[tymm]

As a solo developer (https://simplepush.io) that hates marketing as well, I often find myself trying to make use of paid ads. Probably because it is easier to spend some money than writing a good article. However it hasn't really worked for me so far. Wondering if other solo developers had some success with paid ads?

[pul]

I've done some search ads for https://www.nslookup.io in the early days, but I don't think it has done much. I don't track users, so I don't know if it got me any returning users. In any case, facebook's recent downtime [1] and a well-received blog post [2] brought in much more traffic.

[1] https://plausible.io/nslookup.io?period=custom&from=2020-12-...

[2] https://plausible.io/nslookup.io?period=custom&from=2020-12-...

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Some suggestions for your site. Explain what a push notification is. I'm a developer and I only have a vague idea of what you're talking about. Why would I want to do a push? What benefit does it have? Am I possibly already doing notifications a different way that's less efficient/less effective/slower than your method?

Right there are a bunch of blog articles you could write and share that provide free marketing for your product.

Also nothing should be priced at $4.99/year, I don't care what it is, if it's worth $4.99 a year then it's probably worth at least 20x that.

[conductr]

I'm going to pile onto this parent because I too am trying to figure out what this does. I originally think of this as allowing me to push notifications to my app's users devices (eg One Signal, Airship, etc.). As I scroll and read I find that it's likely for uniquely sending notifications to MY device.

Perhaps a vertical, but I'd go after the DIY/hobbyist/maker developer market. Arduino and such. You can write tutorials about how to get X to notify you when Y and they have very active forums. I dove deep into this during COVID lockdown and it actually felt like 90s/early-00s web as the community is great and they still mostly use wikis/forum software to help each other. There's a lot of folks hosting their own tutorial websites. Just make content teaching people of different ways to use your product and I feel like it would be discovered.

[tymm]

Thanks, I adjusted the landing page a bit. I hope it makes the goals of the app clearer.

[tymm]

Really appreciate your suggestions! Some things are just hard to see from the inside.

> Also nothing should be priced at $4.99/year, I don't care what it is, if it's worth $4.99 a year then it's probably worth at least 20x that.

Would you still increase the price if the main competitor with the biggest market share is already cheaper (one-time payment of $5)?

[inpharmer]

I'm not knowledgeable about your market or how your product works, just interested in technology and discussions here, so take this at face value. To me your product looks like a service. I'm skeptical of any service that is a one-time payment versus some type of subscription. With a subscription I'm inclined to believe there's maintenance. With a one-time payment, I'm inclined to believe that either the product isn't sustainable without growth, will become ad-supported, or will fold.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Yes, I refuse to compete on price. One of my favorite phrases (just read it in a email an hour ago, in fact) is "your price is right on the edge of my budget."

How do I know that the main competitor isn't slowly going out of business at that price? Maybe their product is total crap, maybe I can offer stellar support that's worth a higher price, maybe I can guarantee GDPR compliance, maybe I can offer uptime guarantees, maybe my product is designed to a small niche that will pay a much higher price for a product targeted exactly at them, maybe I can focus on large customers who would be suspicious that a $4.99 price is way too low, maybe, maybe, maybe. In the end, ask yourself if you really think that $4.99/year * n_Customers computes to a number that makes it worthwhile for you.

[ushakov]

ads don’t work unless you have Coca Cola budgets

why not share your project here more often and other sites like ProductHunt, IndieHackers?

[tymm]

Because I just want to finish that one feature before sharing it ;) Jokes aside, I just don't like the idea of spamming communities. I probably should do it more often though.

[dt3ft]

Because it gets downvoted to hell :)