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Ask HN: Should I focus on getting API customers or direct customers?

5 点作者 paulsingh超过 15 年前
I started SnailPad (www.snailpad.com) sort of as a joke about 3 months ago. Now I've got a decent number of direct customers and a few API customers using the service. The volume has helped me justify (and pay for) some pretty badass hardware that I've hacked together to automate most of the process.<p>I've learned that API customers tend to give me more volume with less margins but require a pretty long sales cycle (it takes time to convince them, have them try the API, receive a few samples, bite the bullet, etc).<p>I've learned that direct customers are lower volume with (much, much) higher margins and, generally speaking, are pretty quick to get onboarded.<p>At this point, it's still just me doing the coding, bizdev, mailing, etc (read: everything) and I'm having a hard time trying to figure which of those customer types is "better" way for me to continue <i>organically</i> growing the business.<p>What would you do?

3 条评论

patio11超过 15 年前
You have far, far more intestinal fortitude than I do to go into that business. (It involves marginal work and low margins. Yikes -- software sounds so much better.)<p>I'd say "both". My reasoning is that you can use the B2C customers as the kindling to light the B2B fire -- they're cheap, easy to service, and numerous. Get them to do your marketing for you. (You can use your existing technology to quickly roll out linkbait mini-projects: web form + visual design + PDFification + a letter physically delivered to grandma = instant remarkable content. You can launch one of these a week: Send A Solider A Valentine, for example. That is probably a little late but you get the general tenor of the sort of emotional buttons I'd suggest you push.)<p>This gives you something to do while waiting for the phone to ring on the B2B deals, and will help you with SEO. Why focus on B2B over the long term? Well, it allows you to have much more predictable revenue, and having a lifetime customer value which could buy a pizza is very helpful once you start think of incremental-cost marketing options like, say, AdWords.<p>Mind if I give you the same advice I gave cperciva? Thirty minutes on that home page will double your sales. Heck, if you're in a hurry, you can do it in two: put a BIG OBVIOUS BUTTON on it. I don't know, 10 kilopixels of big. Maybe bigger.<p>If you have graphical talent, something I lack, I'd collapse the entire sales pitch into an illustrated:<p>1) Put in address 2) Type letter (We take PDFs, too!) 3) Pay money and it gets mailed<p>I'd put the API &#38; login links in the top corner and the bottom of your textual description, or somewhere similarly discrete. (The audience for those is very different than the audience who you want converting within 90 seconds of landing on your site.)
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bensummers超过 15 年前
Have you done the sums? Factoring in sales volume, your time (dev + support), marketing costs, growth curve, etc?<p>Numbers always beat guesses. See anything patio11 writes. :-)
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wakeupthedawn超过 15 年前
You're charging $3 per stamp w/o a plan and at best $1 per stamp with the intro plan?! Wow! It's cool that you're able to attract customers at those margins.<p>I'm a bit confused as to why your API customers are given better rates (I assume this is why you have lower margins with them). Why not use the regular rates and give an API key to every customer who wants one?
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