labelmake.jp
PDF creation service to create address labels and barcodes.
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June 6, 2022
How well can a service whose 97% of users are Japanese work overseas?
2 years after the first release, it has registered 15,000 users and an average of 300,000 monthly PV. Monetized over $3000 MRR in subscriptions, advertising, and API integration with external enterprise services.
I registered with Indie Hackers to experiment.
Currently, the service supports only Japanese.
The service is a PDF creation service, but I believe that the needs are not limited to Japan.
I'm still thinking about how to expand the service, but I would like to take on the challenge.
4 Comments
I was interested in checking out your site, because I am learning to read, write, and speak Japanese (I am a native English speaker and I live in America). While I have never worked or lived in Japan, I have visited Japan three times, spending a total of about two months in the country, and I have watched many Japanese language media sources including NHK news and many TV dramas, and so I have gained at least some understanding of Japanese culture and life in Japan.
My language proficiency level is 'advanced beginner' - while I can read and understand many of the page headings and some of the other content (I can read hiragana, katakana, and maybe as many as 300 kanji characters, and I probably know several thousand words), a lot of the content on the main page, on the blog, and on other detail pages on the site is beyond my capability to understand directly, and so I used a web page translator for assistance.
My first impression was that the website is very tightly geared toward addressing problems faced by Japanese workers that may not be as prevalent in other countries. In order to determine whether the service may be useful in other markets, it would be important to understand the daily needs and challenges of potential users in other countries, so that a more appropriate 'sales pitch' can be built for those users.
For example, most of the templates that you show are uniquely Japanese, and solving problems with hand-written address labels also seems to be more important in the Japanese market than elsewhere (at least, from my experience in America). While smartphone usage is high outside of Japan, I'm thinking that those applications that would benefit from PDF generation and printing are more likely to be used with a desktop PC. There are already many solutions for address labeling that are specific to certain marketplaces, such as for eBay sellers and shippers, for US postal and shipping services (for mailing or shipping via USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.). Also, there is software available already for address label formatting, either directly from address label suppliers (such as Avery), or as general-purpose templates that work with Microsoft Office and similar applications.
So, I'm not sure that I see an easy path to expanding your service outside of Japan (at least to USA).
I'm glad you checked out the site. Thank you!
I found this advice very helpful since you have a good understanding of Japan.
In fact, I have never lived in another country, so I don't have any real pains faced outside Japan and I can't imagine the target users.
as you say, The universal needs are achieved by existing services, so certainly can't expand overseas without a deep understanding of the edge case needs.
I'm now convinced that I don't think business can be expanded just by making the wording on the site multilingual, at least.
Maybe I should tackle more universal issues.
One other idea. I've released the PDF generation technology I use at labelmake.jp as OSS and made it into a library. (https://pdfme.com/)
PDF generation technology might be better to provide services using WebAPI based on this service since it is a universal need.
pdfme.com sounds very interesting - I will definitely check it out.
Thank you very much...!
I'm waiting for your impressions.