dip.chat
Accountability groups for developers
After 30 days, we wrapped up Round 4
Some stats:
- $215.00 in penalty fees
- 18 people joined
- 2 people quit didn't finish
- 2 people never missed a day
Even though we did video intros this round, it still didn't feel like the team or community feeling was quite there. There's some stuff to work out for sure.
I've also decided to put future groups on hold to focus on other efforts. I still like helping people with shared interests come together, but I'm not sure if this is the right model.
Keep an eye out for more information in the future.
We launched Round 4 with 5 groups:
- Job Hunters
- Builders
- Crypto Devs
- Founders $0-$1000
- Creators
It's exciting because Crypto Devs and Founders $0-$1000 are both running for the first time. We had 3 other groups (Builders — High Stakes, 30 Days of Customer Interviews & ConvertKit Grow Your Audience) but didn't run them because we didn't get enough signups.
My original goal was to hit $500 revenue and 20 signups but we only hit $348 and 18 signups (24% decrease in total participants).
12/18 (or two-thirds) have previously participated in a dip group, which is awesome! My favorite part.
We also tried video intros and it was a big hit!
- 11/18 posted video intro
- 6/18 posted text intro
- 1/18 posted an audio intro
Very excited about the progress we've made thus far. Onward!
After 30 days, we wrapped up Round 3
Some fun stats:
- 24 people joined
- 6 people never missed a day
- 80 total missed days
- $319.00 in penalty fees
- average of 3.33 missed days per person
- 29% (7/24) are joining another group
A couple folks even suggested new groups including:
- 30 Days of Customer Interviews
- ConvertKit Grow Your Audience
- Interview Study
We're not going with Interview Study yet but we will do the other two.
We launched Round 3 which had 5 groups:
- Builders
- Builders (#2)
- One-Month Challenge
- Job Hunters
- Creators
We didn't completely fill all the groups but had 24 people join which is a 71% increase from the previous round.
This was also after a price increase for seats from $10 -> $25. Note: some discounts were given and prices were grandfathered in for previous folks but still counts as a win in my book.
After 30 days, we wrapped up Group 2.
Some fun stats:
- no one quit
- 14 people joined
- 3 people never missed a day
- 57 total missed days
- $115.00 in penalty fees
- average of 4 missed days per person
- 57% (8/14) are joining another group
It was a ton of fun and has fully validated my idea.
I decided to create a Twitter account or my project. Why?
Two reasons:
- It gives people a way to reference the project
If someone wants to suggest or mention it, now they can easily doing so by typing @ dipdotchat (same as how you would say it out loud)
- It lets me talk about my project without being spammy
I'm working on the project in public. But if I add a URL to every tweet related to the project, it feels spammy. By using @ the project, it feels fine.
It also provides me with an additional outlet to promote upcoming accountability groups and let people who are interested sign up.
I had originally capped the total seats to 10 but turns out my logic in my app was wrong 😅
I was using the Payment Intents with some metadata as a "database" to see how many seats had been purchased. Turns out the endpoint I was using has a default limit of 10 unless specified so while I thought I had 2/10 seats left, I accidentally sold 2 over.
That means I have:
- 12 new people
- 2 from Group 1
- 1 (me)
15 total.
I've decided I'll let everyone participate but I'll split it up into 2 groups so it's less overwhelming in the Telegram group chats.
I decided for the next group, I wanted to change the business model.
Before:
- pay $30
- penalty fee of $1/day for no update
- refund at the end
After:
- pay $10 one-time seat fee (we keep)
- penalty fee of $2/day for no update
- we charge you penalty fees at end
This way, I'm not holding on to people's money and there's no moving money back and forth.
I launched dip.chat (an old domain for a previously failed experiment) and privately messaged 14 people who said they might be interested in the second round.
8/14 converted (57%) and purchased a seat.
We finished the first group!
There were 25 days with no updates which means I kept $25 in penalty fees.
Most missed days was 9 (one person).
Total revenue from experiment (before fees): $25.
2/5 said they would like to do the next group. I think this means I should continue with this experiment and see what happens.
I decided to automate the next step.
Instead of manually updating the spreadsheet myself. Turns out there is a really nice Node.js wrapper which makes this super easy. It's not fast, but it gets the job done and works with things you already know — Google Spreadsheets.
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