[PROGRESS THREAD] Finding "product market fit"

[uhhfeef]

ah, I see. Can you talk to an accountant? There should be a form of fiscal entity that is not very expensive. In all the countries I lived in, there was something. In the end, what the government wants is to tax you. You could try contacting Stripe support, they are very helpful



As far as I know, PayPal has subscriptions. And they accept credit card payments. They also have a Stripe competitor "braintree payments". But I'm not sure of their requirements for subscriptions. They might ask for some license number too. When I integrated them, it was always through either a limited-liability or a self-employment. I used both Paypal and Braintree in the past, but Stripe is the gold standard.

Thank you for the insights

I'll try paypal and see how that goes.

 

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[uhhfeef]

Few updates

I've spoken to a few business consultancies here and it looks like I do need some sort of trade license to get a CRN.

Which comes around 1500$ minimum. I'm still doing research about it and cross checking with a few other resources but I'll probably need to get it done asap. I don't want to spend anything yet but i guess this is the minimum amount I have to.

In other news, I'm starting to love talking to prospects or users. They just give free insights and ideas to execute on with the added benefit of building a last-longing relationship with them.

Here's how i think about validating an idea/feature at the moment:

• No need to think of the pressure of asking the right questions, the only thing I don't want to compromise on is to find what bothers my user and build something that makes their life easier. Always try to figure out any bottlenecks they're facing.
• I'm always a lil skeptical when they say they need or want something. Usually its not so easy to find and if it is, it's almost always a unavoidable need (build that asap).
• To truly understand the user I usually just ask them questions about their process and try my best not to hold any assumptions. Eg. Why did they just do that? Why do they do it this way and not that? How come they do x? Do they usually do y? If so how many times have they done that in the last session? What do they know that I don't?
• Do they truly need it? Or do they say they need it? Always assume it's the latter. A true need has its ways of surfacing itself repeatedly. I don't know how to describe it just yet but you can just FEEL that this person needs this thing desperately. Most requests don't feel that way.
• Lastly these are the 2 questions I'm always asking to end off the conversation:
  1. What is the ONE thing they need the solution to do?
  2. What is the most annoying part of the solution?

Also, I've organised additional features or ideas to add which makes it easier for me to execute and prioritizes what I should focus on.



Its kind of like a Kanban board built in google sheets but each feature has to go through from left to right.

I'm still looking for ways to optimize this so I'd love your suggestions.

 

[uhhfeef]

Update

Total users: 54
Churn: 18
Not much going on these past 2 weeks. I got an anomaly email from Google Analytics saying somebody clicked a button 600 times lol. But its been quiet since then. Too quiet.

I've been speaking to users but you can only ask so much before they stop caring to reply. Which makes me feel like I'm not providing enough value for them to make the conversation worthwhile.

But its not been all bad.

I've received a ton of support from people within the niche so I'm grateful for that. Alot of new people going out of the way to help me and to show ways I could generate revenue with this.

One thing I've noticed is businesses are shit at customer support or value delivery. So when someone genuinely wants to try and understand your problem, potential users/ customers give them a chance and are more willing to develop a relationship with them. It's also the easiest way to build a dedicated audience that does the marketting for the business, for free. I've noticed that very few businesses have been capable of that.

As long as you have their interests in mind, they trust you with time/money/reputation.

I ended up registering for a freelance license (which I paid 400 $ for) so once I receive that I can enable payments for the extension. That's my last bit of validation. If it sells I might keep updating the extension, if not, move on to the next problem.

I also modularized my entire code into ES6 modules which basically makes JS code more organized. One thing I love about Python is how you can do that from the get-go and how Vanilla JS becomes so annoying to code in.

But github copilot and copilot chat genuinely have made me fall in love with the process of coding. The only thing you have to do is have a clear, well defined solution to the problem you have and use JS to turn that solution into code. Makes everything so simple and helps stay productive.

