Ditto

We finally have a user! A complete and total stranger is paying money to use the Ditto platform - what an amazing feeling! And it was a loooong time coming.

We're trying now to build a relationship with her and solicit as much feedback as we can without being obnoxious and clingy (haha).

Also, lesson learned: our alerting wasn't really set up, so I had NO IDEA that we had a paying user until several weeks after the she'd started to use the platform in earnest. We fixed that real quick, but it was a scary moment to look at our account in Stripe and know that it wasn't right (too much money - haha) and not know why for a split second there.

Yesterday we were mentioned in a TEENY TINY way in a SUPER BIG publication (at least, super big to us) - theSkimm. 🤯

The day began with lots of squealing and CAPITAL LETTERS!🥳!💃! in our Slack channels - it was a total surprise to see our names in the daily newsletter (albeit buried all the way at the bottom...). Then we quickly realized that we were going to have a lot more traffic than normal hitting our website, and we needed to capitalize on it.

We sprang into action 💪, quickly fixing a few of our marketing automations, adjusting links on our website, and putting a Skimm-specific banner and CTA on the site. Our efforts paid off -- we had 4 people sign up as users and another 28 people sign up for one of our nurturing funnels (either signing up for our newsletter, or signing our "manifesto" outlining the future we imagine for freelance payments.)

The best part? Now we can honestly say "as seen on theSkimm" - 🤣

We're at the stage now where any bit of potentially "free" money (i.e. non-dilutive funding) is incredibly appealing. We have just under 6 months of runway left and we're struggling to acquire users, so I'm looking for every opportunity to extend our ability to stay alive without another cash infusion from the founders. That means I'm applying to local pitch competitions, despite the fact that standing on a stage in front of -gulp- people is decidedly NOT my favorite activity.

This is the second time within 6 months that I've battled my presentation demons and won (against the demons, anyway). WOOT WOOT - that's silver lining #1. I'm now feeling way more comfortable that with enough (i.e. a shit-ton of) practice, I am capable of getting up on a stage and delivering a pitch without getting so nervous that my brain exits my body. (That's what previously happened, every time.)

Silver lining #2 - we might have gained a user from the audience

Finally, Silver lining #3, arguably the biggest one - the director for a government grant program approached me afterward and let me know about a state program that provides funding to early stage companies. I've just about got the application completed, and if we manage to get this funding, it would be HUGE for us -- way more than winning the competition alone would have been worth. Fingers crossed!!!

Ok, so it took waaaaaay longer than we thought, but we've finally launched the first usable version of the product. It could be prettier, but at least we are confident that it works -- no small feat to get all of that payment and escrow infrastructure set up -- and we believe it's polished enough to feel credible.

video for posterity

Considering how many of these things we've applied to, it was about darn time :) ...

While the dollar amount was small, it is a meaningful amount for us -- enough to pay our bills for a few more months.

And the validation was nice, too. We told our story; people got it, liked it, and believed in it. Maybe the tide is finally turning!

This totally made my weekend. My co-founder and I have been super active in a Facebook group for freelancers, and it seems that our efforts are starting to pay off! I came across a thread in which another person - NOT a co-founder or friends/family of Ditto - proactively recommended that someone else check out our product in response to their post looking for a payment platform for freelance work which includes escrow functionality.

Woot woot! Word of Mouth marketing, here we come!

Got a no-code, working version of the product up. I wish we'd done this sooner!

Working on coding the "real" product, but this is a big step in the right direction, and it'll help us learn from users.

Trying not to feel too embarrassed by the jankiness - hey, it WORKS. And if freelancers use it, they will get paid - on time, every time.