
Launching a product in just 3652 days - azsromej
https://medium.com/@benediktdeicke/launching-a-product-in-just-3652-days-4d4e74e2dcd5
======
steveridout
Thanks for sharing this!

I checked out your pricing plans and the way you differentiate plans based on
visitors / day jumped out at me since it goes against advice I read recently
from the UserVoice team. They used to price based on number of users who can
vote but (in their own words)...

"This was a huge failure. It created what I call a success penalty: the more
successful you were in activating your users to give you feedback the more
expensive the product became. On some level this made sense but since no one
knew how to estimate this future usage it just created uncertainty about
committing to a product without knowing the future cost of it. It was
especially problematic because we were often working with young companies who
didn’t know or were very optimistic about their future active user levels (and
equally optimistic about what % of them would engage on UserVoice and give
them feedback). It put us in the awkward position of tempering a customer’s
enthusiasm about their use of our product (aka “There’s no way you’ll have
300K people on your site in 60 days time”). When we removed the usage limits,
which were designed to drive upgrades, we actually saw that upgrades increased
33%!"

Link: [http://500.co/the-data-behind-purchasing-behavior-at-
uservoi...](http://500.co/the-data-behind-purchasing-behavior-at-uservoice-
pricing-for-conversion-part-i/)

~~~
benediktdeicke
Thanks for the feedback! I agree that the pricing isn't perfect, yet.

I'm currently segmenting by visitors/day as it seems to be the only way to
separate bands into the different plans based on their popularity and success.
It's also directly bound to the costs on my side (more traffic -> more server
resources).

I'm happy to hear suggestions on how to make sure a band making tons of money
doesn't end up on the smallest plan, as well as costs for infrastructure not
bankrupting me. :)

~~~
goblin89
> I'm happy to hear suggestions on how to make sure a band making tons of
> money doesn't end up on the smallest plan

I can’t help thinking that coarsely segregating customers into plans and
overly streamlining the sign-up process might not be the optimal choice in
your case. Why not just drive everyone to contact sales directly like, for
example, landing page for Ellington CMS does[0]?

You can still market a cheap newcomer plan with low specs, limited support and
only basic customizability, strongly implying that it’s the choice for young
poor bands. Anyone above that is probably better off working with you directly
so that you can estimate the costs and price the solution for them
individually. Your highest plan is €199/month—would you bill Metallica that
much if they come?

[0] [http://www.ellingtoncms.com/cms/](http://www.ellingtoncms.com/cms/), a
CMS originally built for small-ish newspapers, also where Django framework was
born.

~~~
benediktdeicke
That's a good idea. I'll experiment with that. Thanks!

I'd probably bill Metallica a lot more than that… ;)

------
benediktdeicke
Oh wow! My post made it on Hacker News!

Thanks so much for the nice comments. I'm glad my story inspired some of you
:)

If you have specific questions about anything or would like some more details
about any part of the story, please let me know. I'll happily answer them.

~~~
roel_v
Do you do your own design, do you work with someone or do your customers work
with a designer?

~~~
benediktdeicke
Yes :) I do some of the design on my own (like the UI), work with a designer
(the marketing website) and my customers usually work with a designer for
their website design.

~~~
raverbashing
Care to elaborate more? Does the CMS has things like /news, /bio, /photos etc
and then the designers/front-end work on top of that?

Great project btw! I am a fan of these bands as well

~~~
benediktdeicke
The websites don't have a fixed structure. As a front-end developer/designer
you're able to define templates with a set of elements (text, image, datetime,
concerts, twitter integration, collection of other templates, …). The schema
of the templates define the forms in the content management section of the
CMS.

I hope this screenshot helps to clarify things a bit
[http://drif.tt/1KfpfoI](http://drif.tt/1KfpfoI) :)

~~~
roel_v
Right, so that UI (which I presume is the admin backend), did you do the
design yourself there? I'm having a hard time getting something coherent
together for my own projects, and templates (also paid ones) only get you so
far.

~~~
benediktdeicke
Yes, that's the UI I did.

My tip to improving your design skills: Try to replicate designs you like.
Pick one and analyze every pixel (literally!) of it and try to build it
yourself. The techniques you learn in the process make it easier to come up
with a nice design of your own eventually.

It's a great exercise and helped me a lot in the past.

~~~
roel_v
Yes, I should pay more attention to things I like and clarify for myself why I
like them. I tend to only notice things when I don't like them, a great design
tends to do its magic in the background.

