I am spending my time developing a free tool for developers.<p>The tool is entirely free, not gated by login walls or anything like that.<p>I know with a high degree of confidence that the vast majority of the users that I approach are my target audience, i.e. they have the need for the exact service that I am asking them to test.<p>I know this mostly because it is a very well defined circle of people (QA engineers beginning to learn specific software) and because it has a high-level of stickiness for people who do end up trying it.<p>My problem though is the initial reach out. It seems like no matter how I try to wrangle the conversation, the receiving person thinks that I am trying to get them to buy something.<p>I approach every lead in a private Slack server, through 1:1s. A typical conversation goes something like this:<p>> me: Hey, welcome to X. How good is your Y?<p>> them: Hey! I am a complete noob<p>> me: Let me know if I can help you answering any of your questions.<p>> them: Thanks. Will do!<p>Up to this point the conversation is Okay.<p>Now it seems no matter how I introduce the product next, this is where the other person feels swindled, e.g. I will say: "I've built a X tool which can answer your questions as a novice. Would you be up to try it?" or simply "Have you already heard of X? It can answer..." only about 3 in 10 say they want to try it.<p>One could argue that I should build up the conversation more, but that is neither scalable, nor do I want to waste their time.<p>Would love to hear from HN crowd on what would increase my odds of engagement.
<p><pre><code> the receiving person thinks that I am trying to get them to buy something.
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You're calling them a "lead" - and you _are_ trying to get them to "buy" something: you're trying to get them to trade their time and effort for whatever it is your tool might be able to do for them.<p><pre><code> One could argue that I should build up the conversation more
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If you don't want people to think you're only talking to them to sell them something, declaring non-sales conversations "not scalable" is a rough place to start from.