Ask HN: A Common Dilemma for Startup Owners

> The numbers are great: 194 impressions, 6 clicks, but zero conversions

that's a wrong mindset, the numbers are terrible. If you invested 10x more you would lose 10x more money. It would only start to be good if it had at least one conversion.

Which might indicate that you don't have a good product.

It really depends on your product, but cold emails / DMs still works if you try enough times. Launching on product hunt, HN at least gets some eyeballs and maybe some of those eyeballs convert to people who try your product.

Cold emailing could work. But I wouldn't say it's worth it, because the effort you put into building a mailing list could be spent on something more productive and effective. Really depends on the team size.

Product hunt is debatable. I feel like it's a platform for more established products rather than new ones. Launched once, went crazy on socials, and eventually I got 5 upvotes, which is pretty decent already for a small SaaS.

> What exactly is the secret ingredient to get, at least, more users for my product?

There isn't. If there was everyone would be rich. That's not how it works.

You're reading too much into media incensed stories.

No 1 really woke up, suddenly had this idea to save the world and became a millionaire.

What they didn't tell you is they already had rich connections, had 20x failed startups prior or something else.

(Of course, there are those 0.001% lucky 1s, but in general)

That's interesting. And you're right. One thing I think is worth mentioning is that social media polarized this kind of thinking, which could be an issue; I am affected myself.

I think the secret ingredient is to stick closer to the benchmarks (e.g., views, installs...) and experiment; it could take a long time. I might be incorrect; that's why I am willing to look into more perspectives.

> I think the secret ingredient is

There isn't for normal folks. It's just survivor bias and "rewriting history".

Most just grind it out, e.g. cold calls, emails, etc.

> social media polarized this kind of thinking

Social media is a scam though. >80% of those were proven / caught to be fake, e.g. "influencers" never had a sponsor. They edited photos to make it look like they went abroad, purchased the "sponsored" product to claim sponsorship etc.

That is actually insightful.

My friend actually got his first 200 users from cold DMs. But it's on his co-founder's side, so he didn't know much about it; I couldn't get much about it. I think the most difficult part is finding strangers who would use your product online.

There are only two scenarios that will get you users

- The user is a friend of yours - The pain you are eliminating is big enough that they want your product

As for the social media part, I didn't really expect that. I was so anxious seeing people going ahead of me on socials, especially since they have made more progress (more sponsors, winning on benchmarks).

Probably a mindset to fix after hearing what you've said.

Up until I realized you don't have to compare with people in different lanes, it gets better. Also, not everything is real on socials. So, I was like, meh.

> The numbers are great: 194 impressions, 6 clicks, but zero conversions.

You can expect only a small percentage of people who click to subscribe. A sample size of 6 is too small to draw any conclusions. I would say that you have not paid enough money for advertising to know if it works or not.

But the reason people say to use your network isn’t really for finding customers - it’s to get feedback from potential customers. That is way more valuable than any money they might give you. It’s pretty uncommon to have instant product-market fit. A lot of startups have to make significant changes to the product or pivot entirely to become successful.

One of the things I learned from real customers is that not everyone uses a computer the same way I do, and things that I assumed everyone did are not as common as I thought. It changed how I design software and such a lesson is difficult to learn when you’re just in your own bubble.

Relatable lol.

Launched my product and now it's on day 7. I have a $60 budget on the ad test. I know a guy who said advertising your product on launch is stupid. For B2B, perhaps. But I am in the big B2C family.

But I think the most valuable thing you can get from an early ad campaign is whether your product is working or not; the common question, "Do people want it?"

My CTR is now on 3.55%, which indicates a good ratio of clicks to impressions. I know people kind of want my thing right now. It is also because I built my product upon pain.

But you pointed out a crucial thing: yes, it is still too early to conclude.

I think the average clicks-to-sign-ups rate is around 3%. There wasn't a lot of data or trends to observe.

I have also gotten valuable feedback from my friends. It taught me the same thing as you mentioned. You'll miss a lot of things during development. I've learned that before, I pivoted my product completely to something simple and different. However, there will still be things you miss; it is unpredictable. I concur.