

My product failed - Rakathos
http://www.ironconversions.com/blog/post/My-product-failed

======
gfodor
I'm not sure of what "Iron Conversions" is going to be, but it'll be
depressing if this is another story of someone trying to build a product, and
then failing, and then building a meta-product around building products and
trying to sell that to people on HN who are still trying to build products.
There seems to be a huge influx of things like this: books on how to sell
books or build apps after their "real book" or "real app" failed to sell,
sites for vetting ideas built by people whose "real idea" was bad, customer
development tools for people who failed to do good customer development with
their "real idea". I enjoy patio11's posts and talks immensely, but even he
admits that most of his income is now from the product of teaching others how
to build products, not building products himself. Necessity is the mother of
invention, but the meta-product trend is getting tiresome. It kind of feels
like an intellectual ponzi scheme at some point.

~~~
aculver
As someone developing a "customer development tool"
(<http://www.petriapp.com/>) I'm confused why you would label this "meta"? I
(for one) am not building it because I failed to do customer development in
the past. I'm building it because I want to do much more of it, and there are
large parts of the process that are tedious, time-consuming, and easily
automated. Even more time-consuming is the process of educating and coaching
others, which freelancers and consulting shops frequently end up doing.

Whenever someone can take one of these pieces of the start-up/product puzzle
and simplify it with a tool or a pre-packaged or curated resource, that's a
good thing. If it provides value, the rest of us can pay for it and re-invest
the time we've saved doing "higher-level" (e.g. more domain-specific) work. If
it doesn't provide value, we'll stop buying it.

~~~
gfodor
I consider tools/books made explicitly to help with selling, marketing, or
coming up with ideas for software products as per the startup-trend of the
Lean Startup, etc, as meta-products. This isn't a bad qualifier on its own,
mind you, it just means that its a tool to help sell products/bootstrap
startups/etc.

I'm not willing to single out specific products (like yours) and
criticize/praise them since that is getting into the weeds, I'm just pointing
to the larger trend of tons of HN posts where the author tells a story about
their failed startup and then you realize, no, they are not just telling a
story and sharing their lessons, they are pitching you to buy their (unproven)
product so _you_ , humble entrepreneur, can avoid the same tragedy they did.

If something doesn't provide value and people stop buying it, that doesn't
mean the (hypothetical) snake oil salesman doesn't make off with a mint before
people realize the fact that it's smoke and mirrors and didn't provide any
actual value. It doesn't even have to be malicious, it could just be someone
making promises they end up being unable to keep and people giving them money
in the hopes of those problems being solved. Everyone has the urge to try
something for a few months to see if it works if they are struggling. Why
should I trust any fresh-on-the-scene meta-product with even my time
(nevermind my money) other than the ones that come from a credible source:
someone who built and used it to launch a separate non-meta product.

(The problem, of course, is if someone really has a compelling solution to a
problem that provides a competitive advantage, they are disincentivized from
selling it!)

------
Aqueous
Oh boy - disagree with the premise. It's been four months since you _started?_
You haven't failed. It looks like you've been trying to market it to the
Internet at large and not targetting your likely user base. Go see some local
businesses and see if they are in the mood for a better inventory management
system. Get one business using it. Then another. Then another. Build your user
base one person at a time. Businesses tend to talk to each other. You say have
one paying customer? Great! That proves that _somebody_ is willing to pay for
it. Just reconfigure your marketing and target the people who are likely to do
so - those with whom you already have a personal connection.

~~~
nedwin
I agree. 4 months is way too short to call it quites and shift to a new
product.

In terms of customer validation it sounds like you have some but it hasn't
been exhaustive by any stretch. Trying to get Adwords-generated revenue with
such a small budget isn't going to prove anything either way. Articles written
by people from Fiverr.com isn't much better.

Pound the pavement and find 20 people who have inventory management problems,
email 200 people who you think are in your target demographic. Find out what
they hate about inventory management and if your solution can fix their
problem.

