How did I get 38 willing-to-pay customers before writing code?
artsyeditor.com
artsyeditor.com
Soliciting opinion on a problem you want to solve can be extremely valuable, but it sounds like the author already knew more than enough to put together a 1.0 version.
This is a problem I've had for a number of years. While working on personal projects, commercial or otherwise, I always had a tendency to allow all the peripheral matters (names, websites, logos, mailing lists, teasers) to take time away from the only one that was really important - building the thing and getting it into the hands of testers and users.
Nowadays I make it my number one priority to build a minimally working prototype of whatever I'm trying to solve. By the time I have that then it's usually clear whether the idea will go anywhere, and if it does I have a prototype to iterate on and give to small number of people for further feedback. If your idea and implementation are good this can generate far more interest and potential sales than showing around a mockup with a vague release date.
(*I'm sure that blog post is an attempt to garner interest, much like posting it on HN, so of course it may have more extrinsic value than just 38 potential purchases.)
I feel that you should get at least 10 people to agree they are willing to pay for your product in order to validate it. It might not be true for all scenarios, but it definitely seems valid for the idea that is presented in the blog post.
This is an excellent article that lists some valid points why you should start marketing the day you start coding. http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/10/14/startup-marketing-pa...
The rate of false-positives in people indicating they'd buy something before being pressed to buy it is very high. This is speaking from first-hand experience. Sometimes having 0 customers and seeing whether people will actually buy it is worth more than asking people if they'll buy something without putting it to a real test. In fact, you might come to different conclusions about what is important and not if you go based on what people say they will pay for vs. what they actually pay for.
I'd say you need to do a couple of things. First, provide progress updates while building. Once you're done building and you decide to approach them again, re-iterate the pain points and benefits and try to build back that initial excitement. Also, read up on the principle of consistency in sales (for example pick up the book Influence by Cialdini). The idea is this: if you initially got a written and public commitment from the prospects, then those prospects will keep their word. They may also be less willing to flatter you given that kind of a commitment.
If the product looks & works as well as the mockup suggests, I'd buy it at the price mentioned, and I'm someone who only writes a half dozen or so posts a year.
So why didn't you take their money?
This is probably a good idea:
- to validate your idea with real customers,
- motivate you to actually finish it
- and get a growing list of people who can give you feedback.
Please keep updating as you go. Hopefully this actually gets made since it's a great idea.
$10 to install on unlimited domains and unlimited updates? If you want to offer quality support you'll need to be charging more for the product...
Yes, I'm currently working on it and I'll keep everyone on HN with my progress.
Meanwhile, you can also join the mailing list: http://artsyeditor.com
Something I can get done in a weekend, I'd release it free and Open Source. Plus, lifetime commitment? (for something supposedly dead simple?).
Also, WordPress is going to be integrating a fullscreen clean editor in an upcoming release (from what I hear).
Hope you're able to make it compatible with http://wpml.org as we use this plugin extensively.
Yes and no. Sometimes, with something as simple as this just try scratching your (most urgent) itch.
You can always build on that.