Did you design it from scratch, or did you use a framework that you
customized? And do you design in Photoshop first or straight away in code? I
have one project in mind right now where I basically started with bootstrap,
put all the components for the functionality in, and now it looks like such a
mess that I don't even know where to begin in cleaning it up any more.

~~~
benediktdeicke
I usually design directly in code without a CSS framework.

------
shubhamjain
The point in the article that deserves more attention is how creating a
landing page was the most useful tool for the author. Sometimes I feel, before
writing the first line of code of the project, the more important thing to do
is to create a landing page and market it to the concerned audience.

This solves three problems -

1) You won't build something people don't need.

2) You get into touch with people who actually want to use your product and
you can steer your idea into a more clear direction.

3) The leads motivate you (as it did with author).

~~~
brobinson
The "idea/market validation" landing page + $100 advertising budget is a key
concept from the "Start Small, Stay Small" book the author mentioned. It's
saved me from wasting time/money a few times so far, and I'm sure it will
continue to do so in the future!

~~~
p0larboy
Read the book and launch my own landing page:
[http://www.getcueapp.com/](http://www.getcueapp.com/). Spent around $120 on
adwords and had around 2% conversion rate.. I am not so sure about the quality
of conversion because I didn't do the double opt-in method as suggested.

~~~
brobinson
I really like the site layout! Would you mind sharing it? I'm looking for a
base layout for an app I'm close to launching at the moment, actually.

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hbhakhra
I think this is something much of the HN crowd can relate to, starting
projects and not completing. Great work on finally launching a product.
Hopefully I can get to the other side of the tunnel. My goal for this year is
to just bring in $1 from something outside my full-time job and hope that
snowballs into more motivation and a growing business.

~~~
Edmond
Try something for a niche audience, it is the easiest way to make something
that people will buy in terms of technology products. Preferably something you
could see yourself actually using.

Several years ago before chromecast et al, I wanted a way to control my
rhythmbox music player with my phone, so I built
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.ruckusdj.c...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.ruckusdj.com&hl=en)

Over the course of 2 yrs I sold over 20 copies for $5 a pop...not retirement
money but very satisfying :)

------
nstart
This is such an awesome story. I've been two features away from launching my
product from April. And that's just launching like an Alpha version of it.
Beating procrastination is never easy. Just have to motor through. I'm
determined to launch before end of the month. As a side note, I recently got
someone who promised to bug me each week on my progress. I've also arranged to
have a meetup with him once every month. Casual meetup, not a major deal. But
put those two together and the fact that I haven't completed something yet
weighs on my mind as an embarrassment. It serves as great motivation till I
learn how to kick my own ass. The fact that I'm meeting my friend today isn't
making things easier for my mind either :D

~~~
jblok
What about this as a new side project idea:

A platform that allows you to find other random people at a similar stage in
their side project and become 'buddies' and have to have a weekly catchup
about your progress. Then you're both sort of accountable to your buddy, or at
least have to report to them what you've done!

~~~
nstart
Here's a pretty hardcore version of that idea
[https://gofuckingdoit.com/](https://gofuckingdoit.com/) . Put your money up,
and if you don't make your deadline for your friend to verify it, your money
goes to your friend.

------
DodgyEggplant
I just launched my product in just 2190 days. The interesting thing is that
only a handful of key decisions, maybe 3-4 decisions, would save 80% of this
period. But this is the (now) expert hindsight. It's not easy to spot it in
real time.

~~~
devbug
What's your product? I couldn't find it via your profile.

What are (were?) those those few decisions? Are they generalizable?

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leeoniya
Having another person besides you pushing your project forward is the biggest
motivator - be it a waiting/potential client, a cofounder, website traffic,
any external factor that validates your goal. Internal motivation only gets
you so far until you start losing steam.

I think the advice to set up adwords and an intro page before a product is
ready really helps with this. My main issue with such a strategy is that you
end up having to admit that the product is still vaporware and the time to
launch may be too long. Probably worth having an early alpha ready prior to
any marketing blitz.

------
Permit
>I’d work on them for a few weeks, sometimes even months, but eventually I’d
lose motivation and never get back to it.

I think this post helps demonstrate why having a dedicated co-founder or
partner can really help ground you when working on projects like these. There
will undoubtedly be lulls where you question the project and perhaps your own
abilities. Having someone there to remind you of the original vision can
really make the difference.

------
caffeinewriter
Honestly, this article really addressed some of the roadblocks I had in
starting my own projects. Definitely going to keep this handy.

~~~
benediktdeicke
I'm happy to hear the article resonated with you :)

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marak830
Urgh. I really need more motivation to finish my current project! Always just
one or two more features from finishing, then some bug comes up that throws me
back and i get disheartened.

Worst part, i have alpha testers, and damn their patient for a new version, i
sometimes wish they would complain to make me get into that 'i gotta get this
part updated asap' mood again.

Edit:

Hmm after reading the article, i really need to redo my landing page. Get an
option there to get on a mailing list.

