Ask HN: Is it time to give up on my side project?

One of the problems with developing a product for non-profits and churches is that you run into needing to have your offering assessed by a committee before a decision can be made.

Rather than one business owner or individual being able to say yes, what happens is someone will need to propose the idea to the board/church council etc. and then it will be debated, and perhaps might get the go-ahead. More likely than not however someone in that group will have some objection, or say "my nephew is good with computers - he can do that!" It's going to be a very high-touch environment to work in, and probably not great as a side project just because of the time you will spend.

Could you perhaps target people who design sites for these organizations? They are already doing the high touch sales - perhaps you could come in as the technical partner. That way you'd be selling the reassurance of all the backend technical support, the backups, the CDN etc. but not dealing directly with the end customer but instead hopefully a local web designer who has several of these types of clients.

"my nephew is good with computers - he can do that!"

Haha um yes.

Thanks for the thoughts. Your suggestion about partnering up with some companies that already have a foot in the door is a great idea. I'll definitely be thinking that through.

Definitely add an unlimited plan at a higher price point if that's what they have voiced concerns over previously.

Plus committees like choice so lay out a few options/plans and detail out things they might ask about.

I would stress things like unlimited, custom, support, CMS and downplay things like wordpress/themes.

I would also offer a higher price point where you maintain their website . . . maybe with once a month or once a week batches of changes . . . this could minimize WP training and them breaking things trying to learn WP or stressing about having a member make updates.

btw, if you get a client taxing the limits of the bandwidth you were expecting them to use on your azure vm set them up on a shared hostgator plan . . . just set the price point of the unlimited so you can cover that if needed.

"my nephew is good with computers - he can do that!"

Think about expanding your services to include things their nephew can't do . . .

Setup donations via stripe on the website . . .

A web application for events, event sign ups, prayer lists, etc . . .

As far as decisions typically being made by committees . . . test out asking for a letter of feedback, questions, concerns from committees considering your service . . . then you'll see what they are thinking about and can respond with an outline of responses to seal the deal . . . plus use the feedback to improve your plans/marketing.

Churches do seem to be a difficult sell . . . but there are companies that do well in that niche . . . there is a local company that has a saas book keeping app with a focus on churches that I know is doing well.

I would try some recommendations you received and see what happens . . .

Good luck turning things around . . .

It sounds like you either haven't identified a need or haven't identified the right solution for that need (I'm guessing the latter).

I'm willing to bet you could gather some more customer feedback, but let's consider the item you mentioned:

"I don't offer "unlimited" everything"

My guess of what the customer is telling you is that because they don't understand the technical side of things, they are worried they will end up paying more in fees / overages. Same reason cell phone companies are offering unlimited plans - they provide comfort that you won't go over.

How do hostgator and many others offer Unlimited Disk Storage & Bandwith for such a low price? Because they know that even if they posted real limits, most customers won't even go close to those, and I bet they deal directly with those that do to optimize. Saying "Unlimited" is worth the (likely small) risk to close the deal. Listen to the customer, they're telling you what they want!

Something to consider, not sure how they would respond - what if you charged by the size of the organization (churches : church members)? That would loosely approximate bandwidth, and probably make sense to your customer.

One other thing I would point out, a little customization goes a long way. Can you offer to customize the site for their organization, or their specific needs, for low cost or free? You want a recurring customer, right? Put in a little work up front (show them their possible site?) and you may have a better chance of closing the deal. IMO, for non-technical clients, it's much easier to sell them on something they can see.

I wouldn't give up on this just yet, I think it's a nice niche, but you really need to understand the customer needs and why they would or wouldn't make a purchase decision.

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

You make a good point about offering "unlimited" resources. This early in the game, I have nothing to lose and it would be a selling point.

As far as customization goes, that basically falls under setting the website up. So, essentially yeah I mean a logo will be uploaded, colors will match their branding, the homepage will have user selected elements etc. etc.

Then offer unlimited, right? Even if it means raising your prices, then your clients would probably like paying more knowing that pricing is predictable.

Also, I think a free trial would be nice. Just set everything up and then show it to them. Hard to say no to that.

And like patio11 recommended in one of his blog posts, write up a checklist of every feature, something that can be printed out and passed around to the decision makers.

I think you also need to make sure you're emphasizing how the site can help boost their attendance and donations and lower their administrative costs. And on that note, have you added many donation-related features? E.g., a meter to reach goals, themed donation drives, paypal/credit integration, and maybe an online merch store for church goods?

Thanks for the input and suggestions. The problem with a free trial is that the websites are built on WordPress. No matter what the WordPress community wants to think about the CMS, it's not the most user friendly piece of software for people are only comfortable with sending emails and checking Facebook. My target audience is very non-technical so training is always included before sites are turned over.

I toyed around with a free trial but found it wasn't a good idea because no one knew how to use the WordPress backend.

>I think you also need to make sure you're emphasizing how the site can help boost their attendance and donations and lower their administrative costs

This is definitely true and something I need to work on. One of my biggest obstacles is writing content that will clearly explain the advantages of utilizing a website instead of just having a "brochure site" thrown up on some random host.

Who is your target customer? You mention churches and non-profits, but why do they build/setup a website. How is your product helping them address this?

In short, they build sites to provide people with information/services. A lot of these orgs have very basic websites and they don't use the websites as tools to further their goals.

My product helps them by basically doing everything for them. They don't have to worry about registering a domain name, setting up the hosting account, setting up the website, modifying it to look good, installing updates, running backups etc. etc.

I sent you an email.