Documenting my fastlane attempt

[JayS5]

I started a thread yesterday without realising I could just document it all as posts within a single thread, so here goes.

Quick recap for context: I read fastlane last week, built a language practice app for people who want to focus on speaking and listening skills specifically - launched and working on learning to market the product.

Yesterday I had just acquired my second customer and today I've been in contact with a few more people to try and secure a third.

So far I've got a few rejections, but my aim here is to collect 100 NOs as quickly as possible.

A couple have expressed interest but have yet to sign up so waiting to see how that goes.

I'm thinking of doing things that don't scale to get my early customers, maybe approaching language schools etc.

Just had another reminder today at work about why I want to go fastlane. Here's to the mission and everyone else on the journey.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JayS5]

Continuing to speak to customers and do cold reachouts, plus social media posts on facebook in groups where my target audience hangs out.

Not getting much traction, so it could be poor copy, poor CTA, poor design, wrong target audience... etc. How do I figure this out?

What I'm going to try: Continue working on the copy, add a free trial, and work on the offer. I'm definitely missing a solid offer.

 

[JayS5]

Okay so I spent a month building the app, another month trying to get customers and it was hard to even get people to try the free version. I think that clearly indicates that my solution violates the commandment of NEED.

I could stick with it and keep working on figuring out what customers actually want, but I think the trouble here is that this is going to take too much time. My primary goal is to get out of having a job so I'm going to pivot to something where I know there is already demand - web design. How do I know this? My previous flatmate needs a site designed, so I am guaranteed one customer.

I'm a backend software engineer so I already know how to code. I just spent all of yesterday learning some CSS and building my first client site (I've historically hated frontend development because I couldn't get the hang of styling). It's nearly done and looks decent. I've also shoved myself over the mental block of learning CSS.

So here's the plan:

• Finish the site, get paid by my pal who runs a landscaping business
• I coached him for free on how to get higher paying customers and outsource to contractors, so he might return the favour by recommending me to others in his industry
• Design a site for the dance studio I go to and ask if they'd like to use it
• At this point I'll have a portfolio of three sites (Including the one I built for the language app documented above)
• Start reaching out to businesses

This is all thanks to a thread I found by Fox - thanks Fox, if you ever do read this.

I know this isn't exactly fastlane, but I need to get out of the slowlane job to buy my time back first, then I can work on something fastlane.