First sale - 45 minutes after go live :)

[PeopleFinder]

Having worked for quite a number of years in IT and spent the last few years working as a self-employed IT Consultant on projects worth tens of millions of dollars, it all got too much in September and I decided enough was enough before it killed me.

I have always had more of an interest in SAAS and glueing the back end and data together than app design so have spent the last few months focusing on Twitter semantic analysis and building systems to identify fake Twitter accounts and bots and use Twitter to build pre-qualified marketing leads.

In summary, I finished coding on Friday, spent Saturday testing and put a pricing page on the website this Sunday afternoon. I took the dog for a walk, got home and had an order.

Now the hard work begins and for once I am looking forward to it because it is building on something which I have created and ultimately control. These two things, 'create something' and 'control' are my main take aways from MJ's brilliant book.

And the reason I am doing this? I have no interest in cars and believe less is more. My motivators are simply 'I have achieved something on my terms' and no longer having to wake up at 3:30 am on a Monday morning to travel 500 miles get back home 22:30 on Friday.

My first sale is $10.00 but it is the start.

 

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[miked_d]

Congrats!

These two things, 'create something' and 'control' are my main take aways from MJ's brilliant book.

Your service is focused on Twitter, something you cannot control. How do you plan on getting around that?

 

[Michał Kóska]

Love to see this thread well done!!

 

[PeopleFinder]

Congrats!



Your service is focused on Twitter, something you cannot control. How do you plan on getting around that?

I agree, that a dependency on Twitter appears to be contradictory. I originally built the software to work in realtime but realised that this was breaking due to Twitter's API limits. I then switched it to a batch process which tightly controls how it interacts with Twitter and does not break their API restrictions.

At the end of the day though, my value add is the ability to look at something someone is posting, match it to something someone else is posting and then follow this up with a review of the person posting to assess whether they are genuine or not.

I use Twitter because it makes this information available, I am also looking to alternative data sources so yes, I agree totally that I am dependant Twitter raw data but I believe that I have added value to it and if they did cut me off then the principle still holds with other social networks and communication channels which I could leverage. The value is in turning data into information, not necessarily in the data pipe itself.

As John Donne once said 'no man is an island'. We are all dependant on each other and owning control of your business is critical, if you don't have that control then you have nothing. But yes, at the end of the day, I am beholden to Twitter

 

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[PeopleFinder]

I agree, that a dependency on Twitter appears to be contradictory. I originally built the software to work in realtime but realised that this was breaking due to Twitter's API limits. I then switched it to a batch process which tightly controls how it interacts with Twitter and does not break their API restrictions.

At the end of the day though, my value add is the ability to look at something someone is posting, match it to something someone else is posting and then follow this up with a review of the person posting to assess whether they are genuine or not.

I use Twitter because it makes this information available, I am also looking to alternative data sources so yes, I agree totally that I am dependant Twitter raw data but I believe that I have added value to it and if they did cut me off then the principle still holds with other social networks and communication channels which I could leverage. The value is in turning data into information, not necessarily in the data pipe itself.

As John Donne once said 'no man is an island'. We are all dependant on each other and owning control of your business is critical, if you don't have that control then you have nothing. But yes, at the end of the day, I am beholden to Twitter

I think it is going to be a long night, I have just had a second order come through!

 

[katana]

@PeopleFinder good job on taking action and your first sales!

Seeing that you're getting orders so soon after launch, did you do any sort of marketing for your product?

 

[jpanarra]

Congrats! You've already passed a point many "entrepreneurs" haven't achieved, your first sale! I remember my first time it happened for me; the feeling is exhilarating for sure. Keep at it and looking forward to your updates.

 

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[ZF Lee]

I think it is going to be a long night, I have just had a second order come through!

 

[PeopleFinder]

@PeopleFinder good job on taking action and your first sales!

Seeing that you're getting orders so soon after launch, did you do any sort of marketing for your product?

Hi, good question, the short answer is that I have a marketing phobia na have spent most of the past couple of months working on the software but I spent about £5.00 on Google Adwords yesterday (Sunday) with about 20 clicks to the website resulting in the 2 purchases.

what is interesting is that I had run the same ads on Saturday for double the amount, offering a free trial, this resulted in just 3 people signing up for a free trial. I finished these off on Sunday and then thought to myself, 'what would happen if I scrapped the trial and left everything the same as it is'. This ended with the sales straight off. My assumption prior to this was that if I didn't offer a demo or trial, no one would buy anything.

 

[Scot]

Great job getting that first sale! And great ROI on your AdWords. If you haven't already read @Andy Black's Adwords master post, go read it now.

Now that you know how you've gotten that first sale, keep doing it again and again until you've figured it out.

 

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[PeopleFinder]

Great job getting that first sale! And great ROI on your AdWords. If you haven't already read @Andy Black's Adwords master post, go read it now.

Now that you know how you've gotten that first sale, keep doing it again and again until you've figured it out.

thanks for the Tip I will check it out now

best wishes


Simon

 

[Scot]

thanks for the Tip I will check it out now

best wishes


Simon

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andys-adwords-posts.52850/

Found the link