SaaS Startup Thread, 2nd Time Entrepeneur

[Young-Gun]

Testing a larger image....

FPB-97 "Iceberg". A big brother of "Wind Horse".

 

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[Young-Gun]

@daru I may have figured out the error... I think I was accidentally copy-pasting images from Google Search that came from a deleted website.
So it was screwing up the forum when it tried to link to a non-existent image. Pretty sure that's what it is, but I'll keep trying to pin down the cause.

 

[Young-Gun]

Quick next-morning update:

Just off the phone of my first "real" Customer Development Interview in "Major Industry #1".
It was great!
We went for exactly 15 minutes.
This time I remembered to just shut up and let him talk.
I probably spent 3 minutes speaking out of those 15 (and I could cut that down even further by practicing my Introduction and Questions.)

He was perfectly happy to let me record the conversation (I didn't start taping until I had permission).
So, I didn't have to take any notes; I could focus purely on the conversation.

I learned a *ton*, and I could hear Real NEEDS in the background of our conversation.
I'll have to go over the recording to mine for gold.
But, I *know* there were some Needs that got revealed in our conversation today. I can feel it.
Just gotta keep talking to more people and then go over the Interview Recordings carefully.

Damn, I can't even imagine how I did the Practice Interviews without call-recording.
It used to be sooooo hard to take notes on the computer, while trying to listen and think of questions... nearly impossible.
Using a recording is much, much better.
I'll go back over the recordings at a later date; for now I just want to accumulate a bunch of good interviews.

That's why today I'm really glad for the 3x "Practice Interviews" I did last month.
Because of that earlier practice...
There's minimum awkwardness.
I could get *much* more polished; don't get me wrong.
But, I've learned the basic lessons of the Customer Development interview.

The first 4x Customer Interviews are *proof* the System is Working.
Most importantly...
We have proven that it's physically possible to do these interviews.
That my system works, even if some kinks could be improved.
And that I can keep going, and do many more.

Ok. I definitely need to compile an "Interview Questions List."
I've just been winging it, with a few basic questions in mind to start.
Luckily I can think fast; but if I'm doing 4-5 interviews per day, I'll need to organize my system better.

I mean, I've thought a lot about what to ask.
It's just that all that was before I actually talked to anyone.
It was all Theory.
Now I have Real-Life Experience about what sort of Interview Questions work best.
So, should keep refining my Interview Procedure, based on What Works.

---------------------------------

Busy day coming up now, plus I didn't sleep much out of excitement.
Got lots of Life / Tutoring Biz stuff to do from now until Evening.
I'm going to try and spend some time Practicing Coding, as well.
More Cold Emails (including the first round of follow-up emails) are being automatically sent by QuickMail, even as we speak.

Should be able to make more progress today at some point.
I'll report back tonight with another update.

 

[Young-Gun]

Late-night update for Thursday:
Spent noon to 9 pm at Tutoring Biz today making sure rent is payed so to speak.

But, you're here for the SaaS and that's what we've got:

- Still excited about the morning's Customer Development Interview.
I'm sure there will be many more great Interviews to come.
All focused on Finding NEEDS.
I can't wait to load up on Interview Recordings.
In a few weeks (4-8 weeks) I should have a nice stack of them.
There is so much to learn from these... I can feel it.

- Loaded *100* more Prospects into QuickMail.
Usually I've been loading 50 Prospects per night, but today I thought... 50 is good, 60 is better.
So I decided to load 60 Prospects per night from now on.

But then I developed a new and better method for adding Prospects.
It's much faster, easier, and less stressful than my old way.
Instead of going through Yelp, I'm going straight through Company Website Directories, one at a time.
It's just so much faster to focus on One Company at a Time.
In my spreadsheet, I can now copy-paste huge chunks of cells.
Then I only have to update Name, Email, and occasionally - change their Title or Position.

So, I just kept going to 100 Prospects tonight.
And, I'm committing (publicly) to 60 prospects per night from now on, instead of 50.

- Started researching Website Scraping Tools that may help me Prospect even faster.
In the spirit of engineering a faster and smarter company...
I started looking into Scraping Tools that could speed up the Prospecting.
We're going fast enough as it is, but there's probably a way to save even more time and effort.
It's a repetitive task, and I'm sure someone has made Software that makes it easier.

