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> More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about.

> I feel like I have a reasonable barometer for what's useful

Those two statements right there are holding you back. 1) You should ALWAYS be considering features that users want if you're trying to become profitable. If this was a charity app then sure, do whatever you want. BUT this is not, according to your blog. Put the user's needs before your own. 2) You may have a decent feel of what it takes to learn a language but I bet you a day of true market research would open your eyes to features/enhancements that you would have never even considered.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I think the app is really cool!

Just to clarify. I certainly listen to my users. I may even err too much on the side of adding everything they ask for, leading to a more complicated product. (e.g. here are the completed items on Readlang's uservoice page: https://readlang.uservoice.com/forums/192149-general/status/..., and more suggestions come in via private channels too)

The thing is choosing which users to listen to. For now, I've decided to make an awesome tool for individual learners. So I'm listening more to them, as well as my own gut feeling.

You should listen to haggy. He's correct about considering features that your users want. In this case, if you're looking to make the big bucks then expanding to businesses is a great route (the businesses would be your users). I understand that you made this for yourself but you don't have to sacrifice the freemium feel while still offering commercial services to businesses.

I agree. Have you looked spoken with businesses?

B2B is a lot easier than B2C. I've also fell into the trap of 'building for myself'. I kind of think that's bullshit. Sure you might start an idea to solve your own itch, but I feel like 'building for myself' is akin to falling in love with the solution vs falling in love with the problem.

You need to be building for paying customers (especially if you're bootstrapping). Would it be too hard to add more features and slap on a 'Pro' or 'Business version'?

Also, any possibility of licensing or 'white labeling' your solution?

It's great that your revenues are going up though. I wish you good luck on your venture!

I did develop some features for teachers and got a few of them using it with their classes. Despite a few shows of interest, no-one actually paid anything for it. On top of that, they wanted a bunch of features that would take my time in development and support, leading to a weaker product for individuals.

Creating a product for schools and businesses requires creating:

1. A great experience for the learners.

2. A great experience for the administrators and teachers.

I'm focussed on part 1, and building a business around it selling direct to individuals. I can always add part 2 later.

> You should listen to haggy. He's correct

Hm, I must have missed the part of the original post which says "Gosh, I'm so happy to live in a black and white world where my only motivation is monetary."

steveridout, go you. You're quietly making the world the kind of place you want it to be. You're an inspiration.

Yet the post largely focuses on the money he's made?

No, you missed the part of the original post which says that the author is poorer than a minimum wage worker in McDonald's, and is quite unhappy about that state of affairs. Which is a pity, because that was the largest and most conspicuous part of the post.

There is nothing inspiring about living in poverty, particularly when it would be quite avoidable if one would only stop listening to inaccurate gut feelings.

That having been said, if the author has actually made a considered decision that, when all the tradeoffs are taken into account, poverty is what he wants, that is by all means his decision to make. But it's not clear from what he's written so far that this really is his considered decision, so the advice is worth giving.

Oh HN and unsolicited startup advice. A blog post and 2 minutes and you've pattern matched your way to a solution. Bravo.

Dear OP, please ignore all this sage advice from people in cushy tech jobs telling you what you should do with your baby. Life is hard. We never know if we're making the right decisions. But it sounds like you have a clear vision that is driving you - that is priceless. Don't sell it away for the smart "business" move, when you already know what you should be doing.

> [OP] I’ve worked hard for 3 years and am still making less than minimum wage.

> But it sounds like you have a clear vision that is driving you

I merely suggested that he consider expanding to businesses. I'm in no position to give advice about how to run a business but why not try?

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It's interesting that you use the phrase 'sell it away'. That's exactly what one should be doing as a business.

I stumbled my way into product-market fit by designing something that was useful to me personally, and finding that actual profitability was in the mainstream--- people who were my exact opposites in terms of tastes but still strained to use my product for themselves because it was the only thing serving a similar need.

Right now they are 98% of my client base and I struggle with the fact that I don't intuitively understand their needs. I don't have a clear vision, and instead have to do user research on a constant basis.

It took me seven years to reach that point. For the first 7 years, I was ramen profitable--certainly nothing to quit a day job about. On year 7, I made a single switch and within 1 year earned 3x the previous years revenue. The 2nd year, I earned 10x the pre-pivot revenue.

I went from being able to feed myself (barely), to being able to buy a house and support a family. Is that a fair trade off, I think it is... but your mileage may vary.

I see the 'don't sell out' motivation from a lot of small business owners in my community. For another example, there is... well was... a small greek chicken joint that operated for 15 years nearby. The owner was 1st generation american, and all he wanted to do was cook his family recipes and share them with the community. Problem is the community changed in the past decade, going from being mostly European-heritage to N. African nationals. His customer base dwindled, and he never changed his stance of doing what he loved.

A month after his restaurant closed, it was replaced with one which served all halal chicken and is now jam packed with more customers than any other business sees. It's success has convinced the owner to expand leftwards into another collapsing business.

Point is... the path to profitability is finding a customer base willing to pay you. It's not important to have a clear vision, if that vision only involves a small number of people.

  It's not important to have a clear vision, if that vision only involves a small number of people.

Absolutely. A clear vision that's wrong does you no good. I know people who work too hard on their idea without testing it. No battle plan ever survives contact with the marketplace.

I believe he's stating that BUSINESSES would want features that he/other users wouldn't care about.

Not that he doesn't care about his users.

I think the main problem for OP are competing tools like Duolingo - Maybe he should try to get in touch with them to see if his product could be complementary to their offering (and work with them)?

