Still struggling to get my first customer
I had 71 people registering for new trials throughout August and not one has yet to subscribe to a plan.
Any advice on how I should proceed?
On my dashboard, it seems like all of the people who registered have fake usernames which bring to the question that all of them might be bots
Try to get a conversation going with your users. Give them a longer trial if they will hop on a call or fill our a survey. Assuming they aren't all bots, you probably haven't been able to show enough value / stickiness to people to get them to convert. Straight up ask them why they aren't paying you, then iterate from there.
In regard to the bot potential. Add a CAPTCHA to your sign up and/or require a credit card to start the trial. There's also services out there you can wire into to help identify bad actors as well.
It's probably as you said there's not enough value/stickiness for people to convert. My tool is very basic and I have just started.
I have talked to some of the people who signed up really early from the getgo and they said they wanted more features.
Very easy to fall into the feature trap early, I'd focus on improving your pitch on the existing feature set and drive home the existing value add. Then just gotta keep on collecting feedback and iterating when you're seeing commonalities across the feedback.
I see
Thanks, Josh
Hopefully by then I am able to add more value and able to convert my first paying customer
Get it! Best of luck!
Hey Justin, I recommend reading first1000.substack.com I write about how companies (from all sizes got their first customers)
I would also recommend startup school has an entire section on that
I recommend setting up an early access program. Get at least ten customers who really love what you are working on and build the product together. This is easier said than done, but it will be worth the pain.
If none of your current site registrants respond to outreach, you'll have to find ten other customers to work with you. Be clear about your expectations with the program and offer them a great deal. They'll spend a lot of time with you, so make sure to thank them.
Have you ever set up an early access program and how did you do it?
Okay, I will try it
We're in the middle of running one right now with Unbird. We've seen better results and learned more from the program than from any other customer research we've done.
If you're looking for examples of how to run one, Superhuman's process is worth looking at. Maybe I'll write a post in the future better outlining how to set one up.
I see. I should do that as well
But, I don't know how to implement it. It's gonna be a learning process
Just checked your landing page, bro you need to make the messaging more direct.
When you say help, what to do mean? What help, how?
The movement I used the search it asked me to sign! Big No No, Check out the Neil Patel stuff, people share that all the time amount the marketing community.
You're explaining what SEO is, Are your ideal customer someone who doesn't understand what SEO means?
When you say we are better, you don't mention how? There is no screen shot of the tool.
All user Web visitor want to know is,
-What you do and how are you better (Details and specifics, with a number if you can)
-What is the user gain (to the point)
Hope it helps,
Congrats on the trial registrants!
Perhaps you should reach out to your trial users and learn more about them. Email them or ask provide a quick survey.
You'll quickly find out and reveal the following:
Good luck!
Thanks for the feedback
The 71 trial participants that registered and I see it in my dashboard all have similar usernames (e.g. uWusheddjxhx). I'm not even kidding. All of them seem like bots
The ones that I contacted way long ago had different feedback on how the tool should improved and then they will convert which is a struggle.
That's brutal. Sorry, but I think you're right and it's likely bots.
You may want to try an outbound strategy to at least validate your hypothesis.
I'm not sure what your ideal customer looks like but from a cursory look at your LP, e-commerce might be a nice quick and dirty target.
--What I would try as an initial strategy--
There are a bunch of Shopify "gurus" on twitter selling their courses on making a 6-7 figure ECOM Brand, blah...blah....blah.
Find the gurus on twitter, engage them, try to partner with their brand. Give them something of value for access/introduction to their followers.
OR
Directly contact their followers and ask them to give your product a shot. (They must be highly engaged)
No one likes Cold DMs so you should offer them value they can't resist.
Yeah, I will try that
Thanks, @decros
Do you have a drip sequence for your trial members? Send them emails with tips, tricks, checking in, etc. whenever they sign up for a trial, but also infuse some urgency by saying your trial is expiring in X days, click here to upgrade now.
As long as they're using your app, you should see some conversions. At the very least, you should have people asking to extend their trials. Are you seeing good usage with these trials?
Yes, I have a drip sequence but I haven't implemented some sort of urgency
No, I haven't seen anyone coverting as of yet. Everyone cancels right before their 1 week trial ends.
I contacted some of the emails they registered with and they want more features and I want to implement it but if I do and they won't covert, that's gonna be a problem.
Some users want more value provided from the existing tools and each one of them have different feedback on how the tool should be improved
Does that mean you're taking credit cards upfront? If you are, then I'm surprised they all cancel. 71 is a high number to not convert at all for credit cards. If you're not, try to monitor usage. See who's using your software the most, send them a personal email and talk to them, see if they can enunciate what's stopping them from converting.
If you're getting scattered signals, I would try to dive deeper into why those users are asking for the features they're asking for. Most of the time, users don't know what they want precisely. They just know something is wrong.
It's your job to uncover what small pain they're trying to solve by having extra features. And if you find a common trend of pain X, it's your job as the entrepreneur to come up with the best feature that addresses that pain most effectively.
No credit card upfront, they just cancel the 1 week trial by themselves or it expires on it's own.
I see.
I will try to dive deeper to solve the small pains of the users.