I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm getting better at it - progress thread

[buscus.stan]

Yet another progress thread... this one is @Andy Black 's "fault"

Hey everyone, my name is Cristi, I'm a coder for hire, selling my time as a contractor/freelancer an entrepreneur.

I did an intro nearly two years ago so I won't repeat all of that. Not much has changed since then, only that this time I'm not giving TFL a try, I'm putting all my effort towards it.

I'm writing this more as a way to keep myself accountable. My wife always says that writing is healing. This is going to be like journaling on steroids, but I hope it will help someone. If one person finds value here, it will all be worth it. Most likely it will be less about execution and more about mindset, fighting the demons inside.

I finished a contract about a month ago and every time I finish one, I promise myself this time I will do my own product, I will start a business that can decouple my income from my time. Don't get me wrong, I am well paid, I have flexibility in when I work, how much I work, where I work and so on. But it's a trap! The truth is that when I close my laptop, my income stops. And even though I love coding, I love solving problems and such, I don't see myself working in my seventies. Plus, I have a young family and, from the little time I spend with them, they seem like nice people and I'd like to spend more time with them. The great financial crisis of 2008 and the one we're going through now, clearly show that saving and investing in funds, bonds, stocks, (even) crypto will not make me rich (without insane risks). Not only it will not make me rich quick, it will not make me rich at all.

I'm in the idea stage. Actually, sort of pre-idea stage. That stage where I'm trying to motivate myself to do things differently. I'm trying to learn new things, but the truth is I'm still kind of action faking. I lie to myself that I'm still searching for *the idea*, but I know that I just need to start already on any of the ideas I have. I lie to myself that I'm moving towards an UNSCRIPTED ™ existence, by reading and learning, but I know that I will really learn when I do something. I mean, that's how I learned to code. I didn't learn to code by reading documentation books, I learned by spending 12-14-16 hours a day writing code, by breathing & eating code, by surrounding myself with coders. That's how I learned everything I know.

So if I know what I have to do and I've successfully done it in the past, why the F*ck is it so hard?

 

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[KiwiEC]

Welcome back Cristi, nice mindset here.

I look forward to follow your journey.

 

[buscus.stan]

Progress Report​

It's been a while since I updated this thread. Not for the lack of progress, more for the lack of time and energy. Shortly after the post above, I got covid (for the first time) and it was unexpected. It knocked my over and I was in and out of it for about 10 days. And it took me about 3 months more to get my energy levels up. Weird disease..

This is what I've done this past months:

I wrote down all the business ideas I had myself. Then all I heard from other people that I thought could be interesting. Then all I read on the internet and thought I could do.

Then I started analyzing them. First thing was to apply the CENTS framework. That helped narrow down the list. Then I start trying to actually do a model of the product. What it would solve, how it would solve it, how can I build it, is there (fierce) competition, how are others doing it, how can I make money from it and so on. That narrowed the list even more, but I still needed to drill down more

So I started talking with people about my product ideas. This step was the winner. First because it narrowed my list even more. And second because it got me in contact with people (not necessarily potential clients). And I discovered an acquaintance that shares my entrepreneurial dreams.

I had a few more discussions with this guy and we ended up partnering. So we pooled together all our ideas and started from the top But not only that, but our wives are good friends and want to participate. Each 4 of us comes with a different skill set and each of us is eager to learn. Now I was "in business"!

After a few more talks we ended up with 2-3 products that we want to work on in the near future. But we decided upon one which we started executing it. The product is automating a legal service. It's a niche product, only applicable to the local market, but it looks to have enough scale to bring in good revenue. The marketing should also be pretty easy, but there is still enough opportunity to learn copywriting and advertising (which I lack completely).

The current status is:

The minimum viable product (MVP) is about 66% done and I'm planning to have it ready by the end of the month. I'm the dev of the team, so this is in my court.

My partner is working on incorporating a company, talking to potential clients and unlocking the marketing channels.

We're constantly discussing the next steps + deciding on a second product to build while we experiment with the first one.