It's 12:30 pm, and I've just started on this part... so I'm probably calling it a night now.
But, I'm excited to look into it when I have time tomorrow.

That's it for tonight! Next update tomorrow!

 

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[Young-Gun]

Actually I lied.

Didn't feel like sleeping. Too excited by the feeling of progress. Feels like my dreams are getting closer.
For the first time in several months, I hear myself chanting "Closer... closer..." in my head.

Went back to the internet and added more Prospects to QuickMail...
For a record-breaking 276 Prospects added in a single day!

Ok, NOW I'm tired.

I don't play to do this every day... it would lead to burnout.
But, I was on a roll.

The march is still 60 Prospects per day.
But, this helped stock the prospect pool.

As a result, I've boosted outgoing Cold Emails from 200 per week, to 420 per week.
Here's the math/reasoning:
My "20 mile march" is to add 60 Prospects per night, 7 days a week.
Thats +420 Prospects per week.
So, sending out 420 Cold Emails per week is optimal, right?

This is as simple as changing a few settings in QuickMail (the result of an orderly system).
The increased sending should correspond to about a 2x increase in Interviews.
I believe I can handle the increased bandwidth on my schedule...
At least for the sake of moving forward on NEED Discovery.

I'm also trying to keep in mind:
The cycle of Email Followups will stack up over time.
That means (probably) more and more responses stacking up.
So, I shouldn't push *too* fast.. because the response-wave may still be cresting to its peak.

At the same time, consider this AWESOME fact:
QuickMail stores *all* these hundreds (soon thousands) of Prospects in a well-sorted system.
Easily sorted by Industry, Name, Company, Position...
It's easy to reach out to them today, or in the future.
As long as they don't say "Never contact me again," I can reach them today or in six months.
So, this is truly a Lead/Prospect database.

It's very cool. QuickMail prospecting (like tonight) will serve double-duty.
For now I use it to get NEED Interviews.
But in 4 months, who knows?
I may be using it to sell my polished Software product to these same 276 Prospects.

Goodnight for real!

 

[Young-Gun]

Friday Night Update:
Had the day off today, slept in, got a decent tutoring sale.
The Tutoring Leads are actually pouring in right now.
I've been tweaking my Local Adwords account on the side. And, my results have measurably improved.
The way I see it, all that Tutoring Income is fuel for the SaaS company.
Tomorrow is a busy day... heck the whole weekend will be very busy with tutoring.

Anyway, you're here for news about the SOFTWARE CO:
Here's what we got done today for SaaS:

Went over Baseline QuickMail Stats after First Cold Emails + Followup Email #1:
For anyone interested in Cold Email open and response rates...
They look great, in my opinion. I'd like to boost them, for sure. But they definitely look good in a lot of ways.

These numbers are approximate, but fairly accurate so far:
- 80% open rates (!!) on Cold Email Sequences.
- 15% response rate, including "No thank you's".
- 5% click-through to website.
- 2.2% Cold-Email-to-Interview-Scheduled rate.
- 1.4% bounce rate (!!)

I expect all these stats to rise over time because of followup emails doing their thing.

- Started Reading + Taking Notes on "Business Model Generation" by Alexander Osterwalder.
This will count as "one of my 5 business books" for the whole project (I think this is Book #3).

Remember, I'm trying to limit information overwhelm but still take advantage of expert wisdom.
There's no reason to reinvent the wheel with my Software Company.
This book is considered an "instant classic" in the Startup Literature canon.

So far the book looks awesome, it's incredibly well-designed, and a lot of thought has clearly gone into writing it.
It's prompting a lot of useful thoughts.

Finished about the first 1/3 of the book today, which introduces all the key Ideas and Terms.
So far, nothing revolutionary... in fact, it's almost better than that.
It's reassuring me that I'm thinking about my whole project in exactly the right way.

There have been so many "guide posts" that I'm on the right track.
This is another one. And it's also helping me clarify and organize the next steps.

- Sketched out my first "Business Model Canvas".
The Business Model Canvas is a visual diagram of your plan.
If anything, I was surprised by how clear I feel at this point.
For each section of the Business Model Canvas, I was able to easily generate many possible solutions and ideas.

