

How I Went From An Idea To Paying Customers In 3 Days - hboon
https://planscope.io/blog/idea-to-customers-in-3-days/

======
Udo
While I was reading this, especially in the beginning and again towards the
end, I kept getting this feeling of this is a "long-winded sale of nothing at
all".

You know those websites, where this wonderfully crafted copy leads you on and
on and on about selling you something special and magical without ever really
revealing what it is. Typically, at the end of the _nothing-sale_ will be a
heavily-priced video or ebook that supposedly contains a very deep insight
which is so precious that its actual properties can't even be hinted at before
giving the author some money right now.

This article does the same thing, but on a meta level. What we get to
experience here is not the nothing-sale itself, but the marketing of the
capability to make that sale. It does contain just enough hints and bits to
keep you reading, just enough truisms to have you nodding along every once in
a while, but at the end very little is actually being reported.

I actually admire this, but know that I can't (or maybe don't want to)
replicate it on my own. I do admit that features and specifics matter a great
deal to me, both when I sell something and when I consume. It's not difficult
to recognize that I do have these unrealistic expectations over the need for
substance which result in me being a terrible sales person.

So, hat off to people who get to make tons of cash off of this ability, more
power to them and all. But in a very real sense they do exist right at the
edge between online scam and shopping channel. "Sell as close to nothing as
you can get away with" is indeed an interesting optimization problem, and
probably an act of performance art.

~~~
bdunn
OP here.

So, I'm not selling anything in this post. There is a CTA for my newsletter,
but that's it.

In this post I...

* Talk about how I identified a "cash flow" (customers of X, in my case - Infusionsoft.)

* Ran a simple ad campaign that was meant to help me find other customers of Infusionsoft.

* This ad campaign drove people to an email course that covered why it's a good idea to show variable content to someone depending on where they are in your company's sales funnel.

* I talked with each new subscriber to make sure that I didn't waste my time writing something that was only my problem.

* Went on to create a very simple product that solved a very specific pain point, and how I then delivered this new product to the people I was talking to.

Not sure what's scammy / whatever about that. I've seen a lot of people —
especially engineer types — who dive head first into building some massive
SaaS only to get demoralized along the way and give up because it doesn't end
up becoming some huge success right away.

My goal was to try to make a case for building a very simple product for a
very specific pain point, get customers who have this pain and want it solved
as quickly as possible, and then (possibly) add complexity and scope from
there.

~~~
Udo
Hey. I'd like to re-iterate that I think you're doing a great job, something
which I and many others don't have the skills or the talent for. But yeah, it
sure looks like you _are_ selling something. Not in the "act now, buy this"
sense, but still.

Please understand that I'm not putting you down, on the contrary.

With all the specifics you provided, this is still a very non-specific
article. It's a beautifully written description of a technique that provides a
lot of detail and yet gives very little away that could actually be used to
learn something off you. And again, that's perfectly OK.

I absolutely agree with you about engineer types, and I'll be the first to
admit I'm a prime example of that group. In between those two extremes, there
is a spectrum of course.

 _> My goal was to try to make a case for building a very simple product for a
very specific pain point, get customers who have this pain and want it solved
as quickly as possible, and then (possibly) add complexity and scope from
there._

I'm not sure I agree about the pain point being the most important thing in
that strategy, but that may be because after reading the article I still lack
the information to judge what it actually is you solved.

    
    
      I ended up building a WordPress plugin, but what I built and how I built it is 
      immaterial here.

~~~
andyakb
What other specifics could he have included? He showed his methodology in
finding a problem, the way he found customers [including the copy in his ad],
how he structured a email course, and the final product. The only other thing
he could have included would have been the copy he used in the email course.

This blog lays out a very clear framework you can operate within, so I dont
really understand where you are coming from.

------
xhrpost
I think the key takeaways from this article are: 1.) Advertise knowledge but
give away for free 2.) Use knowledge (e.g. 5 day course) absorbers (users) to
create an e-mail list. 3.) Create and sell product that addresses a pain point
relevant to the people signing up for the knowledge.

~~~
ixmatus
This is a case of "priming" the consumer, in some cases you don't need to
prime them but those low-hanging fruit are rarely not served already and it's
usually juicier and only slightly more time consuming to drive your nail in
that "middle somewhere" spot that some businesses get lazy about addressing.

So, for myself as a generalization, I'm writing it down as prime your target
with something accessible (free knowledge, free feature-set, etc...) and
engage them early in the funnel so you can iterate the lead-gen and the
resulting product early.

------
xhrpost
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fplanscope.io%2Fblog%2Fidea-
to-customers-in-3-days%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fplanscope.io%2Fblog%2Fidea-
to-customers-
in-3-days%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1656j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8)
For me it sits there, hit Stop in the browser and it will load in though.

------
ryanburk
before building an idea | feature | company | etc, if you go through and make
sure you can answer "what problem are you trying to solve?" you are much more
likely on your way to success. everyone who is a builder should be asking this
question frequently and I'm amazed how few people actually do. this was a
great example of solving a real problem.

~~~
nly
Solving 'real problems' is hard. Some categories 'real problems' often fall in
to:

1\. Problems too trivial to expend energy and time solving once and for all.
(It's easier to pay the small cost each time you encounter the problem). Not
marketable.

2\. Problems you can solve, but everyone else already have partial or 'good
enough' solutions for. Competitive, no innovation.

3\. Problems you think you can solve, but you really can't. Doomed.

4\. Problems you know you can't solve on your own, or with the resources
available to you. Expensive.

5\. Problems outside of your area of expertise.

6\. Problems you have, but really aren't problems to anyone else.

------
pearjuice
Comment section, 4 months ago:

" _If anything tells me HN has gone down the pan, it 's that this post didn't
take off there. This is gold!_"