~~~
zodiac
What product are you making? Couldn't find it via your profile.

~~~
marak830
Huh i should update that! Its a voice command and control system with a few
extra bells and whistles that works with starcitizen.

Www.casibymarak.com

Thanks ill update my profile haha.

------
wuliwong
Although I have done pretty well at actually launching various projects (5 to
date) only one has gotten any traction (200-400 users a day). The one with
traction hasn't seen any growth and I haven't been able to figure a good path
to spur growth or generate revenue.

That being said, I still really liked this article. Even though I do launch
things, I think that there is a more subtle piece I am missing. One thought
I've had lately is that I get a lot of satisfaction out of building something
and launching it. When the idea initially pops in my head, I ride that
feverish wave of emotion throughout the development process. I think if I
could spend more time and develop some sort of process or methodology to
validate the idea I could take the next step.

I think it's that the thought of "validating the idea" seems less fun than
building it and a little murky (as far as I don't have a clear idea about how
to do it) so I just skip it and figure the shotgun approach to building
products will eventually hit. :)

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aytekin
Complete rewrites are bad. An approach we follow is to rewrite a small section
of our product and release that to our users. With React, we can separate
everything (repo, tests, architecture) from the core product but still
integrate the new version within the app. It is like replacing the parts in a
car one by one until you have a completely new car.

~~~
roel_v
If it's written with React it's at most 2 years old - sure anything is easy to
replace within such a young product.

~~~
aytekin
The product is much older. It is not written in React. We are rewriting in
React piece by piece.

------
h_o
Just a quick question about some copy on your website, you might be unaware
this is even on there but the text for your VAT stuff (pricing related) is a
little hard to understand.

    
    
        .... Additional VAT charges are added to purchases made by customers from the European Union, except for customers from the European Union, but outside of Germany, who provide a valid VAT ID. Businesses from outside the European Union are not charged with VAT.

~~~
benediktdeicke
Yeah, it is hard to understand. The regulations for VAT on SaaS products got
insanely complicated a few months ago.

Thanks for the feedback, though! I'll try to rephrase it without losing the
gist of it :)

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luxpir
Just wanted to chime in with a few words of support - have been working on my
own 'side-project' on and off for some 2000 days myself. Did pick up some 200
users along the way, but finally got the working MVP ready to go this year. A
few tweaks required still, but testing can finally get underway now.

Good luck with Stage and to everyone else good luck with your longterm
bootstrapped projects!

------
voltagex_
I have so many unfinished projects - has anyone tried blogging about their
unfinished projects list, and did it help or hinder?

The article is fantastic, thanks.

~~~
Retra
Starting a blog is on my unfinished projects list...

~~~
voltagex_
For me, it was a way to start proper task journals. "Proper" in this case
meant an ongoing brain-dump document in Sublime containing everything from the
output of `history` to code fragments and todo lists.
[http://blog.voltagex.org/2015/08/01/booting-the-
nexus-4-from...](http://blog.voltagex.org/2015/08/01/booting-the-nexus-4-from-
scratch/) was once a random collection of fragments.

------
medikoo
Product makes great impression. Still I have a slight problem with pricing
scheme. If for a band 5GB is not enough, and needs e.g. 10GB instead, it needs
to put out 120€ per month more. That sounds hostile.

It would be probably better if pricing scheme is more modular, and pure
hosting capacity aspects are priced reasonably.

Additionally option of yearly licenses with hosting on side of a client would
be a big plus

~~~
benediktdeicke
Thank a lot for your feedback on this!

Based on my past experience the storage limits are well over the actual needs.
It usually only grows when bands have a lot of photos on their website. At the
moment I'm implying that a band with a lot of photos has been around for quite
some time and is probably also somewhat successful by then, so they'd have to
choose a larger plan anyways (because of increased traffic).

Yearly plans is definitely a thing I'm going to add in the future. :)

~~~
zhte415
It might be worth outlining a bottom-line for yourself, from which to value-
add.

Start with your value added.

For the extra:

For example, 40GB monthly bandwidth on DigitalOcean currently costs YY,
therefore my cost is bandwith cost is XX depending on how much extra (new
resources to spin, and people to admin this) is used.

Don't pick a number from the air. Have some bottom line to, first, make sure
you're in the black, and second, can re-buff pricing challenges.

------
yuanchuan
Can totally relate to this. I have written, scrapped, re-written the code a
few times for the past 4 years (1461 days). I am almost there!

Great advice and now I need to get things started again.

------
tersiag
Thanks for posting your story its made my day :) I'm studying in Joensuu,
Finland. About 70km from Kitee where Nightwish originated.

------
utuxia
actually, i only read 2 paragraphs but i liked it...took you 10 years to
realize your niche app. love that. i have so many unfinished
projects....recently i just started making a list and adding to that instead.

