Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ajkjk 707 days ago
Sounds like a marketing problem. It wouldn't be weird at all to see that at every bookstore in the country. So why isn't it there? Are you focusing on making the product better forever, instead of getting it in front of people, or tuning it to what they are most eager to pay for, or tuning the website to get more sales? What beliefs are causing you to make that mistake? Are you scared of those parts, and therefore avoiding them and convincing yourself they're not important?

It sounds like you wish to be able to live off this work, yet you're not modeling the gap between where you are and where you want to be correctly (clearly, or you wouldn't be asking for help). So yes, you are being stubborn, but that doesn't mean the project is doomed. Just that you need to step back and look at the problems holistically.
1 comments
konschubert 707 days ago
Two things:

I am not sure if marketing is the bottleneck or the product itself - I have been getting inconsistent feedback on that.

On the marketing side, I’ve been trying to make the website better and i have been playing with Google and instagram ads. I don’t even dislike marketing - but I don’t think I’m very good at it. I could try to pay for this competency, but I’m scared of losing bunch of money.

link
ajkjk 707 days ago
Well, I'm no expert, but I can say what I think. First, your product looks awesome.

But I do think the landing page is a _little_ less good than it probably could be, but I'm not sure I can say exactly why. I bet there is some company out there that could take this thing from an obscure product to a Christmas staple, if they got their hands on it. Maybe there is a way that you could do it in a profit-sharing way so you're not taking a financial risk yourself. After all that is the point of venture capital also: they fund the endeavor and then own part of it.

My one suggestion would be de-emphasizing "you can do whatever you want with it" and emphasizing "here are the things that you can easily do with it". Because most people aren't gonna do any customization, or at least, will be intimidated by that. The ideal impression is that I might impulse-buy it because it's a cool desktop calendar, but then use it in other ways afterwards, and power users might get it for the customization features.

(couple other small things: that _particular_ NYT article makes kind of a weird impression. Maybe make something that doesn't involve a picture of Trump? People hate Trump and they hate seeing pictures of him also. Also, the phrase "an acquired taste" is not worth including. Black and white is stylish! someone who wants that is going to already know they like it.)

link
konschubert 705 days ago
hey, thank you for the comments. I think these are all good points.

I will try to get some help with marketing, maybe also find a distributor etc.

As you pointed out, I am especially struggling around the question of how to market the different features, and how much to market the customisation options.

And I will try to choose a more neutral article for the website photo. I didn't think about the impression it could leave.

link