(The Business Model Canvas is everything from "How will you reach customers," to "What key activities will the business perform.")

This was just an experiment to try my hand... and it was fun and cool!
Made me feel even more confident.
The big picture of the business is all there, just need to keep filling in the details a little more each day.

Even without knowing my Customers, Problem, Solution, or Product yet...
It's still very clear what my process will be.
The outline is still almost exactly what I've planned from the start of this project.

The idea is to continually test and update each section of your Business Model Canvas.
It's all just theory until it's tested.
Get your assumptions out there, and test them.
Then you adapt, adjust, and try again.

I can't wait to see which elements of my Business Model work and which need to change!!
Keep what works, re-do what doesn't work.
In relatively short order, you'll have a fully-functioning business on your hands.

- Loaded **200** more Prospects into QuickMail.
I know I said that 60 per day is my goal.
But I was feeling it, and had extra time & energy, so I saw no reason not to jump ahead today.
This helps stock my Prospect Database and get more NEED Interviews.
Also, it's possible some of these people will become Paying Customers later in 2017.
The more the better.
It's good all around.

Another great day of Learning and Prospecting!
Busy weekend ahead, but I'll keep doing what I can for SaaS.
If I focus on adding more Prospects to QuickMail, and finish taking notes on Business Model Generation, that will be a good use of my limited time this weekend.

More updates tomorrow! Thanks for reading!

------------------


Edit: Stayed up and added 150 more Prospects.
I realized:
It's very possible that I can add Prospects faster than I can (or should) send Cold Emails.
In which case, I can use the spare time to Practice Coding.

This lit even more fire under me to add prospects.
I've been really wanting to go back to Coding.

Here's the math on Prospecting and Interviews:

2.5% current Cold-Email-to-Interview rate.
If I want 50 Interviews...
That's 50 / .025 = 2000 Prospects to Cold Email to get 50 Interviews.
(We are currently at 873 Prospects, for anyone keeping count.)

If I send about 400 Cold Emails per week, that's 5 weeks of Emails.
There will also be a 2-week period for Followups and Conducting Interviews.

So, that's 7 or 8 weeks (per Industry) to get 50 Interviews.

I think I'll want to use a lot of that spare time to Study and Practice Coding.

Feels like it all adds up. This timeline should work nicely!

-------------------

By the way, the Company Website is now NUMBER-2 in Google Search if you search our name!!!!

I had my friend check - he's in NYC - and he verified.
We now sit at Rank 2!
Not bad for a 4-week old website, built in less than 25 hours!

I *knew* all the work brainstorming my Company Name and .com Domain would pay off!!

 

[Young-Gun]

Holy crap, you will be proud of my Work Ethic for today.

- Added *502 Brand-New Prospects* to QuickMail.
That's not a typo.
Five hundred and two new Human Beings, added by hand to my Prospect / Interview Email list, in one single day of hard-a$$ work.
All 502 will be Automatically Emailed (and Followed-Up on) in the coming weeks by my QuickMail system.
These Real Human Beings are now permanently in my list of Prospects, Interview Candidates, and Potential Customers (other than the ones who ask me to remove them).

For those keeping score, that is a New-New-Record, vastly demolishing the previous record (set yesterday) of 350 New Prospects in a day.
And that previous record, 350, crushed the prior record which was (about) 200 New Prospects in a day.
All of these DESTROY my old "target" of 60 Prospects per day.
Which itself was once meant as an "ambitious" replacement of 50 Prospects per day (lol).

What's the point of all this?

A huge list of potential Buyer Names, Emails, Titles, Industries, and Employers...
All sharing common key Demographic traits...
Plus the perfect system for reaching those people again and again with personalized emails for very little additional time investment...
If you can't don't think that has direct $$$$ value...
Well, I'll tell you that you've probably never run a business before.

But if that's a little too cryptic, let's review the business model.
2 Months after starting, the business model remains exactly the same.

1) Find a huge Group of People with Money and Problems.
2) Solve *one* Key Problem with Subscription Software.
3) Get that Problem-Solving Software in front of their faces, wherever These People are already hanging out.
4) Provide great Sales and Support.
5) Optimize continually, based on Data.
6) (recurring) Profit!!

