Some background: I previously built and sold a Chrome extension that reached 30k users, and created an open source tool with around 150 stars and 11k downloads that's been adopted by companies like Goldman Sachs.
I'm now building qoery.com. The product is functional but not fully polished. I have 60 sign-ups but no paying customers yet. The feedback I'm getting from existing users is "improve the product and we'll pay."
I've spent the last two weeks iterating heavily on the product based on this feedback. It's significantly better now, but growth has completely stagnated during this time.
So I'm facing a dilemma: should I keep iterating based on user feedback until I convert those first users to paid customers? Or should I shift focus to customer acquisition and try to find users who might pay for what exists today?
Looking for advice from founders who've been through this.
I would find the customers who are willing to get dirty with you (screen shares, phone calls, etc)., and work only with those people until they are happy paid customers. Having a free tier almost seems like a bad idea for this product from my perspective. I'd want to interview my customers and pick carefully at first.
The users that you have but are not paying: what they're complaining about or find a lack of? Are there any emergent patterns? Or everybody wants basically something completely different?
Some background: I previously built and sold a Chrome extension that reached 30k users, and created an open source tool with around 150 stars and 11k downloads that's been adopted by companies like Goldman Sachs.
I'm now building qoery.com. The product is functional but not fully polished. I have 60 sign-ups but no paying customers yet. The feedback I'm getting from existing users is "improve the product and we'll pay."
I've spent the last two weeks iterating heavily on the product based on this feedback. It's significantly better now, but growth has completely stagnated during this time.
So I'm facing a dilemma: should I keep iterating based on user feedback until I convert those first users to paid customers? Or should I shift focus to customer acquisition and try to find users who might pay for what exists today?
Looking for advice from founders who've been through this.
I would find the customers who are willing to get dirty with you (screen shares, phone calls, etc)., and work only with those people until they are happy paid customers. Having a free tier almost seems like a bad idea for this product from my perspective. I'd want to interview my customers and pick carefully at first.
Hi Bob,
I see what you're saying. Stay laser-focused on potential enterprise customers, and iterate with them until they pay.
The users that you have but are not paying: what they're complaining about or find a lack of? Are there any emergent patterns? Or everybody wants basically something completely different?
This is brilliant advice. I'll email my users to find out.