PS: for the past months, I've been struggling to make a choice between going all in on TFL or taking a safer approach. Finally I've decided to take the safe road. That is, keep one contract of about 60-80h/month. This would allow me to still bring in some money while working on my business. In practice it will allow me to extend my runway and give me more chances to roll the dice. And the work style will be: work on my stuff when I'm the most productive

PPS: phew, a long post, I will try to post more often, maybe about once a month. It's therapeutic

 

[WJK]

It's been a while since I updated this thread. Not for the lack of progress, more for the lack of time and energy. Shortly after the post above, I got covid (for the first time) and it was unexpected. It knocked my over and I was in and out of it for about 10 days. And it took me about 3 months more to get my energy levels up. Weird disease..

This is what I've done this past months:

I wrote down all the business ideas I had myself. Then all I heard from other people that I thought could be interesting. Then all I read on the internet and thought I could do.

Then I started analyzing them. First thing was to apply the CENTS framework. That helped narrow down the list. Then I start trying to actually do a model of the product. What it would solve, how it would solve it, how can I build it, is there (fierce) competition, how are others doing it, how can I make money from it and so on. That narrowed the list even more, but I still needed to drill down more

So I started talking with people about my product ideas. This step was the winner. First because it narrowed my list even more. And second because it got me in contact with people (not necessarily potential clients). And I discovered an acquaintance that shares my entrepreneurial dreams.

I had a few more discussions with this guy and we ended up partnering. So we pooled together all our ideas and started from the top But not only that, but our wives are good friends and want to participate. Each 4 of us comes with a different skill set and each of us is eager to learn. Now I was "in business"!

After a few more talks we ended up with 2-3 products that we want to work on in the near future. But we decided upon one which we started executing it. The product is automating a legal service. It's a niche product, only applicable to the local market, but it looks to have enough scale to bring in good revenue. The marketing should also be pretty easy, but there is still enough opportunity to learn copywriting and advertising (which I lack completely).

The current status is:

The minimum viable product (MVP) is about 66% done and I'm planning to have it ready by the end of the month. I'm the dev of the team, so this is in my court.

My partner is working on incorporating a company, talking to potential clients and unlocking the marketing channels.

We're constantly discussing the next steps + deciding on a second product to build while we experiment with the first one.

PS: for the past months, I've been struggling to make a choice between going all in on TFL or taking a safer approach. Finally I've decided to take the safe road. That is, keep one contract of about 60-80h/month. This would allow me to still bring in some money while working on my business. In practice it will allow me to extend my runway and give me more chances to roll the dice. And the work style will be: work on my stuff when I'm the most productive

PPS: phew, a long post, I will try to post more often, maybe about once a month. It's therapeutic

Good choice to take the safe route. Broke people who can't pay their bills aren't productive or clear-thinking.

 

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[buscus.stan]

my financial situation right now is that if I make $0, I have enough savings to last about 1.5 years (considering no extraordinary expenses). But if I do a part-time contract, I can easily extend that to 3-4 years, which means a lot more swings. Plus, I already have the clients to choose from and the plan is to, whenever possible, choose the work that uses the least of my mental energy

 

[WJK]

my financial situation right now is that if I make $0, I have enough savings to last about 1.5 years (considering no extraordinary expenses). But if I do a part-time contract, I can easily extend that to 3-4 years, which means a lot more swings. Plus, I already have the clients to choose from and the plan is to, whenever possible, choose the work that uses the least of my mental energy

You have a good solid plan. Your chances of being successful are multiplied. Hopefully, you can pick clients and jobs that will actually help you in your side business without directly competing with them. The leading reason for early business failure is to run out of operating capital. That includes the living expenses of the owner.

 

[buscus.stan]

@WJK thank you for your kind words and for your time reading my post. I'm pretty confident with the plan. That's what I was thinking, the more I can hold on to the capital I have, the longer I can take swings.

I've been part of devs teams for startups plenty of times and I did learn a lot of what to do, but also what to avoid. One thing I saw over and over again is quickly burning through their capital. They get a bit a initial capital and they start spending it on things that are absolutely not critical. And soon they burn through the money and have nothing to show. I want to run as lean a business as I can, spend as little money as possible until it makes some revenue that I can reinvest. One reason is to extend my runway, but the other is to be able learn myself everything that is to learn about bootstrapping a product, launching it, running it and all the good stuff

 

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[Cybom]

Hey @buscus.stan
All the best with your journey!
It may not be the case for everyone but I also believe you can focus better on your thing (business or any project) if you don't have to worry too much about the money for your basic needs. It looks like you have a good plan in place!