~~~
tmzt
I'd be happy to take articles that have already been researched and written by
people on Fiverr and rewrite them using grammatically correct English while
keeping the original SEO keywords. Contact me at the email address in my
profile if interested.

------
thematt
Let me give you some advice from someone who's been on the customer side of
SaaS inventory systems for the past couple years.

1\. Inventory systems very rarely live in isolation. If you're a medium/large
business, you quickly discover the need for integration with accounting,
procurement and manufacturing or production. If you're a small business you
may only need accounting -- but nevertheless selling this by itself might be
difficult.

2\. You're using strange terminology that unfamiliar to those dealing with
inventory day-to-day. What is a 'sheet'? Why is more sheets better than less
when it comes to pricing? Fix your terminology or at the very least clarify
what it means.

3\. You're charging too little. You're competing with a bunch of companies
that won't even list prices on their websites (which means it's in the 5+
digit range per month). Your dirt cheap pricing gives the impression that
you're a tiny app that has little value. I'd suggest you consider pricing
based on number of users, similar to Atlassian.

4\. Sorry to be blunt, but your website sucks. You need more screenshots.
Pricing should be on the front page. There's an overwhelming amount of text on
your front page, as a customer I probably won't read all that so don't bother.

5\. Stop emphasizing that you're a one-man team. That is not attractive to
business customers. They want to know that there is firepower behind the
product and it's not a fly-by-night operation, both to handle issues when they
come up as well as grow the product down the road.

Your big advantage here is transparency. Be up front about your pricing and
your features, this sets you apart from your competition by leaps and bounds.
Your competition requires a phone call with a sleazy salesperson and then they
price based on your revenue. You're in a good market, but it will require you
to be a lot larger than you think. You're actually competing in the ERP space.
That's actually a good thing though, because nobody likes working with those
companies, they're horrible. Use that to your advantage and sell your
customers on your advantages.

~~~
stevewillows
You should email this directly to the guy. Information like this is priceless
for someone in his situation.

~~~
Rakathos
I'm still here! HN is throttling my comment submission rate though, so I can't
reply to very quickly right now.

I agree, this advice is priceless.

~~~
stevewillows
If you stick it out, I hope you'll update the community in the coming months!

------
simonbarker87
I think it might be too early to talk about failure, I think 4 months from
start to finish is a very short period of time for building and launching to
deciding that no one wants your product.

Your product has been exposed to a tiny tiny tiny percentage of those who it
could be. 1 customer out of 1,000 potential is a very low conversion but who's
to say you're getting the right type of traffic?

Take a few days to speak to small business owners (in person maybe, or on the
phone) and maybe consider a change of tack to a smaller niche that have a
specific problem.

Maybe convert to a Shopify plugin? We pay for 3 for our business and they are
both very feature light but they solve a specific need.

Also, look at companies who sell online but make product to order. Tracking
raw materials against a final product sell is a real nightmare and not one
that any of the big shopping cart players manage (3 years ago they didn't at
least).

~~~
Rakathos
Absolutely, four months when compared to other SaaS products (or any product
in general) is a laughably short amount of time to judge anything a success or
failure.

I probably should have explained a bit more in depth about why I'm calling it
a failure:

I'm simply not interested in the product I built anymore. Inventory for small
businesses is something that doesn't hold my attention as it used to when I
built the product, and I'm not sure it ever did.

Right now it's hard for me to load up my IDE and start working on the product.
I feel like I don't know what to do with it as it is, and that stems from the
lack of interest.

I'm taking a couple weeks to go over my options, and I think I've got a decent
plan to revitalize it.

I haven't given up on the product itself, or the core problem it solves
(inventory management). I've only given up on who it's marketed to.

