Show IH: MailCheddar-- charge for paid newsletter subscriptions [pivot from earlier post]
MailCheddar: Monetize your newsletters
Hi IH!
Last month I posted about my first product that I had built and launched, and got some real good feedback: https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/any-ideas-on-how-i-can-get-my-first-users-for-this-super-niche-product-1ad16e17c8
The first product was supposed to allow Slack (and other chat group) moderators to charge for community membership. I ended up cold emailing a handful of Slack group moderators, and getting on some Slack group communities for Slack group moderators #meta, and trying to solicit some feedback there. The main issue I found is:
-the mods who are already charging, have a system in place (and making anyone change systems is really hard).
-the mods who operate free communities can't just start charging their free members out of the blue for a premium channel, as their first paying member will be getting no value. Major chicken and egg problem.
So I ended up pivoting the product to be for premium/paid newsletters (think Scott's Cheap Flights), since that doesn't have the chicken and egg problem, since your first paid newsletter subscriber will be getting as much value as the 200th paid newsletter subscriber.
Feedback appreciated. Most requested feedback is on how to get my first users to solicit feedback from-- I have some ideas in mind.
This is kind of boggling my brain. Your URL is blocked by my employer's security software.
For whatever reason Sophos says mailcheddar.com is a bad place to go.
Oh interesting, I wonder what triggered that. What else does your employer's security software generally block? Twitter, FB etc?
No, not at all actually. I've very very seldom encountered any blocked content.
There are only 3 events in my log for blocked content:
https://mailcheddar.com
https://coinhive.com
https://jqcdn.com
I can understand Coinhive - nobody wants their equipment being used to mine crypto, but the other two are a mystery.
I basically use this laptop as a personal machine and can normally browse everything from reddit and facebook to pornhub or whatever.
It doesn't provide me with any details - just says it's blocked.
Here's the community site for the brand:
https://community.sophos.com/
Oh man, I'm baffled.
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Hi Marc,
When trying to acquire users, and identify the exact market segment I discovered a few things (which may or may not have been correct)
-Those who were already monetizing their newsletters had a system in place, whether it was custom, or a work-around they put together. It worked for them, which meant high switching costs. My value prop of how easy it is to set up, wasn't enough when they already had it set up.
-Those who were not yet monetizing their newsletters were very difficult to find. It was also that many were trying to monetize, but weren't successful in doing so, not because of the lack of a payments platform, but because monetizing a newsletter is extremely difficult. So my success depended on the success of users being able to have fantastic content and marketing.
As a result I shut it down. The domain is for sale though.
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
100% Agreed that there should be some way to revisit and learn from each other's mistakes, not just successes.
And, my pleasure!