Revisiting an idea after 2 years
I built a small side project two years ago and did nothing with it after launching the MVP. Now it’s time to get back and take things seriously.
Backstory
Almost two years ago, I started building feedbeggar.com. It was supposed to be a tool for indie hackers that would let them collect feedback from their website easily. All they had to do was sign up, embed the widget on their website and start collecting.
I actually released the MVP and got a few signups without really doing any marketing. However, I lost interest quickly and just stopped working on it. Plus, I had a full time job and no real ambition to monetize it.
Things have changed
A lot has changed since then. I became the CTO of a German startup, which increased the confidence in my own skills and taught me that there’s no problem that can’t be solved. Unfortunately, I recently had to switch to a part time role because the company was forced to cut costs (I can not recommend running a startup in the real estate market in the current economic conditions).
I was sad for a moment but then decided to see this as an opportunity to do something I have been dreaming of for a long time: becoming an indie hacker.
Productized service or SaaS?
I thought a lot about what kind of product I want to work on. I’m a software developer and therefore my nature is to code cool stuff. However, I wanted to avoid the trap of seeing nails everywhere because I have a hammer. I know that making money from a productized service is probably easier (at first) than building a profitable SaaS. I still decided to go the SaaS route for two reasons:
- I didn’t really find a problem that I could solve with a productized service.
- I already had a SaaS product in mind: Feedbeggar.
Same idea, different execution
The „old“ Feedbeggar was a product for indie hackers. The „new“ Feedbeggar will be focused on B2B (primarily agencies). So even though the basic idea remains unchanged (embed a widget, collect bugs and feedback), the execution and marketing differ a lot.
The problem
I’ve worked in an agency before and found the process of collecting client feedback really inefficient. Every time the client found a bug on the website or had a feature idea, they contacted us via email or phone. This often led to misunderstandings and emailing back and forth. This cost both sides a lot of time and nerves.
The solution
With Feedbeggar, agency owners can give their clients the possibility to collect client feedback directly from their website:
Agencies embed the Feedbeggar widget on the clients website. They can then use the widget to submit feedback including annotated screenshots and environment data.
But instead of storing the feedback in Feedbeggar, it will be automatically transferred to the agency’s project management tool (think Jira, Asana, Trello, Guthub etc.). Because let’s be honest… no one needs yet another project management tool.
Target audience
Well… from a use case perspective the product can be used by any company that works on web based projects (any SaaS company). But as we all know the „this product is valuable for everyone“ statement doesn’t do the trick. Therefore, I will focus my marketing efforts on digital agencies that maintain websites for their clients.
Marketing
I have no audience to launch to. So I’ll probably do it the old school way and do ads and cold outreach. I’m not sure though if I should do this now already in order to get waiting list signups (there is a signup form on the landing page) or wait until I have an MVP.
Launch
Feedbeggar is currently in development, but I’m really close to launching an MVP. If you want to be notified about the launch and get early access, you can sign up for the waiting list on feedbeggar.com . There might also be a lifetime deal for anybody signing up on the waiting list, so don’t miss out :P.
What’s next?
Thanks for reading! My goal is the post regularly on indie hackers to talk about my progress. I hope to launch an MVP by the end of April. I’m happy about and thankful for any feedback and opinions :)!
