
Ask HN: Why shouldn't I shut down my business? - psychstudio
Hi, I&#x27;m Ben Howell, founder of Psychstudio [psychstudio.com]. I have zero paying customers.<p>Psychstudio is a platform for building and hosting online behavioral experiments. It&#x27;s been public for just over a year and accepting payments for the last 7 months.<p>My email list has ~150 people on it and I send a newsletter every month. I publish very well researched content and those who read the articles get value out of them. I promote articles on twitter, linkedin and reddit.<p>There are competitors in the marketplace and I built Psychstudio to address some of the shortcomings of those competitors (which are our USP&#x27;s). I believe it&#x27;s the best product in the market, bar none.<p>I started working on this in July 2016 based on a lot of advice, feedback, customer interviews, etc. During development and testing, feedback from beta users shaped the product as it is today.<p>It&#x27;s not easy to admit defeat when it seems there are other products in this space but the numbers tell a grim tale. I can go into infinite detail on any aspect if needed. It&#x27;s also not easy admitting that I&#x27;ve had no customers whatsoever even though I&#x27;ve been doing this for years.<p>I really need your advice and thank you in advance.
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trez
Hi Ben, kudos for building something you believe in.

My first impression is you have to talk to customers more and use face to face
interviews. There is already a market for this kind of product so the issue
might be: \- bad targeting. Are you sure you talk to the right people? Who buy
this kind of product ? Is the same people buying the product than the one
using it ? \- low reach. Conversions can be rare. Have you reached enough
people ? \- messaging. Do people really value your differenciation ? Do they
understand your message? \- price. Is it too expansive ? Not expansive enough
to be credible \- bad channel. How does the other company sell their product ?
B2B sales ?

It seems to be you rely extensively on digital marketing to "talk" with
prospects. Most of the time, one face to face can bring 10 times more info
quickly.

I would also suggest to read the "Test Mom". You may have done customers
interview the wrong way

I hope this help and wish you good luck

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psychstudio
Thanks trez, I've did a lot of face to face in the early days but you're
right, almost everything is digital now.

I feel as if I burnt through everyone available during development, testing
and beta and there's no one left within my network reach and so content,
social and SEO are really all I have left right now.

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muzani
If you have something of good enough value, you should be able to get
something cash in return.

It could be that you're not creating enough value? Sure, there's some. But
true product market fit is when they beg to throw money at you.

It could be that you're using the wrong revenue model. Firefox, Wikipedia,
Facebook, Google all make a lot of wealth/value, and they're also pretty rich.
But nobody directly pays for the service.

To quote Paul Graham:

"If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's
actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. It
certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. We avoided dying till we got
rich."

There is one reason to not shut down: you have a lot of data on what didn't go
right, and you could use that data to see where else to go.

The only real reason to shut down is either you've run out of money or
willpower. Even in that case, you could still sell off the site to competitors
as the domain name and newsletter itself has good marketing value.

~~~
psychstudio
I haven't died in almost 4 years, so yeah, I guess I've got that bit covered!

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SeniorSenior
Hollywood pays male actors more than it pays female actors. Usually. There are
exceptions. Some females get equal pay. Asked why, asked how, asked what's
makes you special, one actress said, "I asked for it."

Woody Allen said ninety-percent of success is just showing up. (I paraphrased
that.) You've showed up. Now you need to ask people to pay for the value they
receive.

I recommend a book titled "Guerilla Advertising." Brainstorm with friends. Ask
everyone you know... This is like phrasing a Google search; What you get
depends upon what you ask. Your first question should be, "What should I ask?"
I ask, are you marketing to the wrong people?

Read about the failures of Abraham Lincoln. The moral of is story - and the
stories of many others - is that is isn't "failure" until you accept it and
give up. Until you give up non-success is just a part of the learning curve.

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p0d
As an outsider to your field your name sounds a little ominous. Like a room
full of psychotic people. Explain to some people you don't know in person what
you do and then have them tell you back what it is you do. The results are
surprising sometimes.