This is a long shot but maybe the attention from HN could be enough ammunition to get a conversation started. I think duolingo also shares OP's philosophy of focusing on regular users as opposed to businesses.

I think you're right. Focus on the personal consumers market, its what you enjoy the most so you will do the best work.

I think the splash page need a review by a third party designer. can you get someone on a freelance site to refresh it? I think the spacing is not correct in the bunny and the button. Probably moving the bunny to the left and pushing the title off.

I think the page looks professional, but there is something about it thats not OK can't put my finger on it.

I think the contrast in the yellow bar is wrong. it stands out too much. I would move the content of the bar right bellow the title and remove the yellow background.

I read some design stuff about Content, Repetition, Alignement and Proximity and helps a bit. specially when we look on a page too long and can't see the issues anymore that are apparent to new users.

I think your pricing is wrong, you should not use 5$ its a well known marketing thing.

I would bump it to 6.99$ to new subscribers its probably your optimal price. Or 4.99$ but i think people would pay for it all the same at close to 7$.

Your best marketing tool on the internet is a blog. This gives google a lot more to work with to index your page. You are passionate about the subject I'm sure you would write great posts that would hit front page.

The blog should be on your domain readlang.com/blog. check if ghost.org supports that otherwise go for a subdomain blog.readlang.com, and make links in both directions. Don't put publicity on the blog, it would like allow competition to advertise. Put a home made add to your own product.

Your comment intrigued me so I took a look at the site - agreed, the hierarchy is kind of strange and the primary green color is overused.

Took about 5 minutes rearranging stuff in chrome console: http://imgur.com/uS7AolF

I agree, that looks a lot nicer. Easier on the eyes.

This made my day, not only are people offering much-needed advice (3 years .... this is so painful to read), you're actually offering a free redesign. Thanks for this (because apparently OP is too busy defending his bad decisions)

Thanks - I like it!

I'll do a split test and let you know how it goes.

Please do! I'd love to see the outcome.

Having spent sometime selling a bootstrapped product, your response here all sound really good to me. A problem we had was saying "yes sir, right away sir" to too many people. By the end, our product was more a mashup of what others wanted and not what we wanted.

If immediate crazy startup growth is your desire, maybe you need to hit up businesses. Otherwise, to me it sounds like you've got good growth going, albeit not yet paying full time like everyone would want. Sounds like you ace a lot of potential to become the 5- or 10-year "overnight success."

So anyway, good work sticking to your guns, as then say. Know what you want, and bring people what you think is best. You might not have people banging the door down to give you large sacks of cash, but so what? Growth is there, and with a couple more years it sounds like you could be living pretty fine if you kept it up.

Tons of money doesn't mean success. Your personal happiness does.

> More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about.

I empathize with and often share this way of thinking, even if it's called out as stubbornness or poor business sense.

Doing what you want to do and getting paid > getting paid for doing something you don't want to do.

On the other hand, usually when you are great at something - whatever that something is - and well compensated for it, you grow to love whatever it is you're doing and develop a sense of pride and accomplishment.

This especially applies when the business grows into a company that needs managing. The day-to-day management of two hypothetical Readlangs, the SME-Readlang and CoolVision-Readlang might not differ much at all, while the financial rewards could differ by an order of magnitude.

But I love the product and will definitely use it, and as a user hope you will focus all effort on this - your - vision. Caveat: The product is great; get more users.

1. True. Being passionate about your startup is super-important, so if targeting business would kill it for you, then forget it.

2. I'm not so sure, because your churn is 50% annually. This is going to severely limit your growth. I guess it depends how far you want to take the business. And I'm not sure you can fix the stickiness of your product, as you've said that people leave because they stop studying.

3. True. I guess you could always hire someone with the money from b2b income, so they focused on the business users and you just had fun working with personal users.

4. Sure.

Good luck, and please make sure you post again so we can see how you progress!

[edit: removed the numbers re: churn, as it was too difficult to give an accurate example!]

summary of things that I would change: change the price to 6.99$, add a blog about tips and tricks on how to learn a new language in general not about the product directly. have the review of the splash reduced. Put twitter and facebook buttons visible above the fold.

The guy who you're reply to is right. Selling to businesses will make you more money. Selling only 10 units at $99 a month will generate you $12k a year. Either that, or you need to raise prices significantly for consumers.

> 1. Businesses would want features that individuals don't care about. More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about.

Yes, but they know you don't care about them, which is why they would pay you to care about them. This is what's called being a professional. As in literally being paid for your company's proven skill and expertise.

Companies proven skill and expertise, thats a joke right?

Heres how it works in the real world. Person in a company who knows sweet FA about software design and UX asks you to add a feature cause 'they want it'. Its not cause users asked for it, its cause this person thinks its good idea and they happen to be the boss/client so you don't have a choice. Thus your project is compromised and you die a little inside because of it.

These are complete guesses, but I would expect you could charge businesses more in the order of $50/month per user, if not higher... and just one business might sign up 10 people, which would be $500/month.

That means that a single business signup could be worth 100x a single individual signup.

Individuals are price sensitive to the point where $5/month is still something they have to think hard about. Businesses can spend a great deal more than that.

keep in mind that B2B requires sales. Assuming you are comfortable making sales pitches, also consider the large time requirement you'll have to put into it: constructing your pitch-deck+supplemental materials, executing the sales conversations, and iterating based on feedback.

Maybe there is a middle ground. Sell to businesses or schools who want to offer it to their people for personal use -- i.e. to help them adjust to relocating, or for schools which can't offer full language programs.

Your mentality is garbage, yo! Compile feedback and consider it deeply. Individuals are stupid but groups are smart. We're each individuals, dawg!