Like you said, I think the best option is to change to a smaller niche. The
one I have in mind will radically change how the product looks and functions,
but it will still be inventory management.

~~~
toumhi
This all sounds very familiar. I also built a SaaS for small business owners
in France (professional filesharing) but I realized I didn't care enough about
the product and the audience I was serving (among other problems)

I even wrote a post-mortem here: [http://www.sparklewise.com/post-
mortem-5-mistakes-i-made-wit...](http://www.sparklewise.com/post-
mortem-5-mistakes-i-made-with-my-first-online-product/)

For me, caring about the product and the people you're serving is the most
important thing. Don't choose a project because it sounds like a good idea,
but choose a project because it's a part of a bigger goal, a bigger mission.

However, there's also something to be said for persistence and not giving up
at the first obstacle. Finding out where the limit lies is not easy.

------
Domenic_S
I would pull each of your headings up a level so you can take lessons into the
future:

 _I built the entire thing before ever announcing it_ = I didn't talk to
customers.

 _I built a huge feature for my only customer_ = I didn't have a vision.

 _I wasted too much money on AdWords and Fiverr_ = I had no marketing plan.

 _"If it had @thisAmazingFeature, then I would buy it"_ = I didn't stick to my
vision (because I didn't have a vision to stick to).

 _Most importantly, I can't relate to my target demographic at all_ = I don't
care about the project.

 _A plan of action_ = What I should have had in the first place ;)

~~~
Rakathos
Great advice. I admit I had no plan of action when I started building my
product.

My line of thought was: "Okay, I'll build it. People will somehow hear about
it and start using it. I'll make money which I can then put into marketing the
product".

I'm now developing a clear plan of action before I take another step with my
product. A lack of one in the first place was crippling.

------
g3rald
One problem i can see is you build an isolated system. People when look for a
solution like inventory, hopes that in the future they can intregrate it into
a bigger system. Someone talk in this discussion about ERP, but i think that
build an ERP require too much resources and time, about all for an startup,
but is desirable to have a product that have more than just an inventory
system. I think you have two ways, first integrate your system with some big
alternatives of market [some one mention shopify] or create more systems and
integrate them [consider see openerp or openbravo]...

------
moneyrich1
Are you going to try to save it?

I have some ideas, but they are just ideas, probably more wrong than right.

Your site could probably use some a/b testing for conversion rate increase.
see funnel charts. I wouldn't mind seeing a demo as a video either. I also
wouldn't mind seeing a feature comparison chart (?) comparing your features to
the top 3 inventory systems, and why yours beats theirs.

Or even for a free extra N sales, you can claim on your landing page, "the
inventory system that blows SuperInventory1 out of the water!!" (if there was
a competitor selling SuperInventory1). (and then of course you buy on all
their adwords if you want to needle them a bit)

I think your ads are just hitting the wrong audience.

Instead of a blog talking about small business, you would probably do better
in this space blogging about living a ridiculously baller lifestyle, and
blogging about women and gambling... you want to attract customers with
successful small businesses.

I can suggest marketing to a group of customers have a problem, say buying
adwords for "sugarInventory bug" or "I hate inventory".

Maybe give out some licenses free to bloggers or small businesses? (like 10 as
a test pilot? I am not sure)

My hunch is this industry is not consumer facing, and most industry stuff
recommended is word of mouth, magazine, trade show, or by sales pitch.
Typically a for-a-business product has a sales team, with people who hunt
leads and make calls, not sure what you can do to beat the competitors who do
this, but I would start on the phone.

Gluck

------
Rakathos
This seems to be a common theme so I'll post this here instead of replying to
each comment with the same thing:

I probably should have named the blog post "I've lost interest in my product"
instead of calling the whole thing a failure, as that may have been more
accurate.

To me it is a failure, but not because I've only gotten 1000 visitors over
four months, or because I've only had one paying user.

Instead, I call Rakasheets (the product) a failure because I've lost interest
in what it was built for. I built it to solve inventory management for small
businesses, but small business inventory does not interest me any longer (if
it ever did).

