

Ask HN: I have a product that makes tens of $ a month. What should I do? - smcavinney1

I built a CRM for Petsitters after my sister complained about how her $99 per month solution was bought by a competitor and decommissioned. I didn&#x27;t know much about programming but knew enough to know she was paying too much. So I learned (more) about RoR, and built a product for $10 per month. I launched it with my brother-in-law handling marketing and me handling new features.<p>Since the launch we&#x27;ve had at most 8 monthly active clients. After many months of no growth, we stopped marketing, and I stopped building new features.<p>We just had a bug pop up where the free heroku postgres maxed out and our users couldn&#x27;t add new clients. I removed all of our churned clients, but the question remains, after 10 months of not working on this at all, what should I do with it?
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saluki
Congratulations on executing, launching and getting customers.

I expect you have a list of emails of previous signups(in a backup of your
db), send out a personal email to each one thanking them for giving you guys a
try, what did you like/not like about the app. What feature could we add or
change that would get you to sign up again. Get some feedback and see if there
is a killer feature you're missing that would gain/keep customers.

Try sending emails to pet sitters inviting them to join.

Is there a feature you could add that would benefit the pet owner, maybe a
live chat, photo uploads, live updates on a status page that the pet sitter
could add to and the owner could check periodically. Maybe drop brochures at
vet offices and try to get pet owners to require their sitter uses your app.

You're probably charging too little . . . although Petsitters might have a
lower comfort zone that most b2b apps but your sister was paying $99 so maybe
$49 is a better price point.

I would second going with digital ocean. $5 to $10/mo plan would probably work
easily for 8 total users.

Definitely think about it as a learning experience. Learn more about
marketing, A/B testing, user engagement.

Track how often users are logging in, track users that visit the cancellation
page and don't cancel (follow up with users who aren't engaged or thinking
about canceling send them a personal email and offer a tutorial/on-boarding
session so they are getting value out of your app.

Email each user that cancels and try to get some feedback on why they left,
ways you can improve.

Listen to Startupsfortherestofus, lots of good info there.

Patio11 also has lots of great gems in his articles, HN posts and podcasts.

Good luck.

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smcavinney1
Thanks for the thoughtful response and resources. I've done some of these,
like emails, and started/stopped others. I'll look into the podcast, I can
never listen to enough :)

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bb01100100
Fire your brother in law - your business has failed to grow and that failure
rests with the person responsible for driving growth through marketing.

Also, consider marketing your product at > $10/month. If a previous
(inferior?) product was $99/month, then match that price and market the
features your product has, otherwise you marginalise what you've created.
Being cheaper is a play that works at scale, but shouldn't necessarily be the
reason people choose you.

Does your sister think your offering is awesome, or could you do something to
delight her and market this feature/capability as widely as possible?

I could have sworn that you posted a while back here on HN, talking about your
start-up.. there can't be that many people who start pet-sitting CRMs... do
let us know how you go :)

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smcavinney1
Ha, yes I think I posted when I was highlited on Nitrous's blog. I'll update
if it takes off, or gets shuttered, freeing up some AWS juice for all of you.

[http://blog.nitrous.io/2013/10/15/built-on-nitrous-io-pet-
si...](http://blog.nitrous.io/2013/10/15/built-on-nitrous-io-pet-sitters-
pal.html)

------
rabidonrails
If you can sell it to a couple of people, then you should be able to sell it
to more. I would take a two pronged approach going forward.

First, focus on explaining the value add of your CRM on your site. The video
on the site doesn't really talk about what you do but that people should be
using you because you don't offer lots of bells and whistles.

It seems like there are three big value adds: _simple scheduling_ rapid
invoice *smart pricing

But, these aren't listed on your landing page. They are listed on your Tour
page, but only once you click past the Responsive Design tab (how many pet
sitters know or even care about responsive design?). Make it absolutely clear
what you offer. (I like your "Get Organized and Efficient" line, as that is
really what you're helping the sitter do.)

Second, have your brother-in-law get out and sell. I'm not sure where pet
sitters congregate, but maybe just standing in front of a pet store asking
people about their pet sitters might net you a couple of leads. If it does,
figure out what it takes to close those sales. Then, use those people as
testimonials, run a case study and sell off of those numbers.

You might also have some of the pet sitting tutorial-type people on youtube
review your software.

Just some thoughts.

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trcollinson
A number of folks have given you advise on what to do to keep the business
going. But I would suggest sending out an email to your current customers,
giving them a shut down date, and then shutting it down. It might sound harsh,
but here's why:

You have learned a lot! You made a product, you launched it, you made a little
money. That is a fantastic education. But remember not every "business"
actually takes off and becomes a business. I have started and given up on a
number of great ideas. It's ok to move on to the next idea.

In fact, sometimes it's best to move to the next idea right now. You are in a
lull on this idea. It's not working out. It's not sustainable. It will take a
significant amount of time to make it sustainable and honestly, will it make
you happy? Do you love it? Are you passionate about it? If you are waffling on
these at all, then move on and make something great.

I am reminded of a rather well known Angel investor that often tells a story
of when she was young having an idea for a particular business. She worked on
it night and day for 2 years and didn't make a dime. She was so disappointed
as she had to take a part time job selling apartments in New York to make ends
meet. Then she realized that this was her real business and passion. She
killed off the first business, and made a killing in the second one.

~~~
jtfairbank
Wouldn't hurt to just leave it as is, in maintenance mode. Especially since he
built it for his sister.

Or implement a 'pay for features' model where its kind of like contracting
work- anyone can request a feature and they are publicly displayed and
sponsored, once the set value is reached then he implements it.

~~~
trcollinson
Certainly, that is an option. Both of those are. And of course with a sister
who uses it you might want to keep it going somehow for her.

However, let's look at it like an investor. (I tend to think all entrepreneurs
should stand back and look at their own business as an investor would). Is
this a business? No not even close. This is a hobby. Would giving it $100,000
make it a business? Not without a substantial amount of work. Would the risk
and reward play out correctly? No, the market is too small and there is no
play there. Does the founder seem like he has learned something and would do
well in another business? Yes! Absolutely.

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yarrowy
Migrate to DigitalOcean, you can probably keep the site on the $5 month plan.

~~~
smcavinney1
I've thought about that. To keep on heroku free, I removed churned clients
data. I'll keep that in mind, thank you.

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LeoSolaris
Find a home for it that keeps the lights on for $80 a month or less, and with
any extra, purchase some Google AdWords or Facebook ads. Let it roll on its
own for a couple of years till either all of the users are off, or it makes
more money. Use it as a learning platform in web design and back end coding.
It will look great on a resume if it is still active.

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ffumarola
Do you have a link to share for some feedback?

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smcavinney1
App is petsitterspal.com

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hesomp
Have you considered selling the product?

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smcavinney1
I have, but not seriously.

