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So my product is a selling platform, much like Gumroad.
I host online stores and landing pages for creators to sell their digital products, like ebooks, templates, and artwork. Like a Shopify but for digital goods.
I've soft-launched a couple of weeks ago, got 100 peeps on board, but actual activation is lower.
Granted, there's a whole gauntlet of actions for my user to take, it's not "instant gratification" (quite the opposite actually):
- They have to customize their home page with images (avatar and cover photo).
- They have to customize their landing page with images and descriptions/copy.
- They have to upload the files for their products.
- They have to connect their Stripe account.
- They have to promote their landing pages to their audience.
- Their audience have to purchase their products, then I get a tiny sliver of that revenue.
Suffice to say, not many have jumped through the hoops.
I have now 2 strategies to move forward:
A. Keep building new features
I've had a few "I can't switch until you build XYZ feature" feedback, but I have no idea if they're just saying it, or they really mean it.
(It's easy for a user to say "build <complex feature XYZ>," it takes them 3 seconds to say it, but it will take me 3 months to build it.)
That said, I've seen some trends/signals as to what the market wants.
Some have asked for a couponing system to sell software licenses.
Others have asked for a newsletter feature to be built into the platform.
Analytics. Team view. PayPal integration.
The feedback signals are all really scattered and weak, which doesn't give me enough confidence/conviction to go forth and build, which actually leads me to the next idea...
B. Run an AppSumo lifetime deal
It might sound premature, but there's no better way to ensure product usage than to charge upfront for it (even if I practically give the product away at this point, since I'm actually desperate for feedback).
People who pay for a product tend to value it a lot more than people who don't.
The revenue will provide me with some oxygen, but more importantly it will give me a deluge of feedback from actual paying users, from which I can then draw trends and finally formulate a product roadmap that doesn't so closely resemble guesswork.
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What do you think my next step should be?
The tools I don't really need but have a really great tutorial flow/drip email campaign explaining features really get me engaged.
This is key I think, thanks for bringing this up.
I used a drip campaign just like this for my previous product, and it works wonders.
Customization is kinda easy, I think.
Upload an avatar, we crop out a centered circle from that.
Upload a cover photo (optional).
Choose a unique store URL, store name, store description (optional).
The rest is just customizing the landing page, which includes a cover photo (optional), copy/description, images, and the actual files themselves.
There's only 1 site layout for now, so no extra mental bandwidth needed there.
No colors, no font sizes, no dark mode, etc. etc.
Ask yourself this, why would a creator put in the work to set up their pages and invest time into it vs more established competitors(ie gumroad) or what they already use?
I guess they generally wouldn't, but I'm looking for the odd ones who would, even if for smaller reasons, like a cleaner UI/UX and lower fees (we charge half of Gumroad's fees we never hold creators' money). Or even to support a fellow small creator.
And try to please these initial group of users and take it from there.
And yes, following up with my sign-ups is next on my to-do.
I guess I'm thinking of the best way to phrase it so as to elicit the brutal honest truth from people instead of pleasantries?
How do I actually go about getting people to be totally candid and honest about why they didn't want to use my product?
I know this isn't strictly speaking an entrepreneurship skill, more of a people skill, but I know if I asked, "Is there anything we could have done better" or similar, they might have said a bunch of stuff that's not the truth, when the truth could just be something like, "I just don't trust you enough at this point, I want to see more people on board first."
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Yup, I think so too.
I'm already getting a lot of feedback from my users on how to move forward and indeed differentiate from Gumroad.