»Nobody would buy this« - launched - and made $6K
July last year, on Twitter, I posted a screenshot of a tool I built for myself, asking if anyone would also benefit from it.
I understand this is not the way you validate a product.
Lots of people wrote me: Yes they'd use this product. I didn't believe it. I thought they are just being nice. It was only when people started to DM me asking when the tool is ready I started to build.
Two months later I had an MVP ready. I released it at a 10$/month price point, but only allowing 10 customers to use it (because it was still too much MVP).
The tool lets you do email outreach to get more backlinks.
Though I was thrilled that I found 10 customers (and had a lot more customers in the waiting list) I saw that they struggled with the outreach tool. Writing good cold emails is hard. Why would the other website link back to you? What do you give in return? A few SEO agencies had success using the tool but solopreneurs were struggling.
So I was looking for an easier way to get first backlinks for solopreneurs who had no prior knowledge of the subject.
While developing the SaaS solution I stumbled over lots of great places to post your startup, where you don't need to send an email but instead can register on the website directly.
But: there were already MANY lists out there which promised you "100 great places to list your startups". I had a look at some of them and found the quality lacking at best. Unusable probably fits better. So I spent two month creating something better: I investigated 200 startups, using 4 different SEO tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, MOZ and Majestic) investigating backlink those 200 startups had in common and organized them by backlink strength, achievability and categories.
I was getting nervous because I realized that I didn't do any validation for my 2nd idea. So I wrapped up my research and at Xmas sent emails to around 15 people asking them to review my resource. All I got back were "merry xmas too" replies, nobody seemed interested.
Now I got nervous even more. Did I just spend two months on something nobody would buy? Then I found someone on Twitter who was interested. I gave the resource for free asking to try out and was hoping for a testimonial. Instead the person said: "meh, maybe you can give it out for free".
Devastated, I took all my faith in my own product, created the best video pitch I could come up with, and planned to launch at Monday morning.
When I left the house I told my wife: »today I'll launch the product nobody will buy«. I drove to the office (I'm working 9-5) and tweeted about my product, thinking that this was it, case closed I can finally move on to my next product.
But, over the course of the next 48 hours I made 134 sales (I raised the price two times, in the end it was 2.5x the original price). In total around $6000.
I gained 2000 additional followers on Twitter.
Over the course of the next 30 days I made more revenue than at my day job (context: I'm having a well paying salary in Switzerland).
My learnings:
- While doing the two months of research I tweeted a lot about my findings and my questions. I underestimated the credibility I was building up on Twitter which got people finding the trust to buy my product.
- It helped me to attack one problem (how to get backlinks) and iterate over this problem. Over time I understood the problems of my customers better and better and came up with a solution. I could not have succeeded in the first attempt
- The proof is in the pudding. I needed to do a landing page and launch with a video with the proper pitch before my product was credible. Sending a person a link with "hey, can you have a look" is not validation
My product: SEO Kickstarter: https://backl.io/directory
even ideas that initially seem to have lukewarm reception can turn into something highly successful. Thank you for sharing
Yes and I'm still wondering what exactly it is. I THINK it's the packaging with a landing page, a pitch and a price which makes the difference
From your point of view, what kind of tweets are the most popular if they are meant to sell a product? I read a lot of tweets about SaaS products and they have 0 likes, 0 comments, do they bring in users too?
Yeah you cannot just go and say "buy my awesome product because it's the best". Who's gonna believe you?
What I do is that I share my expertise I gained in the domain of the product (in my case SEO / backlinks) and that free content is creating a personal brand and credibility. I also share ups and down in my journey. Generally things which others can profit from.
@philkellr, How much do you think your past connections and Twitter friends contributed to your success? I agree a good video and a selling landing page is must, but before that you had been on twitter for 1.5 years around did that help?
Certainly, yes. Previous to that I built two side hustles already and always shared publicly on twitter, this way I could grow to 4K followers within 1.5 years.
It's not just the success I attribute to twitter, it's a LOT of ideas, concepts I learned from the community, I got input about landing page wording, design, pricing, the setup with stripe etc. And on top I "validated" a lot of ideas, just by asking if others have a particular problem
Great story, @philkellr!
When do you think it's a good moment to use your product?
I'm iterating BaliBam at the moment building more functionalities. There are no payments yet (will be in a month).
Do you already have customers on the product? I'd say validation of product and first few customers comes first, only then you'd work on SEO. And for SEO you'd need to write articles alongside growing your Domain Authority.
I have around 80 free users.
I'll implement the payments and will see who is willing to pay.
But then, I think I'll start working on SEO
Such a cool story.
