What are you working on this month? (June 2019)
With every new month comes a new chance to talk about what you're working on and meet other founders.
Here's how you can join the discussion:
- First, respond to someone else who's commented, just to say hello or leave them some feedback!
- Next, leave your own comment describing what you're working on (or aspiring to work on), and your biggest goal for June.
That's it!
I look forward to hearing from everyone and see what you're working on!
#ask-ih
Trending on Indie Hackers
I'm finally launching a public beta of my app https://www.wanderium.com
It's a personal, all-in-one travel assistant that takes the guesswork out of travel. Think visas, vaccinations, passport validity, local apps, etc. It's all personalized to your specific circumstances (nationality, gender, age, # of nights, weather, etc) and presented with dated reminders so it's really easy to understand.
My biggest goal for June is to become better at marketing and get more eyeballs on Wanderium so I can start improving the product and get to product/market fit. Marketing has always been one of my weaker skills so I really want to improve that this month (and for the rest of my life really!)
Congrats and best of luck!
Thanks!
awesome idea... makes me really miss travel :-/
Thanks! You should plan a trip soon then if you miss it =]
This looks like a lifesaver! Love it!
Thank you!
Great achievement!
I'm going to work primarily on marketing + tutorials + templates.
But, how it usually happens, coding is still on the way :) but I hope it will be just bug fixes.
I've finished a huge piece of work in May, so I think it's pretty enough for MVP.
It's all about CaravelStudio, www.caravelstudio.io - the first visual editor for creating real applications - with real backend and frontend - just with your mouse.
For now, you can't create complicated apps yet. Actually, you can create an app that can send an email, change control's properties, and react to the button's click.
But even with this set of functions, you can create many different apps - for example, for gathering feedbacks or carrying surveys. And, of course, simple apps with landing, contact information, FAQs, product description etc.
But what is important - you not only can download your app but deploy it with just a click (custom domains are available for Pro plan).
So, all this functionality is done but not deployed yet. Expected to deploy in a couple of days.
Tutorials and templates are on the way!
No code apps are a big trend now and I believe you're on the right path. I'm creating content for my project as well. If you need any help with copy and/or SEO, count on me.
Thanks!
Very cool. You are definitely working on a hot topic here.
My main aim for this month is to figure out the main value props and positioning for Dashvine (dashvine.com).
Currently testing with one customer and it’s getting way more use than I was even hoping for, but the positioning isn’t focussed enough. The plan is to get in more conversations with early customers and try find common themes
A small nit pick/suggestion: the headline "Get your customer feedback organized" uses passive voice, maybe think about switching to active "Organize your customer feedback" - sounds stronger and more vibrant (at least in my head).
fwiw, I most likely would have used a product like this while building my last startup a couple years ago - we had our customer feedback/feature requests coming in thru Freshdesk, but something focused like this could have been useful.
random 2 cents, sorry for butting in :-)
Is active better for these things? The copy certainly needs some work either way - thanks for the feedback!
What was your experience with getting the feedback through Freshdesk? Did you ever look for alternatives?
FounderPad - inspired by Makerpad - resource for founders to help make, launch & grow their companies. Accepting submissions - Have a tool that accomplishes one of the above (make, launch, grow)? PM me to add to FounderPad.
Could be interesting to go through the product list page here on IH and curate a list of tools and products built by the community, as a way to bootstrap the content?
Just finished building the last big feature for Versoly, the ability to add multiple pages to a site.
Now it is time to do marketing and sales for it.
Plan will be to
I'm definitely your target customer. Although I don't need a landing page right now, I'll be glad to help you. Please, DM me on Twitter. ;)
I'm lucky to get inbound email from people, so will have to follow up with them first.
Also part of a few communities such as IH where I give advice, hopefully if I help them a lot they will test Versoly out.
I'm using some strategies I think that could work for you:
Thanks, didn't even think about searching on twitter.
Right now im currently creating a analytics page - but my brain is tired, so finishing it has become a lot more annoying than expected. And after that I'm going to continue to add more features to make a complete knowledge base/help center so I can get out of beta.
Like extremely **#¤"*¤"#*¤"#¤!!"#¤!"#¤ annoying.