See how this *massive action* on Prospecting helps move towards completing Step 1? That's why we're doing it.

How am I adding so many Prospects, so quickly - WITHOUT compromising quality?
It's simple - I've learned a new trick.
Instead of searching through Yelp for my target Industry... adding one person at a time (Hey! don't laugh, it seemed efficient when I first figured it out lol)
I have started going to Company Websites and just going down the list of the company directory.
Anyone whose position and company fits my Target Customer profile gets added as a Prospect for an Interview (and perhaps someday as a Paid Subscription).

This is probably 10-20x faster than my old way, because by focusing on one big company at a time, you can copy-paste huge chunks of the spreadsheet. Overall it makes the whole Prospecting process MUCH faster, easier, and more fun.

I accomplished this *while working a full day at Tutoring Biz*.
When I say "full," I mean FULL - it's Saturday, and I worked non-stop essentially as an key employee in my own Tutoring Biz from 10 AM to 6:45 PM... using most of my short breaks for Saas Prospecting.
Then I got groceries for the week.
Then I finished prospecting.
Then I wrote this.

Don't worry, there was plenty of little FUN stuff in-between. I always find ways to enjoy the day.
Plus, I've just been LOVING the feeling of hard work.
Life feels great right now.
Talking to friends, and making sure to spend some time outside.
I'm teaching great lessons (better than ever actually, since the stress of trying to *forcibly grow* my small, local Tutoring Biz has washed away).
My little cat keeps me company, and I've found some GREAT work music lately.

Most of all, I want that F*cking boat. I really don't know how else to put it.

 

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[JDC]

Great thread - thanks for keeping this updated.
Please post if you find decent scraper software for collecting emails, names, etc. for lead-gen. I'm interested in this too. I actually thought about building something like this as a SAAS product for lead-gen. I was only at the brainstorming phase of things, but my idea would be: scraping plus a place where users could organize the information manually after the scraper has done all it could. It would also include a screenshot of the home page which would be beneficial for lead-gen for web designers, seo consultants, etc.
My two cents about your programming learning (I've been programming professionally in startups and enterprise for 20 years): Build out a sign up form, sign in form, logout button, and account page where they can change their profile info. You'll need all of this for regardless of which SAAS product you eventually choose to build and you'll feel you've gotten a nice head start once you've chosen something. I would definitely not outsource the programming aspect. The knowledge you gain you can use for the next 30+ years. Imagine needing to make a quick change or fix a bug then having to wait for someone else to do this and have to pay them for it. Not ideal at all.

 

[maverick]

Forgive my bluntness but what is the conversion rate from prospect to paying customer i.e. is it worthwile continuing what you are doing?

 

[JDC]

He's not selling anything quite yet. He's gathering information about an industry in order to find a problem he can help solve.
If he was at the selling phase after the product has been built, it's not a bad way to acquire customers. There is a mixergy interview with an entrepreneur using scraping plus cold emails to lead-gen and his business is very successful. Once you get going, you can convert at 2-3% at a very low cost using this method and use virtual assistants to do the legwork.

Forgive my bluntness but what is the conversion rate from prospect to paying customer i.e. is it worthwile continuing what you are doing?

 

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[Young-Gun]

Forgive my bluntness but what is the conversion rate from prospect to paying customer i.e. is it worthwile continuing what you are doing?

I thought about saying something snappy, but I changed my mind, because the question is interesting to me.

First, here's my (blunt) advice for you:
- When you jump into a conversation, wait till you know what people are talking about. Doing otherwise SUBTRACTS value, instead of adding.
- Reread the whole thread if you're truly interested. I've put a huge amount of effort into writing this exactly so people like you can read the journey (if you are truly interested)

If you scroll up (just a few posts) you'll see my current Conversion Rate (for Interviews Scheduled, not Sales) is about 2.2%, and I think it will rise to 2.5% with followups.

2.5% Conversion of *any* kind from Cold Emailing is not bad at all. I have a decent amount of personal experience with Email Marketing, and getting 2.5 % Conversions is not bad at all (That's 1 in 40 people, who have no idea who you are, taking the action you want just because you sent an automatic email? Nice.)

JDC nailed the explanation of what I'm doing and what the long-term plan is (quoted below).

