Ask HN: I have a product that makes tens of $ a month. What should I do?

[smcavinney1]

I built a CRM for Petsitters after my sister complained about how her $99 per month solution was bought by a competitor and decommissioned. I didn't know much about programming but knew enough to know she was paying too much. So I learned (more) about RoR, and built a product for $10 per month. I launched it with my brother-in-law handling marketing and me handling new features.

Since the launch we've had at most 8 monthly active clients. After many months of no growth, we stopped marketing, and I stopped building new features.

We just had a bug pop up where the free heroku postgres maxed out and our users couldn't add new clients. I removed all of our churned clients, but the question remains, after 10 months of not working on this at all, what should I do with it?

[saluki]

Congratulations on executing, launching and getting customers.

I expect you have a list of emails of previous signups(in a backup of your db), send out a personal email to each one thanking them for giving you guys a try, what did you like/not like about the app. What feature could we add or change that would get you to sign up again. Get some feedback and see if there is a killer feature you're missing that would gain/keep customers.

Try sending emails to pet sitters inviting them to join.

Is there a feature you could add that would benefit the pet owner, maybe a live chat, photo uploads, live updates on a status page that the pet sitter could add to and the owner could check periodically. Maybe drop brochures at vet offices and try to get pet owners to require their sitter uses your app.

You're probably charging too little . . . although Petsitters might have a lower comfort zone that most b2b apps but your sister was paying $99 so maybe $49 is a better price point.

I would second going with digital ocean. $5 to $10/mo plan would probably work easily for 8 total users.

Definitely think about it as a learning experience. Learn more about marketing, A/B testing, user engagement.

Track how often users are logging in, track users that visit the cancellation page and don't cancel (follow up with users who aren't engaged or thinking about canceling send them a personal email and offer a tutorial/on-boarding session so they are getting value out of your app.

Email each user that cancels and try to get some feedback on why they left, ways you can improve.

Listen to Startupsfortherestofus, lots of good info there.

Patio11 also has lots of great gems in his articles, HN posts and podcasts.

Good luck.

[smcavinney1]

Thanks for the thoughtful response and resources. I've done some of these, like emails, and started/stopped others. I'll look into the podcast, I can never listen to enough :)

[bb01100100]

Fire your brother in law - your business has failed to grow and that failure rests with the person responsible for driving growth through marketing.

Also, consider marketing your product at > $10/month. If a previous (inferior?) product was $99/month, then match that price and market the features your product has, otherwise you marginalise what you've created. Being cheaper is a play that works at scale, but shouldn't necessarily be the reason people choose you.

Does your sister think your offering is awesome, or could you do something to delight her and market this feature/capability as widely as possible?

I could have sworn that you posted a while back here on HN, talking about your start-up.. there can't be that many people who start pet-sitting CRMs... do let us know how you go :)

[smcavinney1]

Ha, yes I think I posted when I was highlited on Nitrous's blog. I'll update if it takes off, or gets shuttered, freeing up some AWS juice for all of you.

http://blog.nitrous.io/2013/10/15/built-on-nitrous-io-pet-si...

[rabidonrails]

If you can sell it to a couple of people, then you should be able to sell it to more. I would take a two pronged approach going forward.

First, focus on explaining the value add of your CRM on your site. The video on the site doesn't really talk about what you do but that people should be using you because you don't offer lots of bells and whistles.

It seems like there are three big value adds: simple scheduling rapid invoice *smart pricing

But, these aren't listed on your landing page. They are listed on your Tour page, but only once you click past the Responsive Design tab (how many pet sitters know or even care about responsive design?). Make it absolutely clear what you offer. (I like your "Get Organized and Efficient" line, as that is really what you're helping the sitter do.)

Second, have your brother-in-law get out and sell. I'm not sure where pet sitters congregate, but maybe just standing in front of a pet store asking people about their pet sitters might net you a couple of leads. If it does, figure out what it takes to close those sales. Then, use those people as testimonials, run a case study and sell off of those numbers.

You might also have some of the pet sitting tutorial-type people on youtube review your software.

Just some thoughts.

[trcollinson]

A number of folks have given you advise on what to do to keep the business going. But I would suggest sending out an email to your current customers, giving them a shut down date, and then shutting it down. It might sound harsh, but here's why:

You have learned a lot! You made a product, you launched it, you made a little money. That is a fantastic education. But remember not every "business" actually takes off and becomes a business. I have started and given up on a number of great ideas. It's ok to move on to the next idea.

In fact, sometimes it's best to move to the next idea right now. You are in a lull on this idea. It's not working out. It's not sustainable. It will take a significant amount of time to make it sustainable and honestly, will it make you happy? Do you love it? Are you passionate about it? If you are waffling on these at all, then move on and make something great.

I am reminded of a rather well known Angel investor that often tells a story of when she was young having an idea for a particular business. She worked on it night and day for 2 years and didn't make a dime. She was so disappointed as she had to take a part time job selling apartments in New York to make ends meet. Then she realized that this was her real business and passion. She killed off the first business, and made a killing in the second one.

[jtfairbank]

Wouldn't hurt to just leave it as is, in maintenance mode. Especially since he built it for his sister.

Or implement a 'pay for features' model where its kind of like contracting work- anyone can request a feature and they are publicly displayed and sponsored, once the set value is reached then he implements it.

[trcollinson]

Certainly, that is an option. Both of those are. And of course with a sister who uses it you might want to keep it going somehow for her.

However, let's look at it like an investor. (I tend to think all entrepreneurs should stand back and look at their own business as an investor would). Is this a business? No not even close. This is a hobby. Would giving it $100,000 make it a business? Not without a substantial amount of work. Would the risk and reward play out correctly? No, the market is too small and there is no play there. Does the founder seem like he has learned something and would do well in another business? Yes! Absolutely.

[yarrowy]

Migrate to DigitalOcean, you can probably keep the site on the $5 month plan.

[smcavinney1]

I've thought about that. To keep on heroku free, I removed churned clients data. I'll keep that in mind, thank you.

[LeoSolaris]

Find a home for it that keeps the lights on for $80 a month or less, and with any extra, purchase some Google AdWords or Facebook ads. Let it roll on its own for a couple of years till either all of the users are off, or it makes more money. Use it as a learning platform in web design and back end coding. It will look great on a resume if it is still active.

[ffumarola]

Do you have a link to share for some feedback?

[smcavinney1]

App is petsitterspal.com

[hesomp]

Have you considered selling the product?

[smcavinney1]

I have, but not seriously.