Being a sole founder drains so much energy. Im feeling so damn overwhelmed, the list of needed features feels endless.
How much do you sleep?
Around 7-8 hours, my sleep isn't really the issue. The issue, however, is that creating a semi-complex software all by yourself is so damn draining, especially when you have to catch up to companies that have been around for years.
And the worst part imo is the frontend, creating an acceptable ui requires so much time.
Have you tried making an "unacceptable ui"? That's worked well for a lot of profitable businesses, especially early on.
I tried that and the number 1 feedback was the UI needs improving.
@randomTest can watch https://vimeo.com/305601486/a1388ac3a9 some good tips in there.
Yeah, that's why im trying to balance it, yet it still takes a bit of time.
By the way that video and the other vidoes made by refactoringui were great, thanks for the links.
Just checked the site, was it a conscious decision to have the app on the same domain and not have it on app.eondesk.com?
The app isn't on the same domain level, all knowledge bases/help centers have their own subdomains so that users can have their own "sites" and it also made session handling so much easier.
This month I'm working on launching The Wise Dispatches (www.wisedispatches.com), a newsletter focused on personal development and entrepreneurship as a means to achieve personal freedom.
I have a goal of getting at least 100 subscribers in the month of June.
I'm moving my blog from Medium to it's new home: https://practicalmvp.com
I'm also participating in the Product Hunt Makers Festival API Edition and documenting what I'm doing on the blog!
Way to go!
I drew a lot of inspiration from your IH interview in episode 25. Thanks for everything that you do and share.
Thanks! Appreciate it.
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Thanks for letting me know, it's pretty quick for me, but I noticed I haven't optimized the blog post cover images, so they are pretty big right now, that might be slowing things down for you.
Will get that fixed tonight.
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Yes that looks very interesting might be an overlap that we might be able to explore :)
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Cool, will hit you up once I'm thru building the MVP for the festival.
I'm trying to turn my review website into a platform where you get real users to look at your app and give you feedback. This can be for the whole product but also for just e.g. to test your sign-up form. It's at feedbacktoaster.com
I launched my MVP "Slipstream" slpstream.com about 10 days ago. It's a website that makes it quicker and easier to find inspiring documentaries, podcasts, guided workouts, music playlists... that will help you crush your treadmill run, bike trainer workout, erg session etc.
In June I will be working on refining the marketing copy, improving SEO and my biggest goal: targeting niche groups to make them aware of Slipstream and gather feedback on what's useful vs. confusing.
Sincerely hoping some others out there have the same problem I do with efficiently finding quality workout inspiration to make the treadmill or indoor bike miles fly by.
p.s. it's free, no subscription and leverages the subscriptions (Netflix etc.) and equipment (indoor bike, erg, treadmill) that you already have so it's kind of a cordcutter option for anyone who doesn't want to buy a $2K Peloton machine and pay a recurring monthly subscription for classes.
Had a thought after reading the top of the homepage; sorry for butting in:
Maybe the slogan at the top could be more punchy? Something like "Best workout inspiration content, in seconds." in somewhat larger font.
Not butting in at all - your thoughts are SO appreciated. I will work on that line and I like your suggestion.
To start with I wanted the site to have a totally clean and app UI but I realized I needed a legit h1 for SEO so I added that recently. I don't love the way the h1 pushes the content down, but I guess it does help.
I was thinking of doing a landing page or two that would be more explanatory for on-boarding.
Thanks again for your input.
Cool, I like this idea! It's funny you mention Peloton because that's almost exactly what I thought of reading the first part. My building just added one so I've been using it the last few months and the instructors are indeed very motivating. Bringing this style of motivation to more people is a cool goal.
One piece of feedback I have is that from a design perspective, if you could somehow standardize the length of the titles and descriptions to be a bit more consistent that'd make it easier to scan and also make it more elegant. Having been designing UIs for the last 8 years one of the #1 rules I have painfully re-discovered many times is users don't read so I'd reduce the descriptions to 2-3 lines max.
Otherwise, great start!
Hey Jono, thanks so much for the feedback. I will definitely work on that.
