[Progression thread] Building a Saas dedicated to author and writing

[Fast-tao]

Hello everyone,

i want to share with you wait in these days is came in my mind and what i'm doing to accomplish it. I want share it basically for 2 purpose

1- Be committed...i shared, i will do my best to not seems a dickhead.
2- have useful insight, comments and everything from you

This is not my main project, i'm doing something else to live day by day, right now (i'm a seo and marketer). So i cannot put 10 hours a day on this project...everybody need to pay the bills in someway.

My idea came thanks to this forum, in particular from the author section. Long Story short: writing a book i discover that i needed something, and there wasn't any software helping on this. just old fashion method.

First of all i wrote a step by step simple road map, i never developed any software, so probably i'm missing something that you will teach me or i will discover during the process, spilling blood!

Here my road map:

- Find a problem to solve, or something to improve
- Market research
Find market demand
Evaluate other niche product
- Define the software main characteristic and features
- Find Market Segmentation and product positioning
- Chose the Soft name
Idea generation
Idea deletion (dns, nice, difficult to remember, similar to others etc..)
- Create some Mockup of the graphic interface that outline the main faeture
- Buy domain and hosting
- Test the idea with a Micro-website showing feature and mockup and asking for e-mail pre-sales (maybe promise a discount when the soft will be release?
- Pricing (freemium,subscription etc..)
- If there is no any interest or enough interest stop working on it
- If there is interest go on following the road map
- Create the logi structure and interaction flow of the software (never done it, so i need to learn doing it)
- Find some Programmer to do the beta version that will comment very well the code
- Create the beta version, not much features but working
- Manual testing
- Create a user manual
- Lunch the beta version using the mail of the test
- Write developer doc?
- Integration with other platform as facebook twitter etc…?
- Create the final sales website
Create Websites Goals
Create logic structure and user flow
Create Graphic
Create Advertising material (videos, articles etc..)
Prepare Ticket System?
Create (or buy?) a payment system
Assemble everything
Prepare tracking software (google analytics)
Prepare Split testing option
Prepare Mail
Prepare FAQ
Prepare legal stuff (disclaimer, privacy policy, contracts etc..)
Test
upload and Go!
- Marketing
Blog
Screencast
Social interaction
Adwords
Guest blogging
Deal with major blog and forum about the saas topic
- Launch the product and all the marketing campaigns
- Hard SEO
- Split testing the website to improve conversions
- Action the traffic datas
- Hard split testing on adwords, facebook campaign etc..
- Continue to develop the product and support customer
- Monitor financial stuff
- Grow and do it better!

Next post i'm going to show some market research. At the beginning i prefer to not share exactly what is in my mind, but when the work is in advanced stage, i will disclose everything.

 

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[Fast-tao]

Market research

After i had my idea, based on my needs, i start using google keyword planner and google search to see, if there was some market demand to hit.

I discovered a macro Niche of software for author that is a very interesting niche. Only in english there are more 12.000 people searching for solutions. The Niche is macro because they search for general software, by writing software to novel software etc...it is broad, not every person searching for a writing software will be interested in my solution, but there is for sure a broad market that can be hit.

The people searching for the solution i want to give are 1.400 per month...not all with the same keyword but with similar keywords.

Totally, i calculated there are more then 20.000 searching for software or solution about writing, novel etc.., only with english word. I can extrapolate, with a certain amount of confidence, that there are more than 40.000 thousand people around the world searching every month for something similar, in their own language.

There is a market and is not small. So i try to see if there was an increasing demand looking at google trend, for they keywords i selected. There is not. It seems that for the last few years writing software demand (that is a broad keyword) it falling, maybe because they are searching software as word, openoffice etc..
The search volume for the smaller niche it is too small and the google trend datas are not available or the trend is very messy.

But i thought that thanks to the e-book era and mainly the self publishing era that is just started the volume of authors will increase and so will increase the needs.

So, we have a market demand and a possible rising trend for the next few years thanks to the self publishing trend (it is skyrocketing just in this months...but i think it is just the beginning).

2.000 per month search strictly related with the solution i would like to offer.
20.000 broad niche searches where i can draw on.

i can move on.