 

[WJK]

@WJK thank you for your kind words and for your time reading my post. I'm pretty confident with the plan. That's what I was thinking, the more I can hold on to the capital I have, the longer I can take swings.

I've been part of devs teams for startups plenty of times and I did learn a lot of what to do, but also what to avoid. One thing I saw over and over again is quickly burning through their capital. They get a bit a initial capital and they start spending it on things that are absolutely not critical. And soon they burn through the money and have nothing to show. I want to run as lean a business as I can, spend as little money as possible until it makes some revenue that I can reinvest. One reason is to extend my runway, but the other is to be able learn myself everything that is to learn about bootstrapping a product, launching it, running it and all the good stuff

I've seen these fools too blow through their money on silly stuff. Used equipment and cheap deals on materials are my specialty.

I average 20 cents on a dollar for used equipment vs. new. I love to buy that equipment from the guys who spent their startup money on something new that they couldn't afford. We just bought a huge 3-phase generator for $3,500. and it had almost no hours of use on it. If it was new, it would have cost $20,000.00. My pickup truck that I’m driving was purchased from an impound yard for a fraction of its Blue Book.

Since you have worked for a bunch of startups, you should have the contacts do a lot of the same kind of stuff. You should be able to make some good buys on equipment. Also, you should be able to create some "trade" relationships with some of your contacts. That would really help your cash reserves. I have everyone in our organization out looking for stuff and situations that we need. We do trades for goods, materials, equipment, labor, and other things that we need.

 

[buscus.stan]

Hey @buscus.stan
All the best with your journey!
It may not be the case for everyone but I also believe you can focus better on your thing (business or any project) if you don't have to worry too much about the money for your basic needs. It looks like you have a good plan in place!

hey @Cybom, thank you and all the best to you too!

I agree with you. My "struggle" was with the idea of having to split my attention between my business and contracting when I could potentially focus all my energy on my thing albeit at a higher risk and with less room for failure.

Over the years I always had to split my attention on multiple projects. For a few years I managed a web agency and there were times when I had 4 or 5 clients at the same time, managing 2-3 teams of engineers. The problem is that there is a price to pay for context switching. And as I get older, the price gets higher. But as I get older I got better at it, I have better systems in place and this time I will aim for only 2 areas of focus.

 

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[buscus.stan]

I've seen these fools too blow through their money on silly stuff. Used equipment and cheap deals on materials are my specialty.

I average 20 cents on a dollar for used equipment vs. new. I love to buy that equipment from the guys who spent their startup money on something new that they couldn't afford. We just bought a huge 3-phase generator for $3,500. and it had almost no hours of use on it. If it was new, it would have cost $20,000.00. My pickup truck that I’m driving was purchased from an impound yard for a fraction of its Blue Book.

Since you have worked for a bunch of startups, you should have the contacts do a lot of the same kind of stuff. You should be able to make some good buys on equipment. Also, you should be able to create some "trade" relationships with some of your contacts. That would really help your cash reserves. I have everyone in our organization out looking for stuff and situations that we need. We do trades for goods, materials, equipment, labor, and other things that we need.

thank you for the advice, very well said and it makes total sense to me

One of the first things I discussed with my partner and I want to discuss it again even more clearly before we sign any papers is that we take a lean approach. We're going to fund the venture ourselves so we have to do as much as we can ourselves. What we don't know we learn. I think it's crucial we are on the same page on this.

I love your approach and use it a lot as well. For the products I want to try first, there won't be much equipment to buy, they're digital and besides a couple of laptops and maybe like a printer and such there won't be much else to buy. But I'm definitely looking for bargains and don't want to spend any more than it's needed. Plus I want to learn copywriting and advertising and everything that is to learn about running a business. If any of the ideas picks up I know I will have to hire and delegate, but I want to know what I'm delegating. I know I will not be a top 1% advertiser, but I can be top 20% and that should be enough

Regarding the contacts I made in the startup world, I can't make that many "trade" relationships. I contracted for all of them remote. But I did keep in touch with most of the people I met along the way so I can do some "labor" deals, where I could put in some software development hours in exchange for someone helping on other sides of my business.

