My first big Pivot
Hi Everyone 👋
Its been a while since I've been on IndieHackers, been heads down and grinding the last few weeks.
But a lot has happened! I'll talk about the last few weeks, what've done, and why I'm pivoting with Qualli 👀
First Up! What Changed? (main 2 things)
Product Hunt Launch 🚀
In my last post I was debating if I should, or shouldn't launch on Product Hunt. Well I did! And depending on your definition of what a success is, it was a succes.
Some number:
- #11 rank of the day
- #53 week rank
- 229 upvotes 💙
- 100 followers
- 284 followers
For the launch itself, considering I didn't really did much promotion until the day itself, I'd consider it a success.
But more interesting are these numbers:
- Demo Requests = 5, Demo Requests Booked = 0
- Registers = 5, free plan = 4, advanced plan = 1
These are not really numbers to be super happy about 😓. But lets think on reasons why they are so low:
- Value prop is unclear -> "Build apps user love" isn't resonating
- Unclear landing page
- Wrong audience
- Signup is asking for too much, they want to try it first
- Market is too small, so need a way bigger high volume of users to find leads
These are just some of the reasons I could think of. I loved that I had deadline, something to work to. But the only success I'm getting out of this is the community support I've gotten, not the value PH brought to my business.
User Interviews 🗣️💬
DO USER INTERVIEWS! I can't stress this enough!
I've been doing user interviews in the week before the PH, making sure to remove all the pain points, and to talk about user research.
Some of the learnings:
- I need social logins, passwords are annoying
- It's hard to convince them to add another tool to their stack
- Before asking developers to integrate a tool they want to build trust, and make sure it's worth integrating
- A lot of users did think about integrating it already, but didn't due to various reasons
- ... so much more
Why I'm pivoting 🚨
Pivot, PIVOT, PIVAAT...I can't help but hear Ross (friends) shout this every time I read this word, cracks me up every time.
Doing the Product Hunt launch and conducting user interviews, it became clear there are serious friction points:
- As a interested lead I can't try it without installing it in my mobile app
- Why do I need another tool?
- Its a very niche market
How do we solve these pain points? We make it easier to try it out using web!
I'm pivoting Qualli away from apps only, I want to build a omnichannel survey platform. In-app / Website Popup / Embedded / Link.
This solves a lot of pain points:
- Users can start of with the Popup on their website or just use the link to try out Qualli.
- 1 tool for every platform, no need for other tools.
- We broaden our market to the biggest one their is.
Our Unique Selling Point is that we offer truly cross platform surveys. Expect the same on mobile as you do on your website.
I'm close to launching the Web popup version! If you like to try it out, you can register here: https://usequalli.com/web-sdk-signup
Don't be afraid to pivot 😟
I put that tweet out: https://twitter.com/Nsmet93/status/1734478854805127330
It was one I was dreading of posting, and after I did I felt like 💩. I was down and kinda sad the rest of the day. Publicly posting you have 0MRR isn't fun, in a way it felt like failing.
But that's because I was comparing to all those posts with "I made $$$$K in my first week". There are indiehackers out there that are able to do it, but did they make a sustainable business out of it?! Not having revenue in your first months is ok, and that's why I wanted/needed to post it.
So did I pivot because I don't have MRR? yes and no!
Yes, financial gain is important. I've given up months of freelancing to do this. The estimated cost is around 15k already ... MRR isn't going to go skyrocket anytime soon, but there has to be progression, even in little bits.
No, because of the user interviews, Qualli is just not enough at the moment. The value it provides isn't enough to ask to pick up another tool in their stack. I've also been doing outreaches, PH launch, twitter, ... and nothing is really paying off. So something needed to change.
Staying put, not wanting to change is a business killer. Adapt to what you hear, read, see. That's going to be the only way to build a sustainable business.
One Last Thing
If you're interested in trying it out on your web page, drop a 👋 below or sign up here: https://usequalli.com/web-sdk-signup
It is a great decision to pivot. First stage of startup mainly to figure out exactly what the user want.
Here I made a customer analysis for online survey tool which I believe can help you to understand what your customer interested : ONLINE SURVEY CUSTOMER ANALYSIS.
From the analysis you could see that "customer feedback survey" with customer experience survey tool, intuitive customer survey platform and customer satisfaction survey app have one of the highest rating which mean if you able to pivot on those direction it might be helpful for you.
Beside that when you are designing your new web you might keep in mind what your potential customer are interested
thanks for sharing it
A web version is definitely something id test out. Would i have the option to grab emails from the survey too and would it be able to popup atter a certain duration people spend reading my posts?
Right now i use effsight for my site growtharchive.xyz for subscription popup form and they have survey options too that I wanted to test out. It's $6/m for 3 widgets for low traffic sites
You can for sure ask for their emails, email validation (along with some other validations) are coming in next releases, but you can already use an input for this.
Duration right now is not yet available, I'm implementing automatic tracking of screens, expect it q1 2024. But you can perform a trigger with a small timeout.
Pricing is to be restructured, but for low traffic sites it will be free (with branding).
If you want to work together and try it out, you can sign up here: https://usequalli.com/web-sdk-signup
Absolutely agree Nick, don't be afraid to pivot. Startups are able to change looking for better options. Thanks for sharing it!
Impressive agility in responding to user insights.
Hey Nick - Thats a great pivot. Before reading this post, I visited your website and the first query that came to my mind is that why is it for apps only? After reading your post, it seems like you are headed towards the right direction. Best of luck with your next phase.
Also, wanted to give you some feedback regarding this comparison post. I have consistently noticed that a 1 vs 1 product comparison blog post does better for SEO than a "1 vs many" style of post.
That's great feedback! Separating those into 2 is better practice. I'll add it on the list before launching!
Thanks for sharing Nick, it takes guts to speak what everyone else is thinking/concerning over. What other tips can you share on signals that you need to pivot vs quit? Often times I imagine one is smarter than the other. Since, say, quitting allows one to reinvest his time in an entirely new direction. But also pivoting prevents you from prematurely abandoning ship when you're really on to something.
You raise 2 very good points already for when to pivot or quit. Its hard to say if there is a checklist for it, there are so many factors that come in to play:
....
Quitting for me means:
....
In all other cases I'd go for pivot. One thing I see a lot in the IH community is giving up quick and easy. A good business doesn't always have exponential growth from day one. Just small incremental steps.