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Launching my 5th project in 2020!

Hey guys,

I’m launching my 5th project this year. 1 got passed 1k MRR, the 3 others failed.

Here is the 5th one: it is a secret tool for individual investors to get SMS alerts when company insiders made a buy in the public market legally.

How I came up with the idea?
I have been into the stock market for years. I invested a lot and tried to get myself good at it. One day, I was listening to a podcast and the hosts were saying it would be nice if there was smart alerts when a company insider buy or sell his stock. So I spent a couple of days getting the data connected so to bring the idea to life now.

If you are investing in the US stock market, check it out. I’m welcome feedback and suggestion.

Check it out at: https://insiderbuyingalerts.com/

Follow me at Twitter https://twitter.com/tobyglei

Thanks, IH

  1. 1

    Congrats on your launch!

    I admire your tenacity. It's something I've seen in a lot of successful founders, the ability to learn from a project and move on quickly without losing motivation, and maintain a positive attitude about it.

    This looks interesting. I'm curious if you generate or write mini "case studies" for every alert, or if it's just the SMS message?

    Personally I don't think I would trust the "tips" if they don't show a bit of the trading data underneath it, since it feels like those scammy crypto investor pump and dump posts. Although I do understand how you're sourcing your data.

    1. 1

      As for the case studies, I wrote those, it’s based on the data I got from SEC. I guess it’s better to put the SEC links in case people are interested to check the authority.

    2. 1

      Thanks for the feedback. I wouldn’t trust websites for any trade recommendations neither.

      So all the data I sent out was based on information I got from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), https://www.sec.gov/

      What the service is providing here is that whenever new changes happen on the SEC website, I monitor it, and only send out wanted information to the subscribers via SMS.

      The potential users are the ones already know the company well, but there aren't tools out there for them to use.

      Just click the button to start your 7-day trial, you can learn more if you are interested. No credit card required.

  2. 1

    Do you think you did anything different in the 1k MRR project, compared to their slower "brothers"?

    1. 1

      I keep the things that are working for me and drop the things that don’t work for me.

      To give you an example, the 1st project I spent almost 6 months building it before showing it to anyone. I only got it to $100 MRR after spending 6 months with crazy hours working on it. The 2nd one was around $50 MRR, but most users churn out after 2 months. The 3rd one I spent a month building it and I got 10 paying customers in a week, since then it’s keep growing and it hits 1K MRR last weekend. The 5th one I’m building, I only spent a couple of days building it, want to get it out there first. So, I launched much faster now and I didn’t build a lot of “unneeded features”.

      I would share each project in details if people you are interested in the future.

      1. 1

        I see, yes that's the usual trap many programmers fall when launching their product. The shorter times were because you were more proficient and quick in the stack you are using or just because you were shippin a "greener" product with fewer features?

        1. 1

          I would say making a product less complicated, 1 thing at a time. My 1st product is a DIY Dev-ops tool, so you can do deploy static website, database on the web dashboard. The latest one is just a simple form to collect what a user wants to subscribe and then they will get notified via SMS.

  3. 1

    What did you use as indicators to stop on your previous idea(s) and move to the next?
    How do you know they were failures?

    1. 1

      I used MRR and time to as indicators. For example, I will set up goals like hit 1000 MRR in 90 days for a project. It also depends on the complexity of the project to adjust the MRR and time. For the failed projects, I didn’t shut it down, it is still getting new users, but it’s a lot slower and not going to work in the long run.

      I guess without the definition of success, I cannot tell what is working and what is not.

      1. 1

        What are your most common sales / marketing channels?
        I'm primarily an SEO / inbound marketing guy. It took me a full year on what today is a very successful project to get to the $1000 MRR mark. Sometimes it takes a lot of time depending on the channels you're using.

        Hitting the phones and doing outbound marketing can speed that time frame up but it's just not an area I love so without and audience or doing aggressive outbound things can take a lot longer than you expect.

        If it's a solid idea, if your initial users absolutely love it - you still might have something great but just not enough visibility to move the needle.

        I hope one of your concepts catches fire and takes off, good luck!

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          I would say I'm trying to get the initial group of users for this new project. Then look for room to increase price (also provide enough values) so I can run ads.

          I think I kinda get facebook ads working for my $1000 MRR project (btw it's $1100 now). The first 13 sales I got were all from cold DM on IG, it is a long process but I glad I did it because it helps a lot of on polishing my product.

          Then I tried to scale it by running ads on Facebook. I know most people will say Facebook doesn't work, I spent $1000 on ads in the first 2 months on learning it, now it's working the way I want. The ROI is great.

          1. 1

            Awesome, glad you're having some success with FB.
            When someone launches a new product or build something I just always repeat that it takes WAY longer than you think to gain some traction. Unless you have gobs of money to just throw at it and try and blitzscale it becomes a very linear growth and starting from $0 or $1000 in subscriptions the first 3, 6, 12 months can be very slow going.

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