 

[Fast-tao]

Small update

i've studied other similar software in the niche, studied their features and finally compared them with mine. It seems that my principal features are far more evolved and focused on one aspect of the creative/writing process, perhaps mostly because most of the app and software i found, are old and doing always the same things in the same way.I create some tables, like the one in the screenshot, to compare and understand what the market is solving and what is not. Also i recorded all the information as price, pricing, and others.

Long Story short, after few hours of research it seems that there is not any software solving the problem i discover in the same easy and focused way as i intend to create. I found some confirmation reading spared forums around the web...i will more sure about that after the testing.

 

[exige]

Excellent. One thing I took away from SPIN Selling is that marketing on feature lists can sometimes _reduce_ the perceived value of your solution, something to think about on the other end when it comes time to market your software.

 

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[Fast-tao]

thanks Exige.
From my little and personal experience what works more is the "what you improve/save marketing". So not try to sell features, but what you get using that feature.
So instead to markets the featureX you market "save x hour every week" etc..
I will do a lot of testing to see what is working more on the landing page...it's the only way to understand what exactly want yours customers.

 

[Fast-tao]

Update -
I Just finished to create a BETA User Interface to make some screenshot to put on the Micro-website, that i'm going to build soon, to start testing the market.
I put down, in a graphic view, all the stuffs were in my mind and in the past few days i wrote in google doc. Now everything seems more realistic and concrete.

To build the UI First i just draw some sketch on paper as mockup, than i used Keynote (the mac power point)...the final result is very nice and appealing (for me). At first i thought to give the work to someone, than i realized that was not different from a website Design, where i'm more familiar with. So i decided to do it by my self, i put more than 10 hours of work on it, but i did exactly what was in my mind. Of course the UI is not finished, but all the parts i would like to use as screenshots for the testing Website are on, and also are the most important. I do not want to put more time on the UI until i have some result testing the idea with the real market.

I also decided the name, wasn't easy because a lot of nice name were with the domain taken...but at the and i hit a nice name. I would like to test it in private with someone of you to understand if it sounds good. If you want to help me, please send me an PM.

I also realize that i need a copywriter for all the texts i'm going to write on the testing website...my english is creepy! It is good to be understood but not to sell!

 

[joanna]

Interesting idea. I'd be curious to follow your progress and see how this develops and what is your USP. Are you focused on fiction / non-fiction or both? As a writer-developer I've been mulling over a Saas service for authors too, but the more time I spend writing the more the idea scope shrinks. Oh, and post how you go about finding a good copywriter

 

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[Fast-tao]

Hi Joanna,

thanks for sharing your opinion and experience. Sometimes we think idea shrink but they don't, sometimes we think they are good but the ideas actually stinks! The only way to have reliable data is testing. What we think sometime is just what we think but not what the reality is. Of course our experience bring "what we think" closer to "what the reality is".

The Saas is actually focused on fiction.
I hope i few days to upload the testing site and collect some data.

I will update also for the copywriter, i'm going to search him in Elance.

 

[Fast-tao]

Update

I Had a lot of problem during these days but i kept going working hard on the project.
I finished the landing page. To do it faster i used Instapage (never used before) with 18$ i did everything in a easy way. I never used it before, but i thought was good trying it out. It's easy cheap and save your time. If i was to build a landing page by my self with wordpress or so i was going to spend more time. It's a good compromising fro now, because you can build a landing page fast, and it is enough nice. I need it fast, before you test the market before you start to build the software and make money. Or you just drop the project, because it is bad, and focus on others.

I hired a copywriter from elance for 60$ she did a great job, with all the landing page texts and the google snippet. It's far better then i was capable of. With 78$ i've a nice and simple landing page with a introducing short speech sales, The mail subscription form, the goals of the software in bullet point and 4 features description with screenshot of the features.

I also prepared half of the ads i want to start with google adwords to bring of traffic. I will spend between 100$ and 150$ in ads to bring traffic and understand if people are interested.
Probably tomorrow i'm going to start the adword campaign...and i will discover a small truth about my idea.

 

[Gymjunkie]

Forget Adwords, frequent writer forums, give a few accounts away and get their feedback there. Go to site like Kboards.com and do it. Scrivener has a very good name and you will be competing with it, I hope you studied them and beat their features. There are tons of writers/self publishing blogs too, guestpost or buy ads there, will be cheaper than AdWords probably.