I find it hard to open the project in my IDE and work on it, or even to think
about it at all.

With that said, however, I haven't given up on the problem I built it to solve
(inventory management). Instead I've given up on who it was built for (small
businesses).

I'd like to give more details about that but for now I'd rather build a plan
of action before talking about what I'm going to do.

On another note, I completely agree that four months is far too short to call
anything a success or a failure. If I were still interested in the product I'd
never admit it was a failure simply out of pride.

(Also, thanks for commenting. I really appreciate the advice. If I didn't
reply to you it's only because HN throttles comment submission rate. I was
unaware.)

~~~
billmalarky
Seems to me like you would get customers for this sort of product the old
fashioned way, by cold calling businesses and setting up meetings with
businesses etc as opposed to internet marketing.

------
_yb
First of all, declaring failure at this point is so ridiculous that I'm pretty
sure that the only purpose of your blog post is to advertise that "Iron
Conversion" thing.

Second, Reddit and adwords aren't the only marketing strategies out there,
especially when it comes to small businesses. I mean, C'mon, how many small
businesses owners turn to reddit in search for "inventory management app".
Even more than that - how many business owners actually turn to the web to
look for solutions?

I don't know how you imagine them, but small businesses owners aren't hackers.
They want solid solutions and they surely would be interested in something
that solves a problem and is cheaper than their current solution.

As I see it, your only marketing strategy is phone calls. I mean, hundreds of
them. Just open Yellow pages and start making them calls.

Pitch your product, ask business owners about their problems with their
current system, describe how yours would solve their problems. Try to get
business owners interested, offer a free trial, ask for email addresses, do
follow up -phone calls-.

I'll reiterate - small businesses owners aren't hackers.

Edit: I just saw this - "Online Inventory Management without the suck"?
Seriously? I really want to know how you imagine your average customer
(genuinely interested)

~~~
Rakathos
"Small business owners aren't hackers" is what I've learned recently, and I
wish I learned it months ago. In hindsight I know I went about finding my
problem-to-solve in the wrong way.

Instead of interacting with my potential customers, I only read what they were
talking about from afar, and somehow divined that "real time inventory
management" was the solution.

I didn't ask them what they thought, and I didn't validate the product. That
was a big mistake and could have saved me months of effort building something
I'm no longer interested in.

Re: "Online inventory management without the suck". All copy so far has been
written in a vacuum. I have had literally zero feedback from random internet
visitors (until today, from HN). My only way to gauge if my copy was working
was by the amount of trial signups I was getting each week.

It happens that that was one of the last messages I tested before losing
interest. Trust me, the copy has gone through numerous iterations over the
last few months trying to find something that sticks.

I've tried long copy, short copy, "hybrid" copy, screenshots, no screenshots.
I didn't just stick that message up there and call it good for a few months.

This might sound like I'm irritated or angry, I'm not. I genuinely appreciate
all of the feedback I've been getting. Thank you!

------
millstone
Thanks for sharing your story and post-mortem. I enjoyed it a lot.

This line jumped out at me:

> Sidenote: Judging by my AdWords clicks, Inventory Management is very popular
> in India

Was this meant to suggest click fraud was occurring, or was it legitimate
interest? Or is it one of those "email me my final project plz" phenomena?
(<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/plz-email-me-teh-codez.aspx>)

~~~
Rakathos
Actually that was a bit that should have been cut out. I previously had a
paragraph in there that said most of my mailing list subscribers were from
India (according to MailChimp).

I then went on and said that the people on my mailing list weren't very
interested in opening the emails I sent or responding to them. I took the line
out however because there's no correlation between being Indian and not
opening my autoresponders.

I've got Americans and Europeans on there too and they don't open or respond
just as much as people from India.

Another sidenote, this probably suggests that what I'm sending isn't all that
enticing to anybody and could use some work.

