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35 Comments

Should I give up?

Back in January I started developing my own news reader app, to keep track of everything and everyone I follow online, and not get distracted or absorbed by infinite scrolls and suggested articles & videos.

So I built it and then decided to try and make some income on it, but ever since I haven't had a single paying user.

Is my landing page the problem?
Is pricing okay?
Is my product not solving a problem?
Am I the only one that likes it?

I'm giving it one last shot this month and see if I get any paying user to motivate me to keep going, otherwise it's farewell and onto the next project.

If you're curious, check out Monocle @ www.monoclereader.com

EDIT: I redesigned my landing page, check it out @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

on September 1, 2019
  1. 4

    Beyond just getting it in front of lots more people, I think one possible problem is that the site's language isn't targetted very sharply at any of the possible groups who might use the product.

    Off the top of my head, those groups might be:

    1. Tech-savvy folks who loved RSS and miss it since they've been unable to find a good replacement since Feedburner/Reader shut down. They probably need messaging along the lines of "finally, a good RSS reader (which also does other great stuff)".
    2. Similar to the above, but who have already found a suitable feed reader. I'd imagine these folks are tough to get since the switching costs are relatively high, but who knows. They'd probably need messaging about the particular features compared to other good, existing feed readers.
    3. "Normal" folks who have never used (or even know about) RSS, where the language needs to be much more about why a feed reader is even a good idea in the first place. (save time, stop cluttering your email with newsletters, avoid getting dragged into social media bullshit, don't miss important stuff from smaller sites, escape the echo chamber, build your own news, read media on your own terms, control your own subscriptions, etc. etc.)

    Having only glanced at the page fairly briefly, my impression is that it currently strikes a weird balance where it sort of assumes I already know what a feed reader is and why I want one, but it doesn't explain what's different about this product compared to alternatives. So I'm not sure that it currently sells to any of the three segments above. Overall, I think it needs more text.

    All that being said, landing page copy is hardly my expertise, so feel free to ignore all of the above ;)

    PS. You could do a quick proxy version by writing a detailed blog post for each of those three groups, and then trying to drive people to those most specific and explanatory posts instead of the fairly lightweight landing page.

    PPS. I think the roadmap might be working against you -- it's admirable transparency, but currently has the potential to just make the product look unfinished. Although that's possibly just because it's the only real text on the page. Maybe adding a bit more text to address some of the above will also make this stand out less.

    PPPS. It's also fine to move on if you want to. You'll need quite a lot of paying customers at this low price point to really start paying your bills, which means a long period of marketing grind. If that sounds like anti-fun, then it might make sense to put your efforts into a product which is intentionally designed to carry a higher price point so as to require fewer customers and less marketing.

    PPPPS (last one, promise): Also, I'd seriously consider just charging people up front. If they're willing to go through the work of setting up their feeds (which is always a pain), then they're willing to pay you.

    1. 1

      Hey man, since I read your answer I've been thinking about what you said and yesterday I finally redesigned the landing page; made a post @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

      Thanks for taking the time to answering in detail and for all the PSs haha

      1. 1

        Cool -- looks good. Hope it helps move the needle. Nice work.

  2. 3

    If you say you haven't done "much really" to promote your app, then that must be the answer. :)

    Don't give up. Check out Feedly and how they work around the problem - if you haven't heard of them yet, that is. That's your niche. They send their users regular digest from the platforms they added to the feed. Also, I don't see much pricing on your website, so I'll make the assumption that you offer your stuff for free? Maybe cut out some functions and move them to premium.

    For traction/traffic itself, I'd recommend hitting Quora and get active there.

    1. 2

      That's the answer.. I've got to put more time and effort to get the traffic.
      Thanks for the motivation!

  3. 2

    Design is nice. But it doesn’t make me want to buy it
    I think you need to dig into the benefits, a bit. Read julian shapiro’s landing page tips as a good place to start.

    1. 1

      I've just redesigned the site, maybe now's better?
      https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 6 years ago

  4. 2

    The landing page looks good. How many possible users have you talked to?