Congratulations Philipp
I loved how you didn't stop even after the negative feedback.
When I started my design subscription agency https://www.pentaclay.com I thought that would not work.
After only 4 months things have changed. Now I'm getting clients on a regular basis. Keep digging.
oh you should write down your story as well!
I posted several times about my journey on X and IH.
Stunning story
Well you just did another sale with this post – just bought it.
Curious to see if this really gets a domain to DA 20
Thank you! My post on indiehackers has given me a slow steady traffic which some of them converted into a sale.
About the DA 20 - it's tough to estimate it as it depends a lot on your startup how many backlinks opportunities fit. That's why I wanted to take the risk on me so that you can try out and if you see it's no fit you get your money back.
Yeah guess that's the right way. I did notice that the list doesn't really fit my company that good. Maybe that's something you can make clearer: who can expect what / how many directories
funny because I'm working on exactly that at the moment. Not so easy cause every situation is different, but want to be more transparent on what you can expect
I wonder which Ahref you used? It is quite pricey for me at the moment, and I am thinking whether I should just pay as an investment.
Yes it is pricey indeed. I used ahrefs only for a month for this investigation, now I'm using semrush. But it's $150 a month so not cheap. What do you want to accomplish? Keyword research? Or backlinks?
pretty much competitor analysis, and keyword research.
yes for keyword research you'd best just get a month and do every research possible, download the results and then live off that for the next half a year. But I guess you're doing that already.
What kind of competitor analysis you do?
congratulations. Philipp.
Hey Phil, congrats!
Keep posting on Twitter by the way.
I always enjoy your tweets.
thanks! 🤗 yes I will keep posting on twitter, been enjoying that for 1.5 years now, I'm not planning to stop. What's your twitter handle?
https://twitter.com/therealjayber 😉
Haha wtf 😂
I've made the mistake of just developing products and not validating them.
Did you experiment with any other marketing techniques or use any other social channels?
Reddit has been the most rewarding for me, i am trying to grow on twitter but it's taking some time.
I've used Facebook groups for another product. It's tricky as you must not advertise your own product. So I just helped people out with their problems and eventually dropped my link. I became "top contributors" in the FB groups within 2-3 weeks. I think this can be achieved in about any social media channel: be genuinely interested to solve others peoples problems and you will understand their problems much better and eventually can also validate your product
Congrats Philipp!! Happy for you
wow man, that's amazing growth from one tweet!
did you have a large following based when you tweeted it?
i'm trying to crack twitter, but still nothing :(
Yes I had already 4000 followers before. So it was "only" a growth by 50% but still - never had anything like that before.
Cracking twitter for me was a numbers game and a "show up daily". Once I put like 20 replies per day I started seeing traction for my own posts. Of course the interactions need to be genuine and not just "hey great stuff!"
nice! will do it.
thanks for sharing.
congratulations first! you got such a success, have you ever used any toolkits or theories?
I'm a product manager on my 9-5 job so I get exposed to many theories. But no I didn't work alongside any specific theory. What I try is to learn from the best on Twitter. I have created this list of good builders who honestly share they learnings https://twitter.com/i/lists/1654834063104962560 - I would say this is closest to when it comes to "toolkits and theories"
thanks a lot
What an amazing story! :)
congratulations. You did the quick validation without giving up. Worth learning
I think the validation step could have been even faster - e.g. through setting up a pre-sales page
Great job making a screenshot to get some initial validation!
Yes that one tweet gathered a great deal of response! It's not ideal for validation cause on Twitter people are just friendly and say it's great even if they don't really think that way. After I put up the payment page and had 10 paying customers I saw my idea validated in a way. Of course this was not PMF yet but a first step into the right direction
Great to read the background to the tool and I'm already a happy customer. You mention your X audience helped you get initial traction for the product - what approach would you take with a product for a different audience to your audience on X? Obviously trying to get eye balls on your product is a challenge when SEO can take 3-6 months so just wondering what approach you would take in that scenario? Good luck with the continued success of your product!
I think social media makes sense in any case. Twitter is great for products tailored to other builders, but there are so many nice communities on reddit, on facebook (I've had quite some success there for another product - this one was free though) or other niche forum sites.
Another way to validate is to launch on Producthunt (but this also needs some good preparation and a network) or I see many people trying ads to get some initial traffic to see if an idea is worth pursuing
Thanks for the further insights Philipp. I suppose the key difference with Reddit and Facebook is that they are providing ready made communities vs having to build your own, so seems like a great idea to explore those.
I know what you mean about ProductHunt, definitely seems a bit of a popularity contest. Some nice alternatives emerging from indie developers, though obviously not the same traffic on those yet.