~~~
Domenic_S
Or it means that a lot of developers in India are working on inventory
management.

------
ultimatedelman
I've actually built a custom inventory system for a customer, so I know the
challenges you face from the engineering side. I'm also (co-)founding a
startup, so I know your challenges from the product development side. However,
my gut tells me that neither of these are your problem. Your problem is very
clearly your website.

Your first image is nice and somewhat explanatory, but there's no call to
action until the user scrolls at least once, and even then it is small and
rather unnoticeable. I would say that the worst part is the wall of text that
follows. No screen shots, nothing to play with, just a wall of text listing
the features.

You have to draw the customer in with your coolest and/or most useful or
unique features first. If they want to learn more, have a way for them to do
that (take them to a "features" page or something), but your current layout is
just way too intimidating.

And to reiterate what others are saying here, small business owners aren't
always the most tech-savvy. Maybe your angle should be how dead-simple easy it
is to use (way easier than anything out there, of course :)

I hope this helps, and good luck should you attempt to revive this project!

------
andreipop
I know little about the space or problem you are solving, but will echo the
sentiment that although 4 months may seem like a long time (even given the
effort) it really is a drop in the bucket of what it takes to build a
successful product/company.

My unsolicited advice is this: don't write it off as a failure unless you
really don't care about the problem you are solving -- in which case go work
on something you do.

------
DigitalSea
_Before I ever got another pair of eyes on the product, I had built every
single feature. It took nearly a month to get it all together and ready for
users._

So the product has only been around for 4 months, it only took a month to
piece it together and get it ready for the public? Doesn't sound like you've
failed to me, you've only just started. Starting a new company with no rapport
with anyone isn't just going to burst onto the scene and people throw large
amounts of cash, trust and praise at it. Marketing to small businesses isn't
easy, you've got to build trust first.

And by the way just by launching the product instead of burning through
savings and investment capital for a couple of years you've succeeded in that
I've seen tonnes of ideas and startups fail because they couldn't get a
product finalised and out the door for people to use. You've launched
something, be proud and keep working at it.

------
FollowSteph3
I agree, 4 months to build, market, and sell. That's nothing. Remove the dev
time and you're looking at what, 1-2 months? And considering your marketing
isn't very strong and its all new to you, you can't expect results that tae.
Adwords alone costs at least a thousand just to start getting an idea. And at
least 3-6 months of experience.

If someone was coding for only a few weeks you'd probably tell them they just
have the basics at best. A bit more than hello world but not much. The same is
true with marketing ;)

It took me a year just to figure out marketing. The overnight successes you
see on techcrunxh are either very lucky, its not their first time around (ie
lots of experience), or have been working at it for a long time and you only
see the last and exiciting part. Don't be fooled into thinking you can build
something AND sell it in a few months.

------
josh2600
I think it's lovely that a startup can go from fruition to abject failure in 4
months. If you really don't believe in the product any more, that's that and
you should be happy you got out so quickly.

That being said, 4 months isn't a lot of time although it sounds like you've
spent considerable energy on this product. If the software works you might
consider unwinding this business through a sale or a partnership. If what you
need is sales, find a motivated sales person. I definitely agree with other
posters that you could use a motivated marketing person as well; you might
still be able to make a go of it.

When we were starting out we definitely fell victim to the custom request bug,
but as you grow you'll realize that no client is worth upending your whole
business.

~~~
Rakathos
Agreed, four months definitely is not enough time to be calling this a
failure.

I've explained my motivations for calling it a failure elsewhere in this
thread if you're interested. I probably should have named the post "I've lost
interest in my product" as that may have been more accurate.

As for your other point, a motivated marketer would help me immensely. I'll be
the first to admit that my marketing sucks. However, hiring another person to
help with this project is simply beyond my meager income. I make enough to
live comfortably with my girlfriend, but I can't afford too much beyond that.

Even with the issue of money aside, my core problem is that inventory
management for small businesses no longer motivates me, I find it hard to work
on the project as it is.

------
hahla
I think the problem here is that your just not good at marketing. I read your
entire post, you mentioned that you were pivoting yet you failed to capture my
attention or interests by not expanding on what the idea was. You also
concluded your post without giving me an option to signup for your emails, I
thought the post was done so I stopped reading at the thanks for reading
section, which I didn't read. Only going back I saw that there was a signup
box all the way at the bottom - if you want me to signup for your emails, make
it easy for me to do so, don't make me hunt. Good read regardless.

