When can I consider a business dead? | Hacker News Reader

When can I consider a business dead?

7 pointsfben20 comments

Recently I launched a new product in a very competitive category, and suddenly for 3 months almost no user who registered , knowing that I added it in several platforms as a producthunt .., I also tried the cold mail but anyway without any success, people don't even want to try my product for free for 14 days, My question, can I concider that my product is dead? if not, can you suggest some effective marketing channels for me, Note that for last 3 months the product has cost me more than $ 100 / month without any active users,

Thank you in advance

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To be frank, it's an almost impossible question to answer without specifics. It's a lot like asking "how do I know if my code solution that doesn't work is the completely wrong idea?"

It's quite possible that it is the right idea, and with one minor change the whole thing falls into place and works.

Without the specifics of your service:

* Are you reaching the right market?

* Have you done any analytics (are people hitting your site and immediately bouncing or is no one even going there)?

* Have you tried different pricing schemes? Even 100% free just to start getting real users, real feedback, and word of mouth?

My product is just an uptime monitoring service to check website ; state and notify their users through multiple channels like email, SMS, and Slack. so I think it's not a new idea and the market is already validated Here are some data analytics: - visitors: 1200 - page views: 2300 - Bounce rate: + 65% Regarding the pricing plan, at the moment I only have paid offers with a 14 day free trial but I am considering a new free offer as you said, at least to have real customers

I'm just spitballing random thoughts...

Making the "check website" free (forever) should be pretty simple, but that's really only a part of what's valuable. Things that could be add-ons to encourage a subscription once verified that the service is simple, works, and saves time:

* Additional subdomain checks.

* Deep page checks: JS, CSS, images, everything beyond the initial HTML and "yes, I received an OK 200". Make sure the whole page loads.

* Test that intra-site links on the page (e.g. page "/a.html" links to "/b.html") work.

* Report any JS errors on page loads. Also and console.log output and "debug" things like map files, Vue.js/React tools that shouldn't be enabled in production, etc.

* Test with different User-Agents to follow any redirects (e.g. to mobile subdomains) to ensure the site is doing the right thing.

* Use libraries to fully load the page(s) using different browsers and devices, capture them, and show thumbnails/screenshots of the page fully rendered across browsers and devices.

* Provide a REST API so that as part of a CI process someone can call it and have their dev site tested.

* Test REST APIs, logins, analytics, etc. for sites where users can create specific tests that run. Also test correct response codes for expected failures (e.g. access denied).

Anyway, there's likely other services that do similar things. I'm not experienced enough in this area to know all of them, but the above are things that I wish were easier for me - and my team - to test regularly.

Hope some of this helps.

Thank you for your excellent suggestions, I will try to build and integrate some of your points and hope we can see a little good result

Your product is dead when you want it to be or you've tried a million things that make sense and it just isn't working. It could be now, or later after you've tried 100-1,000 more things and you are getting the same results.

You have to decide how to use your time and energy. They are precious limited resources. That might mean cutting your losses and doing something else now, whatever that is (including resting). It might mean trying more things on this project.

If $100 a month isn't a lot to you, and you're interested in making this project work, learning more, and getting better at creating a business, I'd do more work on it. You can apply what you learn to any other project you do, and some jobs as well.

You are getting some feedback (low sign ups, no paying users). You know alternatives exist that are getting some paid users. So you know something isn't working but you don't know what. It could be all sorts of things. Framing (copy, design), pricing, emails or lacks of emails (their subject line, what they say, etc). So many things and their combination could be the problem.

Have you read the Mom Test? Here's a summary: https://www.slideshare.net/xamde/summary-of-the-mom-test

Here's a great guide about growth, marketing, writing copy,ads, etc: https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/intro

I'd recommend getting more feedback from potential users to figure out what to change, and tinker with the website, pricing, and framing to get some users and paying users. Consider targeting a small niche of users, focusing on a sub-sub-group whose needs aren't being met with current offerings or specific feature that is lacking.

As I spent more than 700 hours in application development, I think ... no I decided that I should never give up easily and I will try all possible channels, thank you very much for your explanation and motivation

Would people use your product (or a version of your product) for free?

And then, could you package some feature to sell as a premium on top of the free version that would make people convert?

Either way, do you track your conversion channels to see if you attract views and how it transforms at each step? (how many people notice your product, how many look into it, how many try it [0 here if I understand])

How do you promote it (other than cold emails)?

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear in my question Actually I don't have a totally free offer but rather a paid offer with a 14 day free trial, And regarding the registrations, I was able to get about 5 registrations but no paying user, I receive them after trying the cold mail,

And most of my visitors come out of the pricing page, I think that the pricing is not suited to my offer but the problem that there are products in market with the same features, more expensive and work well

A business is dead when you run out of positive free cash flow.

AND you are no longer willing to finance it (inject your own or other people's capital).

I consider a project dead once I feel that's "better" (whatever it means in the specific context) to invest my time in something else. Or if I feel that I'm not able to scale/grow it more than it is.

I feel that I have tried all the possible channels but I believe 3 months is not enough to abandon the product knowing that I have invested more than 700 hours in its development

I looked at your landing page and I don't know how it's different from its competitors except that it lacks features that your competitors have. Why should I choose it over Pingdom for example?

Currently, the main difference is the simplicity that I offer in my app, simple and easy to start monitoring without difficulty, but as you said I don't have enough features to compete with others

Is this poster allowed to post their thing for us to see? Please post your biz.

Here is my landing page:, what do you think I am doing wrong? and I accept any suggestion that could improve my business

What channels have you tried, specifically?

- SEO : I'm working on it but it takes a long time to see some results - PrductHunt : Failed launch with just 24 votes - Cold mail

You seem to be missing the most important one - direct conversation with people who have the problem your business solves. If you don't already know at least a couple people to be your pilot users, you are truly fighting an uphill battle.

Can you help me suggest what to do or what to suggest to have pilot users?

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