Hello everyone 👋
https://owwly.com/ux-case-studies
In this month, we will focus on adding new cool case studies from real products to show their design process
I've embarked on @louisswiss sales course to improve my sales skills and finally start talking consistently to beginning tech managers who are my audience.
So for this month, my goal is to have a lot of conversations to specify the pains my audience has.
So far, the course is great!
Very cool. Tech managers are also one of my target audience. Even though I am not into coaching. I am about to start a YouTube channel for them. So, curious to know how you identify/find/address them. Would you mind sharing?
I'm not exactly target tech managers, I target beginning tech manager. If you look just for tech managers it should be relatively more straight-forward. LinkedIn search, for example, comes to mind (in my case, I rarely can tell from LinkedIn search whether the person in a beginner or not).
What is your project, Michaela?
It has no name yet. Just playing around at the moment. I blog about tech at www.michaelagreiler.com
Got it. For a blog, I don't think it makes sense to engage in LinkedIn outreach :)
Maybe you can promote it on relevant subreddits like https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/, or on HackerNews
Looking forward to hearing how it goes for you!
Sure. Is there anything specific you are interested to hear about?
Weeks until paying back the cost of the course. For growth hacking and sales material, that's always the #1 question!
Obviously, something like a yoga class would be different.
Got it
Will be integrating the Shopify Billing API within Trunk so that I can finally be in the Shopify App Store!
Trunk seems cool! I don't have physical products right now, but small scale inventory management would be helpful.
Thanks @DavidGetchel! Feel free to reach out anytime 👍
2 of my 6 projects are close to launch
I really liked Vine..so I made something for people to share videos
http://liberatingdemo.com/design-demo/social-balloons/html/
and I am still working out the bugs on my 3d search engine
Searchtile.com
Ah, Vine... it's so sad when a giant company buys then strangles a beloved product.
Searchtile looks cool - what is it supposed to do? :-)
Searchtile is going to be a 3 dimensional search engine..something different than Google or yahoo !
hopefully I will launch it this month
Last month I implemented user voting for content and feature requests on Alchemist Camp. This month, my goal is to fulfill as many of the top-voted requests as possible.
Hello Indie Hackers,
I am working on an eBook and a course on Happiness.
I'd love to have it completed this month of June. 🙏
Happy to connect with you and see what others are working on.
Cheers!
Happiness is Free but you have to pay for the Ebook ;)...Hmm maybe change your hook?
Haha...Not really. It's a Freebie :).
Logobly - The incredible new logo maker for startups.
Be the first to know when I launch by joining my launch list here:
https://logobly.com
Hi Indie Hackers 👋,
We are building a user-friendly chatbot builder for lead generation, called Joonbot.com 🤖.
This month, at the same time as we continue to build the platform, we are looking for beta testers.
If you are a marketer who wants to increase the conversion rate on your company website, let's talk!
If you are interested, you can request your beta access here 👉 http://bit.ly/2RaIids
I’m eventually launching STARTUP GRADE https://startupgrade.co with 2 great mentors.
So the deadline for each community is 23rd June. One of my biggest challenges is that must attract more people to become my subscribers. But I really admire my mentors’ strategy and believe the product will be loved among early-stage founders.
I am start working on Project Metrics feature for https://www.docsapp.io/
It is long awaited advance feature planned for premium plan. My goal is to complete by this month and launch on next month.
At the same time, I will spend some time to think about SEO for DocsApp.
Hardest still marketing for me :(
Currently working on our new product, ServerAuth, a tool to provide team SSH key synchronisation between servers.
My biggest weakness is marketing, so I'm also working to improve this so any tips, articles etc for a novice would be greatly appreciated! :)
I'm working on sales + marketing + SEO.
I've launched WP Link Bio (https://blastmkt.com/wp-link-bio-wordpress-plugin/), a Linktree-like WordPress plugin. I run a digital marketing agency and some of our customers are already using it.
My biggest challenge is to find and acquire our first paying customers.
Going through the "Will it fly?" book, using its methodology to validate and develop an idea for a child care calendar app. My family would be the first "customer", so I might actually build something without doing the whole "talk to 100 people" thing, not sure yet.
In May, I acquired my first 10 users for https://sheet.chat, a service to connect Google Sheets to Slack. This allowed me to find the small bugs.