~~~
Rakathos
Agreed, thanks for the feedback. I'm not a great writer, and my marketing
skills definitely leave something to be desired. Nevertheless, it's something
I've been trying to improve recently.

When comparing the copywriting I have on my product's website (Rakasheets, not
Iron Conversions) it's leaps and bounds better than what it was when it first
launched. Originally, my "copywriting" was a rant against using Excel sheets
for inventory.

And personally, after re-reading this blog post I feel it was a bit jumbled
and jumped around too much. Like I said, it's something I'm trying to improve.

~~~
zhobbs
The copy on the Rakasheets site also stood out to me as a problem. As hahla
stated, your customer is likely not a hacker. The other vendors they give
their money to do not say things like, "... without the suck" or "Benefits -
lots of 'em."

The value of the inventory you're tracking could be a significant chunk of
your customer's life savings, so I'd want to convey professionalism and
trustworthiness.

Regarding copywriting in general, I've never tried it, but if you need help
you might try something like <https://draftin.com/>

------
chromaton
The piece that seems wrong to me is your CPC with Adwords. 15-35 cents per
click? It looks like Adwords is charging $3 - $6 per click for closely related
terms. Yes, this is 10x what you're used to paying, but these are the
customers who are the most likely to want exactly what you're selling.

Get a signup page in there and see what converts the best. For B2B, the sales
cycle is longer than consumer-oriented businesses, so it's best to start by
building some sort of relationship first: e-mail newsletter, free trial, etc.
rather than tracking absolute sales based on the first click.

~~~
Rakathos
You're right, the online inventory management bidding for AdWords clicks
averages far more than I spend per click. I haven't checked recently, but
$3-$6 sounds about right.

I started to bid as cheap as I could, figuring it'd be better to get 15 clicks
a day at 20 cents or whatever, instead of 2 clicks a day at $1 each.

My total AdWords budget is around $75 per month, and I spend $1.5 - $2.5 a
day. My math is probably off here, I'd need to double check.

------
joseph_cooney
I don't know anything about inventory management but the idea of a free
inventory management product is kind of interesting. What if you made it free,
how could you make money off it? Would suppliers be able to bid for ads, so
that when it came time to re-order their deals were shown preferentially? Who
would find the information about the inventory of hundreds of small businesses
commercially useful, and who would be willing to pay for that?

~~~
craigvn
That is a interesting plan, it will require a few things though. Firstly you
need a lot of clients to make it worth their while. Secondly you need the
business ability to negotiate with medium to large companies.

~~~
joseph_cooney
Agree, it isn't without issues. But if you've built the app and there are lots
of people wanting a free solution then that is two out of three (with the
third, and only, missing piece the people willing to pay...which is kind of
where he is now). Still, at scale this would give you a lot of interesting
data I'm sure you could make money off of somehow - e.g. shorting P&G because
you can see their orders are down 20% or something like that.