 

[buscus.stan]

I like reading, I always did. My favorite genres are history, sci-fi and fantasy and I prefer the convenience of reading on a kindle. Over the past few years I started reading a lot of business books. And I used the same approach of reading on the kindle, doing some highlights here and there, maybe taking some notes. But most of the time I was just reading as a hobby, not reading to understand. If 2 weeks after I finish a book I can barely remember anything, it was mostly a waste of time and energy.

I've experimented with a different system lately that works pretty well for me. First thing was to realize that business books have a different purpose than sci-fi ones. Sci-fi is entertainment, business books are for learning. Second, I understood that the important part is not how quick or how much I read, but how much I retain. Third, there is no way I can remember everything I read without some support.

I'm in the Apple ecosystem, so I'm using Apple apps, but this can be done regardless of the devices you use. I'm using the Apple Books and Apple Notes apps. The Books app can open files in the .epub format (among other formats). I import the .epub files in the Books app and they get synchronized on all my devices (progress and all).
Then:
1. I have a daily reading goal (in time not number of pages): every day I will read for 30 minutes. Some days I only read 3 pages, others, I read 20
2. I read on the laptop/tablet/phone. As I read I highlight sections I want to remember, right click/tap and save to Apple Notes + add my own thoughts when I have any Apple Notes then get synced everywhere so I have access to the notes on all devices
3. profit!

This system allows me to go back and quickly "re-read" a book by simply checking my notes. I also found that when I add my own thoughts to the highlights, it helps me better understand and retain the ideas. And I can share the notes with someone else.

This might have been obvious to many people, but it took me some time to realize I'm not gaining much by reading business books before sleep. If you good people have a better system or other ideas, please do share

 

[buscus.stan]

Progress Report (second half of August 2023)​

* the first product is 99% done. I was hoping to be completed by the end of the September, but I took a bit too much on polishing the user experience. From what is left, half is functionality and half is actually getting it live.
* the marketing channels for this product are rather limited, the first one we will to try is a billboard. But there is no space yet on the billboard we need to advertise on
* the fiscal entity is almost ready to be registered. My partner and I are still discussing vesting schedule and other such things before submitting the papers. We need to get this done next week so that we can open a bank account, get a card and sign up to services (hosting, emailing and so on)

Next Steps (goals for September)​

* register the fiscal entity
* go live / launch beta and invite some friends and potential clients to beta test and give us some feedback and hopefully some testimonials
* start the marketing campaign(s)
* have 1 sale
* make a decision on the second product to build

Lessons learned​

* I spent too much time on the web application. I'm used to deliver top notch code and experience to my paying clients. But this is a prototype, we have no idea if it's going to work or not and I should have applied the 80/20 rule and just make it good enough. Then put the time on other things and iterate on the webapp when needed and when feedback starts coming in

Random thought​

* I have full-stack website development experience with a Ruby on Rails backend and various javascript frontend libraries. Would anyone be interested in a thread with steps on how to build a product from scratch? It would be technical, but I'm guessing even people that don't plan to code themselves might get something out of it. I'm thinking it could be like a progress thread that would follow the second product that I plan on building

 

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[uhhfeef]

Progress Report (second half of August 2023)​

* the first product is 99% done. I was hoping to be completed by the end of the September, but I took a bit too much on polishing the user experience. From what is left, half is functionality and half is actually getting it live.
* the marketing channels for this product are rather limited, the first one we will to try is a billboard. But there is no space yet on the billboard we need to advertise on
* the fiscal entity is almost ready to be registered. My partner and I are still discussing vesting schedule and other such things before submitting the papers. We need to get this done next week so that we can open a bank account, get a card and sign up to services (hosting, emailing and so on)