Based on my personal experiences, I have every reason to believe that once I create a great Software Product that solves a Real Need for a lot of People with Money, then I will be able to sell it to at least 1% of the people whom I contact.

And when that time comes, the profits will be worth far more than this paltry preliminary effort (just my opinion, but keep watching this thread).

He's not selling anything quite yet. He's gathering information about an industry in order to find a problem he can help solve.
If he was at the selling phase after the product has been built, it's not a bad way to acquire customers. There is a mixergy interview with an entrepreneur using scraping plus cold emails to lead-gen and his business is very successful. Once you get going, you can convert at 2-3% at a very low cost using this method and use virtual assistants to do the legwork.

Excellent summary, plus encouraging for me (and you can probably tell I love positive energy!!)
AND, I learned something from your post that directly helps me.
Thank you!! Rep ++

 

[maverick]

What I was trying to say is this- and this my be a kick in the teeth which I think is needed here:

The definition of a prospect is a potential buyer or customer. You have yet to define a industry, target market or target customer so these are not prospects. You push prospects through the sales funnel yet you do not have a sales funnel.

The value of your list of "prospects"=$0. Adding more people to the list doesn't actually mean anything. If these are small business owners and you ask them what their biggest problems are then I can tell you now already: I need more customers, resources or time.

The whole process sounds like something from an "expert forum" that you pay to turn you into an entrepreneur.

You have a business in the tutoring space, with customers that have specific needs that you must fulfill (hence why they are customers). Using your domain knowledge and access to these customers, why don't you open a dialogue with them so that you 100% fulfill their needs?

 

[Young-Gun]

What I was trying to say is this- and this my be a kick in the teeth which I think is needed here:

The definition of a prospect is a potential buyer or customer. You have yet to define a industry, target market or target customer so these are not prospects. You push prospects through the sales funnel yet you do not have a sales funnel.

The value of your list of "prospects"=$0. Adding more people to the list doesn't actually mean anything. If these are small business owners and you ask them what their biggest problems are then I can tell you now already: I need more customers, resources or time.

The whole process sounds like something from an "expert forum" that you pay to turn you into an entrepreneur.

You have a business in the tutoring space, with customers that have specific needs that you must fulfill (hence why they are customers). Using your domain knowledge and access to these customers, why don't you open a dialogue with them so that you 100% fulfill their needs?

Facepalm. Never mind dude, go find another thread.
These are questions answered multiple times throughout the thread already.

 

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[maverick]

Will leave it at this as I am too old for a flamewar. I call it as I see it.

Perhaps you should also take notice of the fact that you don't seem to get much engagement from the most respected folk on this forum.

 

[ReubenA]

RE: scraping, use ScrapeBox. Bit of a learning curve but it's amazing for scraping

dunno if it'd be worth the setup time (probably not).. but you could use ScrapeBox to scrape a tonne of sites, export them to CSV, then write a python script to parse it, get the emails, verify said emails, and automatically send them to Quickmail

 

[JDC]

Perhaps you should also take notice of the fact that you don't seem to get much engagement from the most respected folk on this forum.

Holy jeez.

 

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[Young-Gun]

Will leave it at this as I am too old for a flamewar. I call it as I see it.

Perhaps you should also take notice of the fact that you don't seem to get much engagement from the most respected folk on this forum.

I suppose if that was my purpose, it would bother me.

 

[Young-Gun]

For the rest of people reading this thread, sorry for the bad vibes. Will update and respond tonight! At tutoring biz right now.

 

[Young-Gun]

Quick Update from late Sunday night:
Busy day of Tutoring Biz and Life; still found several hours to devote to SaaS progress.

- 317 Interview Prospects loaded into QuickMail.
Using the method recently developed, I added 317 more Interview Prospects into the Cold Email funnel.

- Another Customer Development Interview scheduled for tomorrow morning.
This will be Interview #2 in "Major Industry A".
Looking forward to talking to a new potential customer!
Most of all, just want to learn something about someone else's life... see how I can help them.

- Auto Cold Email Sequences set to double starting tomorrow (Mon-Thurs).
We'll be going up 2x on our Cold Emails, from about 50 New Sequences per day.
Now it's set at about 100 per day.
We should expect to see twice as many Interviews scheduled (one would hope).

