My project spent whole day on the front page of hacker news
(I meant to post this sooner but life has kept me busy)
About a month ago my project, linkdrop.co, hit the front page of hacker news and sat there all day. Unfortunately I forgot to add Google Analytics to the landing page so I missed a pretty big opportunity to learn more about conversions. I still managed to get a little over 300 sign ups.
I posted it on HN because I was finished with it and wanted to move on to another product. Halfway through the day a coworker let me know that I was sitting at number 2. It was pretty neat.
I started working on a couple of the most requested features, but I'm starting to run out of steam. I've got another project in mind and its hard to get motivated to complete features for a free app.
I was reading Buster Benson's interview on 750 words and how he reached out to his community to let them know that in order for him to continue working on it he would need to add a payment option.
My plan right now is to send out an email to all the sign ups to gauge interest in making all new features "premium." Do you guys think I'm jumping the gun a bit? I've only got 300 sign ups, maybe I should try more marketing channels so I can have a bigger sample size.
Congratulations! That sounds great! Why not get a feeling for it? If you do not sell features but just ask for their interest and „include“ them in the process, why not? I’d do it stepwise. Ask 20 first, see what the reaction is. Then, another 10 with updated questions...
Good luck.
Making it to the front page of HN is extremely hard, staying there an entire day is really a great result.
If you ask me, you choose a product that is hard to monetize but right now you have nothing to lose.
Worst case scenario, you understand that people aren't willing to pay for your service and you can focus on another project. Best case scenario, you discover that you have a business.