Hey Fastlaners,
Alright, so if you didn't know, I recently launched Fendza (see Progress Thread here) but as I stated earlier in that thread; I had another startup idea brewing in my head. Now one would assume that I am crazy for moving on and that I need to spend 100% focus on Fendza since I just launched it; right?? <if you want to skip ahead onto the introduction of the new startup, please skip this post and read the 2nd post>
Well, after spending thousands of dollars and time on Fendza; after days of thinking; I need to move on. It's simply not fastlane. Why?
Fendza is polished and automized
to the point where all I have to do is maintain and answer customers. So I can slick run it passively while working on another web app. Of course, I should spend all focus on marketing Fendza.. but...
Marketing for Fendza is not scalable
Because it's in an industry that is too wide in scope and needs. For instance, out of the 200 signups (no paying customers yet) I have gotten so far, the companies have been in almost every industry imaginable (hotels, food, government, hosting companies, web design companies, retail stores, airlines, etc. etc.) Since it's so broad, I can't target just one industry AND it fit with them having employee scheduling problems. Because you see, every company has too many variables in the way they operate their employees, so Fendza would literally have to have 2,000 features in order to fit each company having their own needs. Also, there's just too many ways businesses interpret 'employee scheduling software' For example, some people are thinking employee scheduling software as being able to schedule appointments to each employee, or where their customers can login online and check open time slots, or be able to schedule out swing and rotating shifts, etc. etc. You get the point; there's just too many ways a business needs scheduling done and each needing it's own set of features.
So without being able to even define a qualified customer, there is no way to really market to them. Let alone, scale the marketing and building a system so it brings in traffic. I even thought about just doing a general business blog talking about broad business topics, but the conversions would be horrific, and the hundreds of hours spent on that with little traffic would be better spent making another idea with more opportunity. It would take years and years just to get enough customers to pay off it's debt it took to create Fendza.
Also, nobody really searches for employee scheduling software. And the few that do are all looking for different things in one. So without much volume in people actively looking, there's no real way to scale it, and do inbound marketing (which is a huge thing). Rankings on Google is about the only time they are looking, but again; each person searching are looking for different solutions.
Disclaimer: (now if you think you are genius and can market Fendza better than the hours and hours of thinking I spent, then feel free to and I'll pay you as an affiliate, but good luck.)
AdWords is too expensive
and cannot afford the front loaded cost to acquire traffic that will have low conversions (again, due to the broad range of needs in the scheduling)
Fendza solves a pain, but it's just nice to have
And nice to have isn't going to get a lot of customers. (remember, the whole point of fastlane is to impact millions) When I first thought about the idea of Fendza, all I thought about was 'will people buy this' rather than 'how can I get a crap load of users that will buy this'. It's a huge difference in thinking.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not shutting down Fendza and am leaving it open for signups and purchases, it's just that I will no longer spend time actively marketing it and will let the SEO work I did from before carry it from here.
Anyways, I hope everyone can learn a lesson from what I did wrong with Fendza and the way I thought about things from the beginning. DO BETTER MARKET RESEARCH BEFOREHAND, and also THINK ABOUT HOW TO ACQUIRE MASS LOADS OF CUSTOMERS and not just WILL PEOPLE BUY IT.
p.s. This thread is a progress thread for the new startup and not one for answering 'but.. you should do this and this for marketing.. dont move on.. ' comments on Fendza. Please shoot PM or post in Fendza's thread.
with that out the way; let's move onto the new startup venture: Freelanceful
Alright, so if you didn't know, I recently launched Fendza (see Progress Thread here) but as I stated earlier in that thread; I had another startup idea brewing in my head. Now one would assume that I am crazy for moving on and that I need to spend 100% focus on Fendza since I just launched it; right?? <if you want to skip ahead onto the introduction of the new startup, please skip this post and read the 2nd post>
Well, after spending thousands of dollars and time on Fendza; after days of thinking; I need to move on. It's simply not fastlane. Why?
Fendza is polished and automized
to the point where all I have to do is maintain and answer customers. So I can slick run it passively while working on another web app. Of course, I should spend all focus on marketing Fendza.. but...
Marketing for Fendza is not scalable
Because it's in an industry that is too wide in scope and needs. For instance, out of the 200 signups (no paying customers yet) I have gotten so far, the companies have been in almost every industry imaginable (hotels, food, government, hosting companies, web design companies, retail stores, airlines, etc. etc.) Since it's so broad, I can't target just one industry AND it fit with them having employee scheduling problems. Because you see, every company has too many variables in the way they operate their employees, so Fendza would literally have to have 2,000 features in order to fit each company having their own needs. Also, there's just too many ways businesses interpret 'employee scheduling software' For example, some people are thinking employee scheduling software as being able to schedule appointments to each employee, or where their customers can login online and check open time slots, or be able to schedule out swing and rotating shifts, etc. etc. You get the point; there's just too many ways a business needs scheduling done and each needing it's own set of features.
So without being able to even define a qualified customer, there is no way to really market to them. Let alone, scale the marketing and building a system so it brings in traffic. I even thought about just doing a general business blog talking about broad business topics, but the conversions would be horrific, and the hundreds of hours spent on that with little traffic would be better spent making another idea with more opportunity. It would take years and years just to get enough customers to pay off it's debt it took to create Fendza.
Also, nobody really searches for employee scheduling software. And the few that do are all looking for different things in one. So without much volume in people actively looking, there's no real way to scale it, and do inbound marketing (which is a huge thing). Rankings on Google is about the only time they are looking, but again; each person searching are looking for different solutions.
Disclaimer: (now if you think you are genius and can market Fendza better than the hours and hours of thinking I spent, then feel free to and I'll pay you as an affiliate, but good luck.)
AdWords is too expensive
and cannot afford the front loaded cost to acquire traffic that will have low conversions (again, due to the broad range of needs in the scheduling)
Fendza solves a pain, but it's just nice to have
And nice to have isn't going to get a lot of customers. (remember, the whole point of fastlane is to impact millions) When I first thought about the idea of Fendza, all I thought about was 'will people buy this' rather than 'how can I get a crap load of users that will buy this'. It's a huge difference in thinking.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not shutting down Fendza and am leaving it open for signups and purchases, it's just that I will no longer spend time actively marketing it and will let the SEO work I did from before carry it from here.
Anyways, I hope everyone can learn a lesson from what I did wrong with Fendza and the way I thought about things from the beginning. DO BETTER MARKET RESEARCH BEFOREHAND, and also THINK ABOUT HOW TO ACQUIRE MASS LOADS OF CUSTOMERS and not just WILL PEOPLE BUY IT.
p.s. This thread is a progress thread for the new startup and not one for answering 'but.. you should do this and this for marketing.. dont move on.. ' comments on Fendza. Please shoot PM or post in Fendza's thread.
with that out the way; let's move onto the new startup venture: Freelanceful
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