In June, I plan to finish improving the on-boarding of new users and finally launch the product more officially. Oh, I also need to find a pricing :)
I'm going to finish my exercise app MVP that I've been thinking about and tinkering with for years.
I'm interested :) Anything you can share? My MVP is for a workout/inspiration discovery site. I want to add apps to the recommendations too. It's on the roadmap. Let me know when your MVP is live.
A simple app for HIIT workouts. Now I just need to learn to code it!
Planning to blow the roof with Infinity (https://startinfinity.com/)
We just launched a full product version, and can't wait to work on increasing all the key KPIs in order for the world to meet the ultimately flexible work management tool. :)
Last month I redesigned my site and launched a new store selling my eco surf fins. This month, I will continue making tweaks to both the website and store. I need to work on product variants and wiring that up to the product page and shopping cart. Anyone interested can check out https://store.shaka-surf.com and https://shaka-surf.com
Finishing my first Android App - Essential Alarm Clock
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmstudio.alarmbow
Could never find a simple, pleasing to the eye alarm clock without ads, so decided to build one myself. Trying to make it as elegant and as easy to use as possible.
Hey Rosie,
I’ve been working on devonline.co - which is an online dev environment based on visual studio. Also I’ve been working on sales and marketing for my other product: tunnelhero.com
How do you guys balance building new things while growing launched things ?
I see people building a lot of new things but it takes me about 2-3 months to build a product. Is that too long?
Thanks
Andrei
Looks like devonline.co went down :(
Hey,
Sorry I haven’t yet put it up :( maybe I should put a coming soon page there.
It’s not quite ready yet.
I realized my first project, https://code-dog.app might not be as successful as I hoped. The users I have are happy, but there is just not enough of them - the growth is too slow. Either there is no market or I've failed to reach it. I'll let it run, but now I'll focus on other ideas in the spirit of "12 months 12 products". Perhaps I'll return to it once I've gained more marketing experience.
I've decided to productize the tools I've used to help me run it. My two new apps are:
https://geekmail.app - it creates automatic Gmail drafts to balance control and automation when reaching out to your users.
https://syften.com - scans online communities for mentions of your keywords so that you know how well you're increasing your exposure.
Ah cool, I’ve been trying to build more apps as well but I think 12 apps in 12 months is a lot, I’m thinking more like 4 in 12 months, it’s sorta hard launched one it’s getting 100+ mrr so far but would love more.
How do you get your ideas ?
It probably won't help you much, but I just start the day with an objective of coming up with an idea, and sometimes I'm successful. Just do whatever comes to mind when thinking of that objective.
Thanks man I’ll give it a shot :)
Hey rosie,
I am working on a marketplace.. and also learning and growing specifically web tech like graphql and product management stuff
:)
I need to take more photos of my product (both journalistic and artistic kind). So these can then be used as assets in building the Assembly Guide PDF and on the website's landing page.
https://i.ibb.co/vBGjwdQ/IMG-6566.jpg
What is this product about?
It's a microphone preamplifier.
Sounds hacky to me, haha :)
Working on marketing my product and updating on the landing page. I've learned a lot of marketing in the past few weeks.
I decided to choose to focus on helping people saving money.
https://www.hailtum.com
Hello everyone!
This month I'm working on Achieved Beta! We should launch our private beta during the second half of the month. This is a super important milestone as we already got around 200 companies on the waiting list! 🔥
Looking great, can see this being very helpful especially for remote teams.
thank you @Mubs :-)
Nice! Have you been talking to the people on the waiting list? That’s something I struggle to do
TBH I've been quite silent for now... We thought we'd go much faster with the beta version but as we all have a full time job, it takes much longer than expected.
We handpicked few testers for the alpha version to validate few elements though.
I plan to be much more intense communication once the beta version will be live.
I actually plan to have around 50% of people on the waiting list who won't sign up during the beta but maybe I'm too pessimistic... :)
Achieved looks cool, useful and relevant!
And awesome on the 200 on the waiting list, did you do anything special to get them ont there? :)
Thanks Rosie! :-)
Most of my traffic is coming from the following sources:
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