- Helped my close friend with his Business / Creative ideas.
Always fun to give something back to a friend.

Gotta go for now - more updates tomorrow!
Have a great night everyone!

 

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[Young-Gun]

Early morning SaaS update for Monday:
It's a day off from going to Tutoring Office. I could have slept in till Noon. But I was up with the sun and a big pot of coffee (and my cat to keep me company on my desk).

Why? Because I had another Customer Development Interview just a few moments ago!
Hot damn, my adrenaline is still pumping.

I learned *so much* in just 15 minutes of Interviewing a Potential Customer.
Here's a sampling:

• Already found a Major NEED that this Prospect would gladly pay $$$ for. I could hear the Prospect getting EXCITED as we co-described this NEED and (an imaginary) Solution. Picture a person getting so excited about your Product Idea that they do the math in their head and realize... "Oh, actually I'd pay you double what I said at first, and it would still definitely be worth it to me." Because that's exactly what happened. Starting to understand why I'm so big on these Customer Interviews before I build the business?

When people are screaming "Shut up and take my money," THEN I will invest the time to build what they are asking for.

• Got an outline of where this Prospect goes to learn New Industry Knowledge. (This would be a great place for early Bootstrapping with Free Marketing like Blog Posts and Social Engagement; then later, Scaling to the same places with Paid Advertising.)

• Learned specifically what I did in my Cold Email that made this Prospect willing to speak to me on just the basis of one Cold Email. In their words, I "came off as nice, humble, and gave an easy way out if [Prospect] wasn't interested."

• Learned more about "a day in the life" of this potential Industry / Customer Group. Got a better sense of the Industry in general.

• Practiced my Interview Technique (I'm sure there will be dozens, or hundreds more Interviews in the coming months). Each time, I feel smoother and more polished. I almost "started talking" in this Interview, but then I reined it in. In my head I just told myself "shut the f*ck up, when you listen back to this recording you will NOT want to hear the sound of your own voice talking over the Interviewee." Talk just enough to build rapport, provide questions, and encouragement to your Interview Subject. Other than that, you really don't need to say anything at all.

I'd usually wait to update tonight, but it just feels too damn good after that Interview.
And I learned so much, that if I didn't share some of it right now, tonight's post would be the length of "War and Peace."

Today I will press forward on Prospecting for more Interviews.
I also have some Life stuff to attend to.
But should be able to make good progress on the Software company.

This is going exactly as I've foreseen. I feel like a goddamn Jedi.
Let's rock and roll. Good luck to everyone reading, and work hard today.

Riva Ferrari 32

 

[Young-Gun]

Monday night update:
Another great day.
I was SO sleepy in the afternoon from excitement + lack of sleep recently.
So I took a nap, lol. It was kind of an accident, I just passed out.

Anyway, still got a LOT done today after the Interview this morning, and got even more Interviews scheduled!
Here's the rundown:

• 60x Cold Email sequences started on New Prospects.
• 47x follow-up Emails sent to Prospects who haven't responded yet.
• *3x* New Customer Interviews Scheduled!
• 2x other Prospects said "I'd be happy to talk" or "Call me," but haven't scheduled quite yet.
• *348 New Prospects* added to QuickMail.
• Brought my total to over 2000 Local Interview Prospects today. My target (for now) is still 2500 Prospects. That should give me the 40-60 interviews I want in this first Industry.

Hope y'all have had a great day! I think I'm calling it a night.

 

[inputchip]

RE: scraping, use ScrapeBox. Bit of a learning curve but it's amazing for scraping

dunno if it'd be worth the setup time (probably not).. but you could use ScrapeBox to scrape a tonne of sites, export them to CSV, then write a python script to parse it, get the emails, verify said emails, and automatically send them to Quickmail

It's actually not that hard to setup a scraper yourself with a small python script. I have done it multiple times and I am a newb coder. However you have to be aware that most website owners frown upon scraping, so be careful not to hit their servers too hard. As an added bonus @Young-Gun this would continue to expand your Python knowledge with a real-world problem.

