| Yeah baby, now we are talking! Ok, so you've already got version 1 of your product in Excel. So, my first question is: have you shared that with any of your audience? Why do you want to make it a web app? Why don't you just sell the Excel workbook itself. Make no mistake - it's a big readymade market. See this for inspiration - http://startupdesi.com/100000-startup-revenue-in-12months/. It might at least be a good starting point to get hold of your customer base. Presumably, you can create a much more useful version if it's a webapp. So then, the question is how do you market it to your customers? It's great that you yourself are a user of the app. You exactly understand the pain points of your users. Now, where do these people go to practice their shooting (or whatever the technical lingo is)? Are there clubs? Are you a member of any of them? Can you make a presentation in any of those places? Are there relevant magazines? Newsletters? Have a look at Tim Ferriss' 4-hour work week for ideas on advertising in the right places. |
My first attempt at getting a solid user base was going to be through word of mouth (seemingly, one of the best marketing practices in this niche) and getting the word out on my home forum. They have a built in audience of 20,000 or so, and I interact with a lot of them regularly, so I'm figuring I can easily jumpstart membership, assuming my product is easy enough to use.
There are also a few advertising venues I can use. There are magazines, but this is being built out of pocket and I don't have a large marketing budget. Matter of fact, I have no budget. My budget is: spend as little money as possible. This has been more of an exercise in flexing my coding skills primarily, so making money takes a back seat. I'm hoping I produce a better product that way.
People go to public and private ranges alike, and every chance I get I talk to other shooters about my project. Everyone seems enthusiastic (with the caveat of a little fear.. apparently this crowd is a little afraid of the word "tracking," no joke. I will have to consider that sometime soon).
I just joined a private range in Philly and when I get closer to completion I'm going to start pimping it out there, if they let me.
I will read that article you linked me to when I get some time today, I barely have enough to keep checking this page.
My biggest hurdle is getting these users to adapt to change. I also have to deal with the technical hurdle of making my site work in deprecated versions of browsers. It's going to be a fun challenge, no doubt.