We launched http://hallway.chat a couple weeks ago and since then hundreds of teams have signed up. They're all free users, but daily usage is pretty high.<p>Hallway started as a fun side project / "toy app". It creates temporary video rooms in Slack for teams to connect and make working from home less lonely.<p>I wanted to ask if anyone has any ideas about how to think about turning this into an actual business given there seems to be some interest?
This isn't the answer you want. But I have a hobby side project that I've kept going for a decade, and which gets high enough use to feel like it's worth keeping going.<p>It costs server money to run, a couple of take-away-coffees per week's worth. In the past I did agonise about putting ads on it, or otherwise monetizing it.<p>But at some point I decided that as I was lucky enough to have a paying job, the marginal returns I would get by trying to monetize the site wouldn't be worth it, and I was happy to pay for it like any other hobby. The grateful emails I get every couple of weeks make it worthwhile.<p>That was a very liberating decision. Mix business with pleasure and it stops being fun.
This is an ad. This isn't a genuine request for help. They have everything in place to monetize this.<p>They've got two massive companies that I know of using their service: Pivotal and Coursera. They've already got a pricing model in place so it's already monetized.<p>This is an add. People up voting this and acting like it's a sincere request for help have had the wool pulled over their eyes.<p>I'm honestly expecting to be down voted for this, and that's fine, I can understand why my reaction would be seen as negative, unconstructive, and so on, but posts like this go on indiehackers.com, not HN (unless they're genuinely a hobby project on the side.)
- Actually phone up at least one new sign up
per day. Ask why they signed up, what they use it for, how it compares the the others they have used and what would they pay for - unlimited time, number participants whatever. They will try to be nice - assume they lie. most importantly how did they hear of you. Pay attention to the vocabulary they use. What you are trying to get here is your elevator pitch - but told to you by your customers "Video chat right in Slack"<p>- You now have some idea of channels to market - ten people signed up because of a facebook post or because of a linkedin article or a google search - so choose a channel - facebook / linkedin / SEO. Just produce ten articles or pay for ten adverts - and see what traffic changes you get - stick at it - you are looking for a channel
to market. Somewhere somehow there is a way of reaching a potential audience - with a sales pitch you learnt from above you want to find where that sales pitch reaches the most of your potential audience<p>- pricing - this matters less than the above especially as you are aiming at busiesses - I would say Slack has a pricing norm so you may want to charge per user but aim for 30/55/75 or there abouts.<p>- keep trying new sales pitches, and vary the channels you try slowly.<p>-
The same way you turn anything into a business: figure out who will pay how much money for what. Then, figure out how much it will cost you to provide that to them and tell your future customers that you exist. If the former is more than the latter, you might be able to make a viable business.<p>Your existing users might be good leads, or they might not. At the least they see enough value in your offering to use it for free. Talk to them and find out what they think you’re adding, and figure out if that’s something people might pay for.
I have no experience in this other than my app[1]. In my case, I chose a price that was so low that even if a customer encounters a bug, they are still very happy about the software overall.<p>My app is $3.50 and at such a low price, I don't feel obligated to ship many updates - it stays a project I can be passionate about and happy to work on, rather than feeling obligated and indebted. Maybe a good strategy in other situations.<p>[1] <a href="https://videohubapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://videohubapp.com/</a>
OK, so now you have version 1.0 of a product.<p>Read about MVP (Minimum Viable Product) the Wikipedia entry is fine, then the decision tree is as follows:<p>Do you want to try to make a MVP out of this? YES / NO<p>IF YES: establish a budget, a timeline, and tangible metrics and go for it<p>IF NO, new decisions tree: Pivot existing product OR scratch it and start a new one (using the knowledge acquired building this and the MVP knowledge)
<a href="https://coda.io/@rahulvohra/superhuman-product-market-fit-engine" rel="nofollow">https://coda.io/@rahulvohra/superhuman-product-market-fit-en...</a><p>This is always a great resource for keeping that product market fit loop really tight.
