (I cofounded a search marketing co).
Don't do it until you have a significant budget. I know I'm supposed to hype my own industry, but I simply do not see any Google Ad campaigns work well until you start reaching $1-3k/mo in ad spend. The competition is simply too high and until you can dedicate over $1000/mo, save your money for something else.
good to know!
When i clicked on the link...it took awhile for the page to load
in my humble opinion..you should change the page...and put the boards where the company icon is .
2nd..the graphics for the boards was boring..it seemed like you had to show something..so you showed the one that wouldn't give away how your system works to competitors..or potential users..there are many work flow / task managers on the market today
You didn't show me the special sauce..what makes your product different ?
You should really read this
https://www.mobilespoon.net/2019/04/collection-cognitive-biases-how-to-use.html
...section 25 and 26..39..44
That's a great article - thanks for sharing.
Wow, the post behind that link (84 cognitive biases) is great, thanks!
wish i could take the credit for that one...It was actually shared here by some one in the IH fam .
You need to promote a different way of working , and the coincidence is that your tool is perfect to do it that way.
other point , you have a free offer 0$ per month, why do you bother with 14 days trial ?
at formlets.com i have a "try button" and right away , as a potential user you can play with the formbuilder , no need to signup , it brings down the barrier for people to try your product and will give you essential feedback on what can be improved from real users.
Hey, thanks for the feedback - really usful.
"you have a free offer 0$ per month, why do you bother with 14 days trial " - the trial allows for any amount of users as opposed to the just two you get for $0.
Looking at your landing page, don't understand what you actually do.
"Create, organise and manage tasks without allowing
your planning software to become work itself."
Why does planning software become work itself? Who is this for?
I would make a list of 10 real people you think should use this software and then talk to them.
Right now your pricing site isn’t responsive and is all squished on mobile - improving that might help?
I hadn't realised! Fixed - thanks.
I would start with defining a very narrow niche and tailor your software (or at the very least messaging on the website) to that niche. The project management space is very crowded with a lot of big companies with quite decent products offering very generous free tiers. You have to stand out in something. Niche is much easier than fighting big guys on feature parity. Your website now is very generic and about what features you have. I recommend you spend time reading two books (both are relatively small and packed with very good information):
– Start small, Stay small by @robwalling
– Traction by Gabriel Weinberg (founder of DuckDuckGo).
They'll give you a couple of techniques to start with and adjust your mindset in the right direction. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions.
Thanks, Sergey - will read up.