 

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[Fast-tao]

There is no software yet, as i wrote before. I'm testing the market, so i cannot give account away, because there is no account to give. There is only an idea and the User Interface. I'm not going to compete with Scrivener. What i've in mind is something different.

I'm going to use adwords, because it's faster and i do not need to branding yet. If i go to forums and blogs and they understand there is no software yet, they will think i'm crazy...and maybe i'm.

 

[Fast-tao]

small update

I Activate 3 adwords campaign totally with different keywords. One campaign with the precise niche (small niche). One with keywords about similar niche. And another with the broad keywords.

i think in 7-10 days i will make some conclusion and decide to move on.

 

[Gymjunkie]

There is no software yet, as i wrote before. I'm testing the market, so i cannot give account away, because there is no account to give. There is only an idea and the User Interface. I'm not going to compete with Scrivener. What i've in mind is something different.

I'm going to use adwords, because it's faster and i do not need to branding yet. If i go to forums and blogs and they understand there is no software yet, they will think i'm crazy...and maybe i'm.

What branding? Yu don't need to have it ready either. Just like on this forum people talk about ideas, so can you. I did questions for author websites services asking what they want etc. nothing crazy about that..

And of course, Adwords is easier, but if you think it's better to pay for some traffic instead of getting it free along with advice and insight into your customers mind then knock yourself out..

 

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[Fast-tao]

Hi Gym, thanks for your consideration, i really appreciate your POV. Here is mine:
My main consideration is that my time is money...how many hours i've to spend in forums? For my actual purpose adwords it is not only faster but also cheaper that any others thing. I've fresh traffic searching for this kind of solutions...i want a response from this kind of person, not a random person in writer forum..that of course, is interested, but is not actually searching for this kind of solution.
Also i do not want check for insight. I want see how the market respond to the ideas i've. I will look for other insight after i've finish the developing of the software.

In my opinion when you want to start business and you had a basic insight where you can see that you have a market, you just need to start as soon as possible...but not because other will stole your ideas, but because faster you start faster your start earning money, o just fast you fail, and you can start again.
If i spend time o try to bring with me a lot of insight i will never finish any software. I want to finish it in a very basic form and from there improve using the user and market feedback.

Ma i totally wrong, or thee is something logic in what i'm trying to say. Is it enough fastlane?

 

[Clayton]

I don't know what kind of Adwords experience you have, but you might consider hiring someone off elance to do that for you too. Adwords can have a huge and expensive learning curve.

 

[Fast-tao]

i pretty know how to use adwords. I set my maximum expense 100$ with i will get around 300 visitors, using a very detailed number of keywords coming from my previous market analisys. I setted everything in few minutes, because i will not optimize forn now throught testing. Infact this is a market test, it is start now and it is going to finish when i will have enough data to understand if my product ideas can be considered good from the market. If i will have more than 10% conversion (conversion it is just putting the e-mail..there is no product to buy yet) i will go on with the developing, if not i will drop everything and moving on on others project that will come in my mind.

Thanks for the advice you all, they are very good advice and i'm aware of them. Please do not stop to share your advice and consideration...everything can be very useful!!!

p.s.
Sorry for the english guys, i know there are a lot of errors in my posts.

 

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[Fast-tao]

ok. Finished the Adwords experiment and market test.

the final result is:
More than 10% of the visitors subscribed.

Other Annotation that can be useful to who want use adwords to test their idea.
I did some experiment to understand how the niche and broader niche react
USing the niche the conversion rate was around 14%
Using niche+broader niche the convertion was 7%. where the broader niche convertion was very low...around 1%

Also i tried to use not only the "search advertising" but also the "display network advertising". Using the second option the conversion was 0% .
So remember
- broader is the advertised keyword to your product keyword, smaller is the conversion rate.
- if you use the display network advertising you are going to spend lot of moneys without have a real feedback.

Because the conversion is more then the 10% i will go on with the project.

What happen now?
I'm going to follow my roadmap, i need to find a good web/saas developer and build the logic structure with him. This step will take a lot of time, and i'm also full of other tasks to do in other projects (i still need to work to pay the bills ).

 

[tafy]

Im interested in how much $$ you allocated per click? or did you let adwords do this automatically? How many natural traffic did you get and how many of them converted?