Here's a good tutorial for those interested:

View: https://youtu.be/3xQTJi2tqgk

 

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[ReubenA]

It's actually not that hard to setup a scraper yourself with a small python script. I have done it multiple times and I am a newb coder. However you have to be aware that most website owners frown upon scraping, so be careful not to hit their servers too hard. As an added bonus @Young-Gun this would continue to expand your Python knowledge with a real-world problem

Depends what you're scraping - I was thinking search engines for him to find new sites to contact.. there's a lot of problems that come up trying to scrape Google that aren't so simple, which Scrapebox can handle for you. If it's some random site then yeah, make it yourself.

But yeah it'll teach you essential knowledge.. you'll need to learn how to work with APIs and HTTP requests (for sending leads to Quickmail)

Also another tip: you can scrape domain owner email addresses from whois directories, I know there's a good Ruby plugin that does this, not sure about Python. Look it up

 

[Young-Gun]

Hey readers,
I missed a day of posting. Just passed out at the end of the day. Sorry - I've been working myself to the bone. Probably too hard.

If it makes it any better, my last thought before passing out was "shit, I forgot to post on the Fastlane Forum."

I've been getting up early for interviews and working late on Tutoring biz. A few people have flaked, but several more have provided great NEED interviews.

I need to build a mini follow-up sequence for people who miss the interview.

Anyway, I've had a couple great interviews as well.

*5* more "Industry A" interviews scheduled for the coming week.
Not too bad, eh?
After the last 4 interviews, I think I have my technical approach nailed down.

Ok, I have to bail for tonight. It's almost midnight, and I've been awake (and working 85% of the day) since about 6 AM.
Gonna be up early for two more interviews tomorrow.

Have to prevent burnout. There is just so much going on.
Tutoring Biz, Life, SaaS Research.

Sorry if the posts get a little less detailed for a while (or perhaps that's a good thing?)
See you tomorrow

 

[Young-Gun]

Thursday night

- Did another 2 NEED interviews for SaaS Industry A, they went well
- still sending cold emails
- Insanely busy with Tutoring Biz and some Life stuff

Sleep now (posting from bed)

 

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[Young-Gun]

Friday night update - another good Interview and a day of rest:

- Did a long NEED Interview in Industry A (double-length, nearly half an hour). I learned a lot; it was another very friendly interview. She volunteered to let me keep interviewing for extra time, even though she had a busy day.
- Spent most of the afternoon resting, I'm completely exhausted from the past 6 days. Friday is my "traditional" one day off per week, so I don't feel bad.
- 4 upcoming Customer Development interviews scheduled for next week. Not too shabby, right? Considering I no longer lift a finger; my system keeps getting them scheduled for me completely automatically.
- More automated Cold Emails will go out on Mon-Thurs of next week, and get more Interviews.

Just wanted to remark - as of today, I have *6* completed Interview recordings.
That's over 90 minutes of Potential Customers talking about their Needs, Wants, Fears, Challenges, Repetitive Tasks, all targeted around a single industry / audience.
I have these recordings - and NO ONE ELSE has them! I own the *only copies* of these Need-Focused Interviews!

Business Amateurs may say "so what, there is no monetary value in that."

WRONG.

Refer to the CENTS framework of TMF .

These Interview Recordings are crystallized drops of *NEED*.
They are under my complete *CONTROL*.
The energy I've put into obtaining these recordings is *ENTRY*. This has been difficult and time-consuming. It's also required planning and persistence.

Do the recordings satisfy *SCALE* and *TIME*?
No, because I must do them myself.
BUT my Automatic Cold Email + Interview Calendar helps optimize my Scale and Time factors by leveraging computer systems for more scale with less time.

And in the future, I *could* have a trusted employee do the Need Interviews for me. They'll be able to use the Systems I've already built. This would allow my Software Company to develop more software, more income streams, with less Time invested from me.

The Scale and Time will really come from my *solution* to the NEED I choose to focus on.

By taking my time to solve the Right Problem, to get all the CENTS commandments as near a 10 out of 10 as possible, I'm putting all the Odds on My Side.

I'm not desperate for cash. The Tutoring Biz is keeping me well-fed, although a bit busy. I'm taking my time, aiming carefully, for a HUGE hit. For Yacht Money.

As you can see, I've stayed pure to the CENTS commandments.
If you go back to the *FIRST PAGE* of this thread, over 2 months ago, you'll see that has *ALWAYS* been my central guiding star.

