When there’s a need for your product but no one is buying – can you help me solve this issue or is my product doomed to failure?
Hi IHs,
From my time working in schools as a teaching assistant, I noticed that a lot of teachers struggled with keeping everything in one place - homework assignments, teaching plans, calendar etc. I created a SaaS for teachers that helped them organise all of this - a bit like Notion but specifically for teachers. I had lots of great feedback but at the same time, many teachers didn’t want to spend the money. They said if the school bought the software that would be good so I changed tactic and went directly to the heads of schools. Some were interested, others couldn't care less. Overall, low budgets though meant they couldn't afford it, even though it was very cheap.
So, this has left me with a product where there is a need, but no one is buying. In the end, I gave up marketing it after only having got a dozen sales after the first 12 months. Maybe that doesn't seem so bad to some but I literally contacted every school in my country, so I had exhausted all my options. It was very frustrating to shut down my SaaS when I envisioned most schools adopting the system.
I want to create another SaaS, but with a different target audience in mind, but I'm scared of the same thing happening again. Is this potential problem something that I can find out about in the initial validation stages? I feel like I asked the right questions - would you buy the product? - it was only after I built the product, did potential buyers then say they wouldn't buy. So, I'm unsure how to go about solving this issue on any future products I build. Any ideas?
Post-launch lesson: traffic came, activation didn’t
I Stopped Browsing Reddit Randomly. Here's the Keyword Monitoring System That Actually Gets Me Customers.
For indie hackers: Outsource marketing or do it yourself?
It's hard to sell to education institutions. All they care about is adminstration and lesser expense to run their organization.
Anything that falls outside of these, they don't care. Your value prepositions like accuracy, performance, easy of doing things don't have any value in those institutions.
I would just suggest you to change your targeted audience. Pivot now.
Have you considered targeting teachers who teach courses in industry (instead of going for schools / school teachers)? They might need most of your features and they might be more willing to pay.
This is tough. How did you pre-validate? It's one thing for it to be a problem you observed, but another for it to be a specific paint point teachers have.
A side question. You noticed teachers had this problem. Isn't that what class dojo is for?
This is partly why I'm inclined to business models where the software is free, but there's a way to earn revenues from either the data, or referrals, or advertising.
Maybe you could pivot your target users!
I think maybe if you share how does your solution solve the teachers problem, maybe it could useful for some other potential customers...
I mean, that's the primary reason why schoolsand other public institutions have garbage software. It's not that it's hard to build, the teachers just aren't in a position to buy it.
It's why you see so many small saas services aimed at SMALL business owners. Someone there has autonomy and can take a risk on you to potentially gain an advantage.
The head of a school won't do that. They don't need advantages, they don't need to improve the school, they don't have any personal incentive to either.
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Have you thought about offering a long trial period to increase adoption? If your tool is good and it will save time/resources, teachers will either pay it themselves (to have more free time) or do more pressure to management to have it paid from the school.
Can you re-think how you sell the product? Can you go to the local government rather than to the school?
This is tough, man. I've heard similar stories in the past where founders felt like they had validated enough but when they launched no one wanted to buy. One thing you could ask in the future is 'how much would you pay for this?'. Getting the potential customer/user to really think about what it's worth could prompt them then to come to the conclusion that they wouldn't buy it, and then there answer would be a no, rather than a yes, and that will give you a better idea of potential sales. I hope this helps. Best of luck.
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