Next Steps (goals for September)​

* register the fiscal entity
* go live / launch beta and invite some friends and potential clients to beta test and give us some feedback and hopefully some testimonials
* start the marketing campaign(s)
* have 1 sale
* make a decision on the second product to build

Lessons learned​

* I spent too much time on the web application. I'm used to deliver top notch code and experience to my paying clients. But this is a prototype, we have no idea if it's going to work or not and I should have applied the 80/20 rule and just make it good enough. Then put the time on other things and iterate on the webapp when needed and when feedback starts coming in

Random thought​

* I have full-stack website development experience with a Ruby on Rails backend and various javascript frontend libraries. Would anyone be interested in a thread with steps on how to build a product from scratch? It would be technical, but I'm guessing even people that don't plan to code themselves might get something out of it. I'm thinking it could be like a progress thread that would follow the second product that I plan on building

Awesome stuff man!! Best of luck with the launch.

I would say launch it asap. Most people don't care about the first prototype and aren't even expecting you to have a completely polished product. I've been asked to work on my UI now, so I just started but otherwise I've been focused on finding if what I create provides value.

Also, how are you going to get leads for it?

 

[buscus.stan]

Awesome stuff man!! Best of luck with the launch.

Thank you for reading my thread. Much appreciated!

I would say launch it asap. Most people don't care about the first prototype and aren't even expecting you to have a completely polished product. I've been asked to work on my UI now, so I just started but otherwise I've been focused on finding if what I create provides value.

This is solid advice and I'm taking it to heart. Thank you! When I said I spent a little more than I planned, I still cut a lot of corners, but I maybe could have saved about 30-40 hours of development. The last things are necessary for functionality, but they're small. And then the actual deployment, DNS, AWS, email provider, hosting application and so on, probably about 4-6 hours worth of work. Definitely in the first half of September it will be live.

When you say you've been asked to work on the UI, you mean your clients gave you feedback? Or how did you end up deciding the UI/UX needs polishing? (sorry, I haven't ready your progress thread yet)

Also, how are you going to get leads for it?

what the service does, is automating a legal process. Every legal provider in my area has to go to the capital and deposit papers to be archived. The service we're offering is to have them upload the documents, we'll print them and deliver the papers for them, so saving time them and money. Because it's for such a narrow profession, most likely the classic online marketing channels would not work. Nobody is searching on google for this type of service.
So we're going to start with three channels:
1. we'll buy ad space on a billboard that is right at the entrance to the archives building
2. buy ad space in a newsletter that gets sent by the lawyers' association
3. cold emailing/calling and direct mail

I have a couple more ideas, but I don't have much experience in marketing, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. In fact, I plan on writing a post when we launch and ask for suggestions and improvements.

 

[uhhfeef]

When you say you've been asked to work on the UI, you mean your clients gave you feedback? Or how did you end up deciding the UI/UX needs polishing? (sorry, I haven't ready your progress thread yet)

My users told me.

When i say MVP i really mean it lol. I barely put all the functionalities together, i wanted to know if it was a good product. I've had experience building stuff before and being absolutely crushed by venture funded startups so speed was also one of the goals.

what the service does, is automating a legal process. Every legal provider in my area has to go to the capital and deposit papers to be archived. The service we're offering is to have them upload the documents, we'll print them and deliver the papers for them, so saving time them and money. Because it's for such a narrow profession, most likely the classic online marketing channels would not work. Nobody is searching on google for this type of service.
So we're going to start with three channels:
1. we'll buy ad space on a billboard that is right at the entrance to the archives building
2. buy ad space in a newsletter that gets sent by the lawyers' association
3. cold emailing/calling and direct mail

I see, sounds like a much needed service.

I just went the cold email route because I wanted to see if people were interested and to be able iterate on the right things.

But my method of cold outreach is extremely slow but it has been fruitful.

I wish you luck and do keep us updated here!

 

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[buscus.stan]

My users told me.

I think that is brilliant and definitely my kind of iterating a product. Occasionally I would work like this for a client. And those products usually had a higher chance of success.