With twitter if you have already a profile which has "mixed content" then I suggest to start afresh and follow people from this list: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1654834063104962560 - this is almost like a "ready made community".
Yes there are alternatives to Producthunt, but the traffic is not comparable at all! With PH I guess if you have like 20-30 supporters (they need to have created their profile already some weeks ago and must not be in the same geographical space) you can get enough exposure to get some real first customers
Only just seen this - thanks so much for sharing that list, working my way through and following those guys but just hit the follow limit!
the follow limit? 🤔
What a great story! :)
Congratulations on the product !!
thanks, vaibhav
Thanks for the insight, Philipp.
I've been following you on X. This is inspiring
Building a tool for your self is about the best way to make a profitable venture. Well done, and thanks for sharing.
Yes I think so too! I've had some "conflicts" with my customers where I eventually believed they know better than me. Turns out I was right in this one thing. It's ok, it only cost me like 1w of development to realize that 😊
Wow, what an incredible journey you've had with your product development process! It's truly inspiring to see how your initial idea evolved into a successful venture despite the challenges along the way.
Your story highlights the importance of listening to your audience and leveraging their feedback to iterate and improve your product. The fact that you were able to identify a need for a more user-friendly solution for backlink acquisition and then develop a comprehensive tool speaks volumes about your dedication and problem-solving skills.
The validation process can indeed be daunting, but your persistence and willingness to adapt are commendable. It's impressive to see how you navigated through uncertainty and ultimately found success through trial and error.
As someone who is also developing a new AI product, "My Own Assistant" your experience resonates with me deeply. It's reassuring to see that perseverance and a customer-centric approach can lead to tangible results.
Yes yes! I'm Product Manager at my 9-5 where I'm having a lot of interactions with the customer (I'm a exception though, for some reasons most of the PMs don't have much interaction with customers).
Thanks for the super kind words! What are your channels to speak to your customers? Is the tool already available? Or do you have prospective / target customers with which you already talk?
Thanks for sharing! I'm currently in the process of developing my-own-assistant.kom and exploring different channels to reach our audience. It's still in the works, but I'm excited about the possibilities ahead.
Amazing
This is so inspiring
Wishing you the best
Thank you Arkim. Glad it does inspire. What are you building at the moment?
I am working on a mobile app called Codlixe, used to track your progress in finances, goals, books. codlixe.com
I'll give it a shot for my recruiting tool I'm building.
stripe notification just lit up, it was you then 🙏
if you have any questions, feel free to DM me, best is twitter: https://twitter.com/philkellr
It's a nice story and gives hope to everyone that dedication and sharing each small learning can have a great result.
If it was now, how do you think you could have shortened those 2 months and be sure you were on the right track?
In any case, congrats on this great story and results with your product!
Thanks Joao. I like how @Jeannen validated his Facebook ad course before shooting the videos. I think I could have done the same: A pre-sales.
I would feel a bit uncomfortable though as I'm selling something which doesn't exist - but I guess I'll try that someday, certainly would push me beyond my comfort zone
Yeah I am always scare of pre-selling my things.
But will need to do once!
And Nico’s example is a good one 👍
I like the vibe of the phrase 'today I'll launch the product nobody will buy.' Like a warlord who enters a hopeless battle but, though they eventually win it.
haha, and yes and when I came home in the evening I told my wife: »guess what…«
It was super surreal
Hey Philipp, it's great to see your post here! 👍
As the very first paid user of the product, I couldn't be happier with my purchase. 😎
thanks Servii - in a sense you turned my "product nobody would buy" into a success!
Hi and good job Philipp
Me too have spent time in something no one has never used, I consider it experience for the next project!
Good luck
did you launch it in the end? It might do very well, like in my case
Yes, I've lunched 5 of them, then rewrite the code and now waiting to finish everything to push them.
My weak side is marketing and social, I'm not so good at it
Everyone can learn marketing. I'm a introvert engineer myself and even I learned marketing to some extent. What marketing channels are you using? Are you on Twitter?
With one of my project I'm on Twitter, Instagram and Youtube, but I rarely post something
To you is better to have different social for different project or a personal Twitter and report there about all my projects?
one personal Twitter account is better - and then have one per brand so you can mention your startup in your tweets. That's how basically everyone is doing it
Ok, I'm thinking about what you told me. It's a lot of effort for an a-social person like me, but for sure social media are powerful instruments to improve brand visibility and make business grow!
Thank you so much Philipp
I feel you! When I started my twitter profile 1.5 years ago I had no idea what to write and I was blocked. But then I started writing daily and it gotten easier and easier
Well...the only thing I can do is just to try
Thanks again!