Long time League of Legends fan/player + a hedge fund SWE here. Got intrigued into modeling basics (data engineering/research/simulation/pnl monitoring) and decided to try a quant approach to Daily Fantasy Sports for LOL, which has been empirically successful because the game is against other human participants, not the house. Wanted to share my experience of turning a real life hobby+job experience into a side income generating project
First question you need to ask: why would someone pay you $30/month to add something to Slack?<p>The answer to that question is going to be a mystery to anyone reading your homepage. "make working from home less lonely" - I don't know what that means, but I don't know many individuals that want to pay $30/month for it, and it's not a very compelling argument for a business either when the economy is in the toilet and getting worse every day.
Make paying mandatory after 45 days of use for new users, keep it free for the current users.<p>Ask for a monthly fee. The only way to know if users are willing to pay for a service is to make it mandatory to pay and see if people pay, as long as you refuse to do that you will never know :)
relentless self promotion.<p>relentless.<p>It's awful and kinda soul drain and I have no stomach for it but every one I have ever seen that managed to pull it off did so by getting as many eyeballs as possible and then getting as many ears possible... or getting impossibly lucky.
I guess you'd need to find companies that care about spending money on this during a tough economic climate. And "making your employees happy" by having them take breaks might be a tough sell (even though I know yes breaks are a good thing for productivity!).<p>What about this product could motivate someone to buy it?<p>Maybe target this to "Indie Hackers" rather than companies? They have they own spend decision and might be happy to pay for A. not being lonely and B. the opportunities chatting to a cohort once in a while might give - so there is an opportunity benefit.
$30 seems a bit steep for the upgrade in features. If I was signing up, the basic feature set in free seems like it would be sufficient for my needs, especially since I'm already a Zoom subscriber. Lowering the price and shifting the feature parity might do something.<p>But, that said. I'm not the target audience for it, and going to the current users and talking to them or figuring out why they signed up and what would sweeten the deal for them is probably the best method forward. There might be a bit of a pivot that would make paying worth it for them.
I am considering a kickstarter for a game this summer as the core gameplay gets closer. Anybody have any experience with this? I think a playable, good prototype and pre-creating a mailing list probably matters a lot
- Cold call marketing<p>- Sell it as a cost-saving technology<p>- Figure out how much alternatives are costing them and tell what they could be saving<p>- Offer the paid plan for a trial period<p>- Limit the size of the organization, but open the free plan to more than one-on-one
(Twirls moustache)<p>Microtransactions. "Excavating your hallway. Time Remaining: 90 minutes -- Want it now? Buy TNT for 10 Gems!"<p>Gems can be bought for cash, or you can have some mined by paying Stars. The mine yield is somewhat random and the dwarfs need frequent breaks, but it sometimes includes loot like stupid hats you can use in the video. You only get Stars by referring people, connecting social media accounts, signing up for mailing lists, etc.<p>Gotta go now -- I can hear the RCMP riding in and these maidens aren't going to just tie themselves to the railroad tracks. Let me know where to send the bill for consulting!
Price is too high for most. Needs a third pricing tier. 8 dollars 50 video chats. Highlight as most popular.<p>Lower free tier to 5 chats.<p>Get more users.
I started a side project in 2013, and when I (for other reasons) left my job at the beginning of 2019 I decided to go full time on it. I timeboxed myself to one year to show salary-like profits.<p>Things that snuck up on me:<p>1. I thought it'd be the same work as before, but more of it. But when your side project is promoted to your full time job, you want to keep it that way. You start focusing on different things, like making sure you make enough money to keep going. My project used to be ~90% free, and after six months of "that's okay, I'll just build more paid features" it didn't work out (that's a whole post on why) and I was forced to move a lot of free stuff behind the paywall, which comes with all the user backlash you'd expect.<p>2. Apart from building paid features, learning how to do so and funnel people into them is half a full-time job in and of itself. YC's free Startup School was a fantastic resource here.<p>3. The more people pay you, the more you feel beholden to them. You'll spend more time doing customer support than you want because of the guilt. You'll think you can resist this or engineer it away, but it just keeps coming.<p>Before:
- 10k MAU
- Net negative $300 a month<p>1 year of full-time later:
- 13k MAU
- Net positive $500 a month<p>Uplifting result, but not salary-like, so I'm moving on and demoting it back to a side project. Nonetheless I don't regret this; if I hadn't done it I'd always be wondering "what if".
seems like you already have a paid plan. if that is not working maybe your free tier is just too giving or the jump from free to paid it's too big and worth it.