Hi, I am the founder of Buy From Farm (http://buyfrom.farm) - let people sell/buy produce from/to their neighbors.
I believe vendors at farmers' markets would be my potential customers so I visited local farmers' markets at Austin, Texas.
I talked about what our app can do, demoed the push notification features to show a vendor can reach people at farmer's markets in a real-time.
I also noticed all of them are using smart phones, majority of them are android's. They understand what's push notification.
They understood our app is free to download. I also talked to them when they were free, no customer there.
I ended our conversion as quickly as I could while someone stopped by at their stands.
I received very positive feedback. 19 of 20 I have talked likes the idea very much. The only one thought I was selling cell phones since we didn't really have conversion and they turned me down.
I collected their business cards, also left a flyer with download instruction to each one I talked. And I sent followup emails to them next Monday.<p>But it turned out no single downloaded happened from this visit. 0 of 19 doesn't sound right.<p>What did I do wrong? Or there is something I missed.
On my sites, visitor behavior never ceases to amaze me. Before you go re-thinking your business plan I would recommend watching your analytics closely (it looks like you're using GA, which is nice; you might wanna give Heap a try though, it's nice for this kind of use-case).<p>You wanna narrow down exactly where the problem is. Did people fail to visit the site at all? Did they visit then fail to follow the links to the app store? Did they go to the app store and then fail to download? These are all very different problems. Pay close attention to the browsers/devices people are actually using on your site, and make sure you're testing/emulating those experiences (so you can see what they see). There might be a bug somewhere. Once you rule these kinds of things out, then it might be worth revisiting your strategy/pitch, but I don't think you're quite there yet.
I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but your site is pretty bad. The text reads like it was written by a non-native speaker. I had to puzzle just to figure out what some sentences were saying. Then the interaction was a bit wonky (sometimes things scroll up down, sometimes left right, sometimes popouts). The images behind the text made it extremely hard to read.<p>Putting myself in the mind of a vendor, I can't imagine wanting to try to enter anything significant via a phone. You don't seem to have any web presence besides this landing page. Do you have any customers, any traction? I probably already work from sun up to after sun down; do I really want to take extra time for this for completely unproven benefits? How many more people will I reach by just posting on Facebook? Why aren't you linked to Facebook? Do I have to do something on Facebook, then come to your app and do it again? No thanks. What if I get a bad review? Is it there forever? Can I protest it?<p>If it was already the one and only app for farmer markets, I could see maybe signing up. But putting all that effort and risk into a start up? Nah. What's in it for me vs going to Facebook?<p>As a customer - what is in it for me? I want to wander around and look, not be checking my phones for updates ('honey now 20% off. Come see our scones'). There is marginal value in discovering farmer's markets, but they are scheduled well in advance; a 10 second google tells me all the farmer's markets in my area. If there is one near me that I am interested in, I'll just 'like' it on Facebook.<p>Finally, the website confused me. You start by talking to the farmer. Then you seem to be saying consumers can sell their own extra produce. I'm not sure. Can I sell my garden vegetables? And this brings us back around to the poor English.<p>I'm not saying all those objections are correct, but I think you need pretty good answers to them if you want people to download your app.
I am not a farmer, but I have lived and worked alongside them and I have to ask: What problem are you trying to solve? Is the problem you solved a problem that farmers have?<p>Personally, I don't think you understand the dynamics of the small farm market, or what the people involved (as growers or buyers) want and need. My two closest friends recently launched their rural Indiana farm, and I've spent time with them on farms in VT over the past several yeas. I've had lots of conversations with farmers about the potential of technologies and apps, and discussed problems they face. In a dozen conversations, no one mentioned problems selling to their neighbors or unloading product at local markets. This is probably because most farmers aren't earning their main income from those sources, and instead they go there to maintain a presence in their communities.<p>However, all of the farmers I spoke with had difficulties finding steady income selling bulk to restaurants or other large buyers on a regular basis. Go solve that problem, and I'm sure you will get your downloads.
This might be useful for you. The founder talks about the exact same problem - prospects say they like the idea but no conversions.<p><a href="https://medium.com/@michalbohanes/seven-lessons-i-learned-from-the-failure-of-my-first-startup-dinnr-c166d1cfb8b8" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@michalbohanes/seven-lessons-i-learned-fr...</a>
I visit the farmer's markets here (not Austin) maybe once or twice a week and I'm not sure why I would want to use this app.<p>I'd recommend a lot more customer feedback development/interviews (to use the Steve Blank term) For example, It should be more like 5 to 10 people <i>per day</i> rather than 20 people in total. Farmers and people that visit farmer's markets, are generally polite. They're going to say yes to you and then just not download it, rather than say, "I hate this." You'll will have to dig deep, but politely dig, and do a lot more interviews.<p>For me personally, I just don't understand what value this gives me or what hair-on-fire problem I need this to solve. (I've also thought about building an app for the farmer's market too, but with a very different approach/business model focused on questions and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) problems I've encountered.)
As a person who visits tons of farmer's markets (some food vendors are my clients across the nation), I'm not exactly sure if vendors at farmer's markets who sell produce would specifically be your niche.<p>Generally speaking a farmer hits X # of markets per week to sell their produce. Selling small scale to individual consumers wouldn't work well for their time.<p>However I have heard of some restaurants in LA where they accept extra produce from neighborhoods for their restaurant (not sure if they buy it necessarily).
> what should I do? I am not gonna close my door without trying harder.<p>Repetition is key-- visit these same people again, and again. Get to know them and their business. Question: are the vendors the true decision-makers or just helpers?<p>Focus on getting just ONE conversion as a pilot project. Hold their hand till it gets traction. All the other vendors will take note if this thing works. Mindset is helpful, this is part of the market discovery process.
Don't talk to people about your app and downloads and push notifications. They don't understand this language and zoom out while keeping polite conversation with you.<p>Talk to them in their terms - tell them that you'll help them to sell more and reach more customers. Tell them how much more specifically - even though it's a very rough estimate.<p>Let them ask "how" and go from there.
I'd have a look at what competitor's are already doing in the space:<p><a href="https://www.goodeggs.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodeggs.com/</a>
I am wondering what problem you are trying to solve. I am wondering if you even have a clear problem in mind or if this is a solution in search of a problem.<p>What is your so-called <i>elevator speech</i> for this product?<p>As RogerL indicated, the site does need a lot of work. But, I think a deeper problem is that I don't really see a clear business model here. I see something that looks like this type of thinking: "1) make app 2) talk to vendors 3) (something happens here 4) Profit!" and I will suggest that vendors at farmer's markets are not there to try to make you rich. You have got to offer something of value to them.<p>Best of luck.