When i say MVP i really mean it lol. I barely put all the functionalities together, i wanted to know if it was a good product. I've had experience building stuff before and being absolutely crushed by venture funded startups so speed was also one of the goals.

like you said earlier, it's important to get stuff out asap! It's fantastic if you can do that. I'm still training myself, but I assume I will learn the hard way anyway, the first time a polished product tanks (this will be the first product of my own that I launch so I haven't suffer any disappointments yet)

I just went the cold email route because I wanted to see if people were interested and to be able iterate on the right things.

But my method of cold outreach is extremely slow but it has been fruitful.

I have little experience with cold outreach and I'm not betting much on it. We will definitely try it, but I think the other channels would be more fruitful. However, those other channels are paid, so we need to be careful with the budgeting

I see, sounds like a much needed service.

I sure hope so, from the few close friends that could use the product, they seem to like the idea, but until it's out there... no way to tell


Thank you once again for your comments and your time, much appreciated. Good luck to you too!

 

[TinyOldLady]

Would anyone be interested in a thread with steps on how to build a product from scratch? It would be technical, but I'm guessing even people that don't plan to code themselves might get something out of it.

I would love that

 

[buscus.stan]

Progress Report (September & first half of October)​

1. we're finally live! It took a little bit longer than I hoped, because... well, because shit takes time. But I am pleased to introduce www.LoPresento.com <- I added a UTM-param so I can exclude the traffic from here. I doubt anyone on the forum can actually use this product. And it's only in Spanish

LoPresento - the idea is that in Spain, for every lawsuit, the lawyer/attorney has to physically (on paper) submit the lawsuit papers & evidence to the courts. They have to prepared the documents, print them, fight traffic to get to the court, drive around for a parking place, then spend 10 seconds to drop off the documents. We find this a huge waste of time and resources and this where LoPresento comes in. Legal professionals can do this efficiently from the comfort of your office by simply uploading the documents to our portal and pay a small service fee.

2. on Monday we started advertising. We're trying more traditional channels. We bought a billboard very close to the main courthouse (see photo). We ordered flyers which we plan to leave at the courthouses and spread them around the courthouse parking lots and so on. I'm warming up an email domain to start a cold emailing campaign. I'm looking into some services to send whatsapp messages. There is a big lawyers conference coming up in a few weeks so we're talking about setting up a small booth and just give out some personalized promotional materials (like, pens, post-its and such)



3. we tested the system with real lawsuits, but only from friends. So we are still waiting for the first real sale.

Next Steps (goals for the end of the year)​

1. continue advertising, try things, learn things
2. work on getting as much real feedback as possible to improve the webapp. Friends and family *love* it, but what about users?
3. sit down and put in place some clear cutoffs in case this doesn't work. How much money are we willing to put into it? How much time? How do we decide if it works or not?
4. start looking for some potential collaborators. Right now, we're covering only a small region of Spain, in order to expand, we need to find reliable people/companies to submit papers in other regions.

Lessons learned​

* shit takes time! We got delayed by all kind of stupid things. We were blocked for 10 days when registering the company. Normally it takes 2 days, but I assume it took longer because I am not a Spanish national. Then it took a few days to get an appointment to the bank to be able to open a bank account and obtain debit cards so we can buy stuff. Then the .com domain was locked to a previous registrar and we needed to move it in the new company's name. In case you don't know, transferring a domain takes 4 to 7 days

Random thought​

I find myself talking nicely to AI. Saying "please" and "thank you" and "would it be possible" ) I'm such a moron! ) But what if, what if some day AI will take over and enslave all the people that were rude to it (him?, her?)?

thanks for reading <3

 

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[uhhfeef]

Congrats on launching! Hope you see your first sale soon!

 

[buscus.stan]

big day yesterday, we had our first order! I have to say, the feeling of someone paying for your service.. We all got a bump in excitement and a little little more confidence that this might actually work.

I'll detail the marketing/advertising strategies in a future post, now, back to work

 

[amp0193]

Congrats on the first paying customer! That's always a great feeling.


This seems similar to a payments solution in the import freight industry in the US.

There exists two services (cargosprint and pay cargo) who exist only to hand deliver check payments to import freight terminals and ports on behalf of other entities.

