This Week:
- Getting my first beta users for my software!
- Life at the house here in Spain.
- Meals out with the guys in Granada.
August 2024
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 8/1 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Where In The World Was I?
- 🇪🇸 Granada, Spain
Metrics From The Week
While I’d love to say that the sleeping conditions are perfect here, they… aren’t 😅, but I’ve come around to being more lenient to value other things. The good news is my recovery metrics are starting to skyrocket again (which is good).
Also, I mildly sprained my ankle at some point, I really don’t remember when, so I’ve been taking the running easy this week.
Business Progress Update
The Reachouts
Ohh how things have changed! Last week I started firing off DMs to guys in my network looking for early beta users.
From those DMs, I actually got more “no”s than I was expecting and started to get worried. After I exhausted my warmest inner circle, I started engaging in Skool.com communities, leaving comments and starting conversations. The response rate has been shockingly good from my perspective!
So far these are my metrics for reachouts:
- 25 total people messaged
- 7 “no”s/don’t know anyone/not target customer
- 7 have used the software and started giving me feedback
- 2 more have been onboarded but haven’t used it yet
- 4 more I’m still in conversations with
- 5 haven’t responded to my conversations yet
I got a tip from one of the guys at the house I’m staying at that engaging in Skool communities would get better results than cold-emails so I’ve been running with that feedback right now.
And the way I’ve been reaching out to people has been trying to closely follow Alex Hormozi’s warm reachout script from $100m Leads.
- Just reach out to say hi and check in “Hey X, how are you? How’s your business going?”
- Acknowledge their response, start guiding the conversation more towards the topic “… Awesome, how are you finding video ideas and titles?”
- By around the 3rd or 4th response, ask them if they know anyone who would be interested in being a free case study for your product.
From my perspective, it’s WAY easier to ask someone if they know anyone who might be interested and the fact that I’m offering something for free. I’m finding it so much easier to reach out, start conversations, and “sell” to people.
Feedback
I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback so far. It is hard to tell sometimes how much people are just being nice versus people that actually will continue to use my software (the goal). However, I’ve been sensing good things so far even through my skeptical lens.
Some of the feedback I’m starting to gather:
- The list of channels that I’m gathering that is intended to be “relevant” creators in their niche is accurate.
- To some users (with more unique title styles), the titles are really good. To others (with title styles that overlap with others), the titles are NOT good and no unique or original.
- The “Hot Videos” page is helpful for seeing outlier videos across the niche.
- I’m only pulling outperforming videos from the last 60-90 days, which is okay for recent trends, but it’s too much of a constraint. There are TONS of good videos creators can riff off of from >90 days.
- Solving the problem of thumbnails is also top of mind for creators.
- One of the users tries to not look too much at other creators to maintain authenticity, so the extracted audience comments were helpful for him.
- I’m also getting tip offs for other tools that creators currently use and how they use them, which is very helpful for me (muahahaha)
I’m still not sure what the right balance is between spending time finding more leads/getting more user feedback versus starting to implement the feedback that I’m getting. I would think ideally you go for feedback until you hear repeated messages, so I may try to do that, but we’ll see.
One of the pieces of feedback that I did implement this week was the layout of the videos to look more like the native YouTube layout of videos.
Thinking Of The Thoughts
I actually started to get worried and question things as I got to the end of reaching out to my inner network with all the “no”s I was getting. I worried that if the acceptance rate is so low for people that I KNOW, then it’s going to be even lower for people I don’t know…
I talked about this plateau I was hitting in this video this week: Hitting an early plateau reaching out to new people
But that hasn’t been the case.
And so two days later I documented what felt like a complete turnaround Oh how things have changed | Onboarding new SaaS users! and This is craziness | Early stage SaaS user feedback
I’m entering territory that is unexplored for me, so I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I think as long as I’m getting new users/feedback, getting testimonials for social proof, and addressing their feedback, that seems like the right things to focus on right now.
My goal right now is to build a great product that people CHOOSE to continuing using. I figure once I get a good base of users coming back (who knows how many), then I’ll start moving from a free beta (since I’ve validated the solution) to offering 80% off and pick a price based on the current market of tools out there.
One step at a time.
It’s been a lot of push and pull this week facing my fears of people not liking what I’ve built, facing my perfection of putting out something that isn’t perfect, facing the discomfort of starting conversations with people, etc. I can FEEL the growth as I look back on all the micro moments. It’s been fun.
I think I’m onto something and I’m excited to see where I can take this!
Life At The House
Morning walks
Coffee and smashing some work
In other news, the wifi went out this week which was a fun adventure for us all running online businesses 😅, but we got it resolved.
Some afternoon walks
Smashing workouts
Meals with the guys. Great food, great company, great views. This is what it’s all about.
Walking around Granada
Sunsets at the house
That’s pretty much it. Besides the house being a little far out, life is good here. I’m very grateful to be out here and be able to live here for a week.
Food From The Week
Definitely looking forward to eating something other than salad and eggs+chicken every day 😂 Not pictured is about 6 other meals that look exactly the same 😂 That pizza was actually fantastic.
What’s Next?
The time has finally come… ✈️