I think anyone with a strong vision can just do their own thing these days so there's no excuse to not be able to code.

I'll update you guys once I receive my license and get payments enabled.

Have a great day.

 

[uhhfeef]

Update

Total users: 57
Churn: 18

Feeling a bit burned out of this project. I'm not really sure how to proceed with this at the moment so I'm taking a lil break. I haven't received my license yet so that's also there.

This is what my retention is, for the past 28 days, if anyone's interested. I need to get DAU/MAU up but I'm running out of ideas.



In other news, I just created an upwork and a fiverr to leverage my automation skills for businesses. If you're overwhelmed with your business and looking to free up your time, feel free to reach me here or at the below link:

https://www.fiverr.com/s/1pr09k

 

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[uhhfeef]

Hey there! That's awesome progress! I'm curious, how did you manage to build MVPs without coding? GPT-4 sounds like a game-changer. Would love to hear more about your journey!

Hi, thanks!

It's a mix of gpt4 and knowledge for coding honestly. You can't completely rely on GPT 4 at the moment. (Check my previous comment on how to use GPT4)

You definitely need to know a few fundamentals of the language you want to use for your MVP, for eg.: if you choose python, look up pythons syntax, conditions, loops, classes, etc. Most languages have a lot of similarities but some have additional stuff. It doesn't take long to learn all of this. And with Copilot chat it makes all this even more easier.

The important thing is to have a clear vision about what you want as your MVP, then you can either use existing no-code tools or if you want more control then code. You could get a lot of guidance from GPT 4 on this part.

For this case, I really wanted this chrome extension out there so I looked into Chromes API and how I could use JS to connect to it.

 

[uhhfeef]

Update

During this break, I'm trying to set up automated solutions for local / small businesses.

A family friend business owner wanted to automate a lot of manual work that currently requires 4 people, 6 hours a day for 22 days. It's manual data entry stuff in which they update google sheets based on emails received by their clients or their reporting system.

I spoke to him about what we could do to eliminate all that and free up time and resources, set up robust systems that scale infinitely.

So that's 528 hours of manual work a month. Down to 0.

I haven't implemented anything yet but it won't be too hard to set up if I get the logic accurately.

Plus there's way too many upsides to this:

• Free up 528 hours
• Lets say he pays them 7$/hr, that's 3696$ / month extra revenue
• 0 human errors, the only time it does create errors is if I don't set it up correctly
• No need for managing human resources
• Extra cash could be used in ways to generate more income
• Quick, real time, accurate updates
• System will run in the background tirelessly / no need for actively managing it
• Runs 24x7 as opposed to fixed schedules
• Who wants to do boring data entry stuff?? Robots don't care

I was thinking to charge 599$ / month, free support, bug fixes and troubleshooting and 100% money back guarantee if he's unhappy, dissatisfied or I just made his life worse somehow. To get him used to the system I'm giving him a free trial for 15 days, see what he thinks about it, if its worth it.

Why I chose 599$? Tbh initially I had no reasoning but since I'm leaving 3696$ per month on the table, I'm charging him around 15% of this. So my bots would do what 4 humans working 22 days a month would do and better for 15 % of their cost.

Yearly cost with employees: 44,352$
Yearly cost with my bots: 7,188$

I'd love to know what you guys think on the pricing. I have a lot of trouble charging people for services because of this weird money mindset I have.

 

[uhhfeef]

UPDATE​

My First Sale! (Again?)​

I FINALLY DID IT!

A family friend business owner wanted to automate a lot of manual work that currently requires 4 people, 6 hours a day for 22 days. It's manual data entry stuff in which they update google sheets based on emails received by their clients or their reporting system.

This person agreed after a lot of back and forth. I showed him the benefits of how we could use automation to free up time and resources while also saving money along the way.

I'm charging him based on the number of operations he uses in a month, which grows with his business. This works better than setting a fixed cap of 599$.