------
petersouth
I like your article because you show "how to fail" instead of the common "how
to win". We started a product/company (took a year to build), have a similar
situation, and are still debating closing everything completely. If we do end
up shuttering, I'll just try to sell to a competitor for a little computer
money. Anyway, I think your product sounds cool (would b good for a bookstore)
and I think your story could be ebook worthy.

~~~
tmzt
Yeah, books might be a good niche for a product like this. There is a market
for software targeting people selling through Amazon who really need just
inventory management and not customer lists and the other features mentioned
in the original article. The custom barcode scan stuff is spot on, it would be
interesting to have a Android or iPhone application that integrates
potentially in real-time with a web app (look at the Roller demo that Google
just released to see how simple integration can be) and is used as a barcode
scanner. Supporting ISBN, QR, other custom barcode formats could be a valuable
feature.

------
craigvn
If you plan on just building a product and waiting for small business owners
to float by your web site to buy it then you are wasting time. Small
businesses, at least initially until you become a well known brand, need
direct marketing. And that will mean you have to pick up the phone and start
calling. If you have a particular niche you are targeting then getting list of
those businesses should not be hard.

------
mugenx86
You seem to be a good writer and very articulate. However, therein lies your
problem. Your blog, too long. Your product page ... way to long.

My suggesting is before throwing money at marketing, get some feedback from
some local business managers on your product page. Cut it down to something
that takes 1 min to get the gist of. Put more images/icons to help explain or
highlight certain points.

~~~
Domenic_S
Looks like standard engineer writing to me. I noticed "Mobile Ready!" takes
the lead _twice_ on the product page, but I don't think mobile is a tier-1
need for inventory management.

~~~
Rakathos
By a fluke I noticed that "mobile inventory management" and variants brought
me tons and tons of clicks from AdWords for incredibly cheap.

Attempting to capitalize on that, I did my best to make the product "mobile
ready" and started flinging some of the traffic at a special mobile landing
page.

Having not converted any of that traffic, I've ascertained that they're
probably looking for a native inventory app rather than a web app.

Edit: "tons and tons" is relative to the clicks I was getting before this
discovery.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _I've ascertained that they're probably looking for_

Not to beat a dead horse, but why not talk to some potential customers about
that rather than trying to extrapolate from questionable data?

------
ericabiz
I'm just going to leave this here in the hope that @Rakathos reads it. It's
all about why "small business owners" are a _terrible_ market:
<http://www.erica.biz/2013/new-business-ideas/>

I cite some good examples of markets in there, as well, so you can see the
difference between a good market and a bad one.

------
sebastianavina
Implement the fucntionality of Gnucash around your inventory system, and
voila, you have a complete ERP. And now you can offer us something.

~~~
Rakathos
That's what nearly all of the feedback I've gotten has been. "It needs to be
like X or do Y".

I fought that for a long time but I've been forced to see that inventory
management by itself is not something that many businesses can use. They need
inventory + X.

~~~
Domenic_S
Nuanced difference between what you're saying and what the GP is saying. GP
isn't saying _inventory + $random_feature_ , he's saying make it a complete
solution.

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simonw
How many phone calls did you have with potential customers?

~~~
Rakathos
A grand total of zero. With all of my projects I've been adamant about not
doing phone marketing, phone calls, or phone anything.

I realize that that is a crippling problem, especially when my target
demographic is small business owners who seem to do everything by phone.

~~~
simonw
I hate phone calls too, but you need to get over that. You don't need to cold
call people - you can email first, set time for the call etc - but you can
learn SO MUCH more about your potential customers from actually talking to
them.

In person meetings are even better (and much more comfortable if you don't
like calls) but they don't scale as well.

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prakster
What tech stack is Rakasheets built on?

~~~
Rakathos
The entire backend of Rakasheets is built in C#/Asp.Net.

For the real-time technology I'm using SignalR, which I highly recommend. It's
like websockets for .Net and it's very simple to use.

Sidenote: While I love SignalR, "real-time inventory" has added zero value to
the product from my customer's point of view.

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helloamar
Your rite small business needs a complete package not focusing on automating
one part of their business. I developed a crm/erp for the small business,
covering from attendance, payroll, followups, lead management, production,
vendor management, accounting, competitor analysis and many more feature
that's is not avaliable in current crm/erp industry. www.bizsol.co and I'm
from India