    Google reader was very popular product, I'd try to find and target previous users of that. Here is a thread from today of people mourning the death of google reader. There are probably tens of thousands: https://mobile.twitter.com/anildash/status/1168270834051538944

    • Do some SEO/marketing, for example create pages for users of every other rss reader past and present explaining why your tool is better then promote them ( get to the top for google reader replacement)
    • Start a mailing list or community for a related niche topic
    • Consider targeting mobile users, perhaps even an app with your site as the backend?
    • Consider some small ancillary tools (save page for later, save lists for other users)
    • Consider a browser plugin as a promo channel - go where the users are.
    • Don't give up!
    1. 1

      Thanks! I've actually redesigned the landing page now, what do you think? https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

      I've talked to very few possible users.. I know I should focus on this more.

      Good idea to target former Google Reader users in twitter for example, and probably make some explicit blog posts targeting those people too.

      Again, thanks for the ideas and motivation!!

  5. 2

    Hey - this might help u make a decision: https://youtu.be/8pNxKX1SUGE

    1. 1

      Thanks! Will check it out later today.

  6. 1

    no you don't need to give up you have to follow some productive tips and strive more. i hope you will earn more than expectations. learn more about it https://www.unique-links.com.pk/reseller/

  7. 1

    What marketing strategies did you use? Have you tried advertising it?

    1. 1

      Honestly? Nothing yet really... I've just redesigned the landing page though, check it out @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263
      Next step is taking a look at SEO, code the new design and run some marketing campaigns.

  8. 1

    In your case I guess you don't need to promote it before making some changes on the core of the idea, which means creating a whole new project. Surely, NEVER give up!

    1. 1

      I redesigned the landing page, what do you think about it?
      Post @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

  9. 1

    Price is too low, let people think your product is low quality.

    1. 1

      What about a one time $29 payment? I agree price is currently to low, thanks for pointing it out!

  10. 1

    The site looks good, I'd say even impressive.

    You definitely have to define some budget for marketing and just after spending it make a decision on future of the project ;)

    1. 1

      Thanks! I've just redesigned it though... Check it out @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

      Also, yes, I'm reading and getting a bit into SEO and marketing so as to run a campaign and see how that works to get users.

  11. 1

    Is it an RSS reader?

      1. 1

        What have you done to promote it? How much traffic have you got up until today?

        1. 1

          Not much really. I've showed it to my friends but after a few days they just stopped using it. And I've posted occasionally here on IH and on HN...

          So far I've got ~550 registered users but no active ones, zero, well except by me.

          I should try and get some marketing going... any suggestions?

          1. 2

            Before marketing it you need to be sure your business model makes sense.

            There are many free RSS reader, why should someone pay for yours?

            Maybe you could consider a freemium model, with some free basic features and some paid ones.

            Research the market, see what your competitors do.

            1. 1

              Yes, I've done some market research and have looked into the features and pricing models of Feedly, Flowreader, Feeder, Newsblur, Inoreader, The Old Reader, Miniflux and Feedbin.
              Most offer a free tier, that's something to point out.

              But what if I do a one-time-payment reader?

              btw, i just redesigned the landing page, post @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

          2. 1

            It’d be a good idea to find out why they stopped using it. Give some thought to finding out without triggering their will to “protect” your ego.

            1. 1

              Yeah, that's the hard part when it's friends and people I know. I need more honest feedback.

              Btw, I just redesigned the landing page @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

          3. 1

            You can maybe try to discover and apply some technique to keep the user. I'm thinking of regular transactional emails, and a newsletter?

            1. 1

              Maybe a weekly digest of good feeds to follow?

              Btw, check out how i redesigned the landing page @ https://www.indiehackers.com/post/0caf5a1263

              1. 1

                Nice re-design, I like it!
                Yes, a weekly digest of good feeds would be excellent.

                1. 1

                  If I may ask, are you using any news reader currently? Or how do you check for updates of sites/content you follow?

                  1. 1

                    I also created a long time ago now, a simple script that send me all the updates from a list of RSS feeds the news that are not more than 24h old. And I'm running this script everyday.
                    So I have in my email inbox the summary of all what happened on some RSS feeds.

                  2. 1

                    I'm using quiterss or akregator to follow all my rss feeds.