The freight industry wants to be paid by check. But mailing a check takes time and meanwhile the cargo is in the warehouse accumulating storage fees. So me as the importing company pays cargo sprint a fee, and they will write a check on my behalf and hand deliver it same day.

I think the whole thing is stupid and backwards, but old industries are set in their ways and change slowly, and opportunities abound for those who can think creatively about how to work with them.

 

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[buscus.stan]

Thank you!

you are are right, the old industries change slowly. Before starting to build the service, I had a big concern with the the "C" in CENTS. I was thinking that with a simple change from the government, or the courts or whoever presides over this, they could just say: from tomorrow, no more paper, everything has to be digital. But now, after a few months closer to the industry, I see that there is hardly a chance of that happening. If COVID didn't make them change, it will have to be some other calamity.

 

[buscus.stan]

Progress Report​

A. First Order and New Contract: We had our first order, our first paying customer. It was an exciting day. Then, a few days later, a big legal office in the area contacted us for a price offer since they have significant volume. This was amazing. After a few back-and-forth discussions, we signed a contract with them. As for payment methods, we currently only support credit cards. However, they needed an alternative payment method, either direct debit or bank transfers. So, we adapted our system to allow them to pay by bank transfer at the end of the month. And this week, they started sending in orders.

B. Marketing & Advertising

When my partner(s) and I started talking about this business, we didn't really know which kind of marketing would work or what we should do. The service has a very narrow audience; it is only useful to some legal professionals, and there isn't anything else like it, so people are not actively searching on Google for something like our service.

(If you haven't read my previous posts, LoPresento is a service that legal professionals can use to submit physical documentation to the courts. Instead of them going personally to the court, we do it in exchange for a small fee.)

Having a narrow audience can be good and bad. Bad, because there are fewer people to reach out to. Good, because you only need to find a concentration of potential customers and advertise there. Here is what we have tried so far:

1. We bought a billboard right in front of the main legal court in our region. It was quite hard to get; we've been on the waiting list for nearly 5 months. It's rather expensive, and we had to commit to a minimum of 4 months. The billboard has been out there for nearly a month, and we see little traction from it. But it's also harder to measure than other channels. The jury is still out on this one (see what I did there? ).
2. We bought flyers and started distributing them, but haven't yet done so consistently. As I mentioned above, we need to find places where our users are concentrated. We plan on leaving flyers in the bar associations' offices in our region and putting them in the parking lots of the courts.
3. Cold emailing - until now, this marketing channel has worked the best. We started about 2 weeks ago, timidly, with 20 emails a day. We immediately saw a response; this is how we got our first orders. But after not even a week, our email service provider suspended our account for sending emails without prior consent. My bad, I was sure they allowed it, but their terms clearly state they do not. So, back to square one, I started reading up on cold emailing. I will write a post only on cold emailing; it's an interesting development.

C. Facelift: The initial reaction to the website was okay, but I was not completely happy with how it looked. I can't put my finger on it since I'm not a designer, but it felt dated, old somehow. I worked with my wife on the design; she has a good eye for this, and we did a complete layout change of the website. Here is the before and after:

before:

after:

​

Lesson Reinforced:​

If someone wants to pay you, make it easy for them. Accept any type of payment you can, in any currency. Build your payment flow to be as intuitive as possible. Just take their money! I don't care how you pay me, as long as you pay me.

 

[Lana Ocean]

That's a cool idea! You have made a new product on the market. Congratulations!
You can use any normal mailing service and your mail will not be blocked.
And maybe targeting all over Spain with a video that would show step by step the process of your service.

 

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[buscus.stan]

That's a cool idea! You have made a new product on the market. Congratulations!

thank you very much for the kind words!

You can use any normal mailing service and your mail will not be blocked.

I am not so sure about this. Cold emailing is not easy at all. Most providers don't allow it at all. It is considering shady, if not illegal in many countries, especially in the EU. And email clients will mark you as spam the moment they sense anything spammy.

And maybe targeting all over Spain with a video that would show step by step the process of your service.

thank you. This is sound advice and I am planning a how-it-works video. I just need to learn some video editing My plan is to do a 30-45s how-it-works video and have it on the homepage.