Here's a few notes to self. Learned these while talking to him and a couple other (failed) prospects over the month:

• There's no such thing as selling. In fact, when my primary motive is "to sell" I don't achieve anything in the call because I'm too focused on how to get this person to say yes.
• Showing is better than talking. If I can show how my service can help them, I don't even have to talk
• Give without the expectation of receiving anything
• Learn to listen better. Understand their underlying problems, not just the problems they think they have
• Figure out a price on how much value I'm providing. Value = how much money I'm saving them or how much I'm helping them make (and a bunch of other things but this makes it easier for pricing). Capture some of that
• Finding leads is hard so make it easier for clients to refer to someone else

I'm not a pro at this and this list is definitely going to increase, but I think this was my most important milestone. I've never actually gone out and sold anything in my life.

It feels like a huge weight's been lifted off.

What I aim to do in the next few weeks:

• Speak to more people / get more referrals
• Keep applying on Upwork
• Build a portfolio
• Solve the leads problem

Btw these are the amounts of proposals I've sent on Upwork in the past 2 weeks. That's about 200$ lol.

Quick shoutout to Lex Devilles upwork post. <3

Onward and upward.

 

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[kr8nt]

UPDATE​

My First Sale! (Again?)​

I FINALLY DID IT!

This person agreed after a lot of back and forth. I showed him the benefits of how we could use automation to free up time and resources while also saving money along the way.

I'm charging him based on the number of operations he uses in a month, which grows with his business. This works better than setting a fixed cap of 599$.

Here's a few notes to self. Learned these while talking to him and a couple other (failed) prospects over the month:

• There's no such thing as selling. In fact, when my primary motive is "to sell" I don't achieve anything in the call because I'm too focused on how to get this person to say yes.
• Showing is better than talking. If I can show how my service can help them, I don't even have to talk
• Give without the expectation of receiving anything
• Learn to listen better. Understand their underlying problems, not just the problems they think they have
• Figure out a price on how much value I'm providing. Value = how much money I'm saving them or how much I'm helping them make (and a bunch of other things but this makes it easier for pricing). Capture some of that
• Finding leads is hard so make it easier for clients to refer to someone else

I'm not a pro at this and this list is definitely going to increase, but I think this was my most important milestone. I've never actually gone out and sold anything in my life.

It feels like a huge weight's been lifted off.

What I aim to do in the next few weeks:

• Speak to more people / get more referrals
• Keep applying on Upwork
• Build a portfolio
• Solve the leads problem

Btw these are the amounts of proposals I've sent on Upwork in the past 2 weeks. That's about 200$ lol.
View attachment 53529
Quick shoutout to Lex Devilles upwork post. <3

Onward and upward.

Congratulations on the first sale, uhhfeef!

Now that you closed the loop once and got the sale, time to repeat & scale, and at some point outsource more and more until you will only need to make decisions. Have you thought about providing your service to yourself to automatize some processes on your side?

Definitely don't forget to get a testimonial and a review from your client after the job, so that you can leverage this against your competitors who don't have them.

Soon you will look back at this day and remember what you had to do and you will be so glad that you started and pushed through to get everything done and get where you will be, so keep up the hard work, don't give up and most importantly have fun!

 

[uhhfeef]

Thank you!

Now that you closed the loop once and got the sale, time to repeat & scale, and at some point outsource more and more until you will only need to make decisions. Have you thought about providing your service to yourself to automatize some processes on your side?

Yes for sure, it's always on my mind but I need to create a system that works for me first. Then find ways to automate it.

Definitely don't forget to get a testimonial and a review from your client after the job, so that you can leverage this against your competitors who don't have them.

100% thank you so much for reminding.

Soon you will look back at this day and remember what you had to do and you will be so glad that you started and pushed through to get everything done and get where you will be, so keep up the hard work, don't give up and most importantly have fun!

Appreciate it man! Likewise!