Time to shut it down?
I launched https://www.indiehackers.com/product/tubesafe this month. It's an online tool to backup entire YouTube Channels.
Since then I've done the following:
- Message various YouTube content creators asking for feedback and if they would find it useful (very few replies, no sales)
- Submitted to various relevant subreddits (most people claim to keep local backups of their content)
- Submit to HN (not much traffic, zero feedback)
- Submit to ProductHunt (not much traffic, zero feedback)
- Submit to IndieHackers (good traffic, no sales, good feedback)
Some IH feedback I got was to try to reach out to Twitch streamers to see if they care about the fact that content > 60 days old is removed from their channels. I did that, they say they don't really care about old content going away and that it can be 'highlighted' to keep it around if they really care about it.
So it seems to me nobody has a need for this and I should shut it down and move to my next ideas. Would you do this or something else?
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To be honest, I found the landing page dissapointing. A pleasant/elegant/caring for detail landing page can go a long way. It's the unconscious factor, I bet your service is solid, the page doesn't reflect that.
Restyling a static page doesn't take a lot of effort. I would certainly give this a shot.
Marketing, you are fishing too large imo. Get some script going that identify youtubers who got some video deleted by YouTube, email them right after it happened.
Some of those users certainly lost it or can't be bothered.
Coming to mind is that this route may get you to offer further services such as help on getting videos not deleted. Sounds counter productive since your hope is that people do get content deleted, but what you are selling is peace of mind and save of time, leverage opportunities there.
About your mailing, if you target impacted youtubers, try to figure out the best nice category where users are likely to pay. E. G geeks posting videos may not like to pay for this since they know how to get backups in place via various means. See what persona would benefit from it, the kind of youtubers who pay for serenity, and refine your criteria based on results. Move from niche to niche until you notice conversion, then you know you are targeting willing to pay prospects in needs of your solution
I agree the design does look very soulless right now 💀. Thanks for the tips, I'll give them all a shot.
Design updated. Thoughts?
I have to be honest, it still looks very basic 'bootstrappy'.
I think your landing page could be far far more appealing, that's a 1 day job for someome who understand Web design. It could take it a couple of weeks if you don't while learning a ton about front end. I suggest improving the landing page as you go along.
It is the façade of your product and is so important it may play a factor in poor conversion.
Btw many people don't respond to emails but click on a link to see what it's about. If a link is there.
You may try to use a template landing page and fill in your product details if web design route is too hefty.
I'm just giving you my candid feedback, the page is OK right now. Is OK enough these days...
Hello Richard,
Before giving up, I would try to target a new niche. I would talk to several businesses and see if you are solving a problem of theirs. With the company I work for, we throw events and record the sessions. We put it on a terabyte drive, then upload it to YouTube. After that we delete the content from the drive. So it really is just sitting on YouTube. I guess my question would be, under what situation would we lose those videos? I believe painting out that worst case scenario what it actually looks like or testimonies for how it could happen could be better copy for a sale. In summation, try a new niche, really articulate the problem you are solving. If no one says they have that problem, then onward and upward!
Thanks for sharing,
Adam
This page has a "Why Backup?" section https://tubesafe.tv/backup-youtube-channel/
And the homepage lists news stories about YouTube taking down channels etc. Is this not sufficient to put that message across?
Funnily enough, after I posted this I got the first customer today.
Congratulations on your first customer! It is funny how the universe works. To expand -- I would put that at the forefront. A good article for helping conversions: https://www.mobilespoon.net/2019/04/collection-cognitive-biases-how-to-use.html
Rule #16 talks about the negativity bias. I think using stories on the landing page using a real story would help people. Assume your customer doesn't read your pages but skims. I still would try to pitch this to startups and see what they think! Let me know if I can provide any more clarity and best of luck for customer #2!
I would also buy it if I had a channel. My videos got deleted by Youtube without a warning because of a duplicate account. I wish I had backed up my videos.
Hi Richard,
I don't have a much of experience in sales, but my first thought is you are not targetting a specifit set of people. People creating video content is a vast audience and it is harder to please that vast category. Think about how to niche down and you might find it.
There are many YouTube channels that make controversial videos, who are at risk of getting their content removed. I would explore those corners of YouTube to see if they may find your service useful.
What led you to this idea in the first place? I always find it fascinating to learn where people get ideas for products. What were the signals that gave you the mental green-light to start building?
I'm assuming you had a good reason for building it (otherwise you wouldn't have), so what changed between that decision and today?
The defendant TubeSafe has been found guilty of No Market Demand charges and sentenced to death by shutting down.
More seriously, the situation does look pretty bad:
.. Most content creators that are serious enough to pay for backups are also serious enough that all the original and edited master files are stored in their local and/or cloud storage.
.. Having a backup with unknown one person company that may go belly up anytime is not a great backup. Selling backup services is really hard for any small company..
.. Selling backup service with freemium model may not be economically viable even if you'd find customers.
.. Evidence shows zero demand after reasonable try.
There may be hope in finding niche or pivoting the tech to something else, but i don't have any concrete suggestions for either, sorry.
Within one month seems like a very short time to evaluate on a shutdown, there are several services that only after years of struggling that find their niche.
It is always a matter of how much effort/time you are willing to add to the project, i mean if you do not have much maintenance to do and the running costs are small i don't see why you would shut it down.
Maybe try running some ads campaigns, or distance yourself for a while and then look at it with another perspective.
Lastly if you are not willing to dedicate any effort to it you can always try and sell it on a marketplace https://hackernoon.com/top-5-marketplaces-to-buy-and-sell-side-projects-4381e481ca9d instead of shutting it down
I think it's a great idea! So I wouldn't recommend to shut it down. Have you targeted smaller youtubers or bigger ones? Maybe targetting another niche would help.
How many people are using your free version?
What's an example of another niche? Do you mean a niche within YouTube itself, or something else?
Only a handful of people are using the free version each day.
Have you done user testing?
No, it is very difficult to find YouTubers willing to try this out. 90% don't reply to emails