The whole Interview process could easily be repeated for multiple other Industries or "Verticals."

My direction may seem unclear, but my purpose is not.
If I keep at it, the Needs will become more and more clear.
Each 10 or 20 Interviews, I plan to put Cold Emails on Pause, and spent some time going over the Interview Recordings with Pen and Paper... searching for NEEDS that were mentioned; categorizing, organizing, prioritizing.
Then I can use this "refined information" to guide and improve the next 10 or 20 Interviews, etc.

At a certain point I'll start Proposing Solutions in Interviews, rather than Identifying Needs. But, there's a ways to go before that point.

Will update tomorrow! Good luck to you!

Ronin

 

[Young-Gun]

Morning Thoughts on Huge and Ambitious Projects

I recognize that I have hit the "Intermediate" part of this project.
The easy excitement of the beginning has worn off.

I know that between "Beginner" and "Advanced" there is a long 'desert of the soul.'
I anticipated it. I will pass through it without fear.

Taking a project from 20% to 60% is often the HARDEST part.
It's frustrating. Anxiety-inducing.
Impatience attempts to take hold.

I have been here many times before.
In Business, Music, Side Projects.

The key is to keep moving forward each day, even if you aren't sure exactly what you're doing.

When you finally reach the Advanced phase (60-80% towards completion) of a project...
That's when everything you did in the Intermediate phase starts to make sense.

Often, the middle of a project only makes sense when you look BACKWARDS, not forwards.

Don't be afraid. Press forward.

 

[JSM]

What I was trying to say is this- and this my be a kick in the teeth which I think is needed here:

The definition of a prospect is a potential buyer or customer. You have yet to define a industry, target market or target customer so these are not prospects. You push prospects through the sales funnel yet you do not have a sales funnel.

The value of your list of "prospects"=$0. Adding more people to the list doesn't actually mean anything. If these are small business owners and you ask them what their biggest problems are then I can tell you now already: I need more customers, resources or time.

The whole process sounds like something from an "expert forum" that you pay to turn you into an entrepreneur.

You have a business in the tutoring space, with customers that have specific needs that you must fulfill (hence why they are customers). Using your domain knowledge and access to these customers, why don't you open a dialogue with them so that you 100% fulfill their needs?

I'm with Maverick here. This thread is 10 pages long, has gone on for over 2 months and you still haven't found ONE need to fill. Quit hoarding your interviews and find needs instead of stacking them up for another 2 months when you could find a need to solve right now. Then kick your coding into overdrive and make a product. And no I haven't read the entire thread but the majority of the posts are the same thing. I do like the pictures of yachts though.

 

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[Young-Gun]

I'm with Maverick here. This thread is 10 pages long, has gone on for over 2 months and you still haven't found ONE need to fill. Quit hoarding your interviews and find needs instead of stacking them up for another 2 months when you could find a need to solve right now. Then kick your coding into overdrive and make a product. And no I haven't read the entire thread but the majority of the posts are the same thing. I do like the pictures of yachts though.

I don't know how to explain to people who can't hear what I'm saying.

10 pages is nothing.
2 months is nothing.

How big is your business?
How much did you make today?
I'm already in the top 5% of global income. It's more than enough for me to be happy where I'm at.
(Edit, make that top .5% after I actually looked up the stat - easy living in the 1st World, to be honest)

Let me be clear:
I experience no rush to deliver the quick-win gratification you seek in dropping in - reading a few posts -
Thinking you've got some great advice to deliver, without being here ON THE GROUND WITH ME.
Every day isn't some different, exciting million dollar explosion.

Have you ever worked a process? Then really, you should understand.
If not:

If you can't read this entire thread, then it's NOT FOR YOU.
If you can't grasp the essential concepts behind the project, it's NOT FOR YOU.
If you don't understand PATIENCE and VISION, it's NOT FOR YOU.
If this thread is boring to you, it's NOT FOR YOU.

If you can't read a 10 page thread, why are you here giving me advice on how to build a business that I expect to take me years?

You're free NOT to read this thread, really you are.

Good luck to all those who understand what I'm attempting (and even to those who don't.)
I wish all living beings good luck, even when you test my patience.

 

[Argue]

Bump. Interested in your progress. Haven't seen any posts in awhile. Hope everything is well!