I think he fails to mention the key step: Have a product the market wants or needs, that's worthy of Google SERP page 1 attention.
That is, in this case, his product was just special - though certainly not unique - enough (in the sense I presume there are plenty of alternatives) to get to page 1.
Then catch a couple of lucky* breaks. That is, lucky in the "Thinking in Bets" (by Annie Duke) sense. To some extent, when it mentions Product Hunt he implies that decision was more luck than it was intentional.
I'm about half way done and yes, I would recommend it.
I appreciate how she reframes decision-making from being less like chess (i.e., knowns are 100%) and more like poker (i.e., there are many unknowns). That is, decision-making and outcomes are a spectrum (and not binary). In fact, just because you get a good outcome doesn't necessarily mean you made a good decision.
In a way it's humbling, but it also feels healthier (in terms of mental health).
I don't know why but I instantly remembered about that guy who make the nomadlist site that consisted of one index.php with thousands lines of code.
The thing is that it didn't have any "contemporary" tech stack or whatever, and the founder even didn't know about all that stuff like git.
But the site brought him thousands or even millions of dollars :D
Ah, I know why I remembered about that guy: because he hit the market when the COVID began, so it was probably very timely (everyone started working remotely and then when the COVID ended everyone went to nomad lifestyle)
On his LinkedIn page he has 4 different interviews he did (which promoted his resume builder: "Interview with SEO Buddy", "Interview with Starter Story", "Interview with Clarin", "Interview with IndieHackers").
"It was selected as #1 Product of the Day + #1 Product of the Week on Product Hunt"
"ResumeMaker.Online was also featured by BetaList (6) and Designer News (7), won the "Most Loved" award by OnePageLove.com (8) and selected as one of the Top 25 One Pagers from 2018 (9), and popular weblogs Genbeta (10) and Siecle Digital (11) both wrote articles about it."
Not to mention this (submitted) blog post which is a giant advert for his product and all the blog posts about "resume building" he's already written (plus the additional ones in the queue: https://twitter.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1555275471960645632). But sure, he has "no time for marketing".
How do you do all the tax reporting / payments one has to deal with when selling internationally?
As far as I know, you have to collect the country of every customer and if they are an individual or a company, and then send reports and pay taxes to their country of origin.
So, this to me is interesting. I did a ShowHN today at around the same time as this, but it gets little to no views, but I followed the rules. This doesn't seem to follow the rules at all:
" Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread. "
This is just a medium post, no actual product, but it then makes the front page. Seems like the only way to actually get traction on ShowHN is to not follow the rules and actually ask people you know (or users of your site) to generate discussion/ up vote it. Mine didn't even make it to the actual ShowHN, just got stuck in the Show New.
I'm confused how we are going from 400 clicks per day last October in the GSC graph (which is 12,000 hits per month) to 60,000+ visitors per month from SEO, especially given how little growth there is in that full year of data, and how highly the site already ranks.
That would be an unbelievable SEO growth story, and based on the rest of the article that would be most of the value of this project.
13 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 44.9 ms ] threadThat is, in this case, his product was just special - though certainly not unique - enough (in the sense I presume there are plenty of alternatives) to get to page 1.
Then catch a couple of lucky* breaks. That is, lucky in the "Thinking in Bets" (by Annie Duke) sense. To some extent, when it mentions Product Hunt he implies that decision was more luck than it was intentional.
https://www.annieduke.com/thinking-in-bets/
Certainly not knocking him. It's an impressive accomplishment. But how much his story applies to others is going to depend on product, market, etc.
I appreciate how she reframes decision-making from being less like chess (i.e., knowns are 100%) and more like poker (i.e., there are many unknowns). That is, decision-making and outcomes are a spectrum (and not binary). In fact, just because you get a good outcome doesn't necessarily mean you made a good decision.
In a way it's humbling, but it also feels healthier (in terms of mental health).
Solid advice combined with entertaining stories.
The thing is that it didn't have any "contemporary" tech stack or whatever, and the founder even didn't know about all that stuff like git.
But the site brought him thousands or even millions of dollars :D
Ah, I know why I remembered about that guy: because he hit the market when the COVID began, so it was probably very timely (everyone started working remotely and then when the COVID ended everyone went to nomad lifestyle)
I agree though, that sometimes you need to "just do it" using the simplest tools out there.
On his LinkedIn page he has 4 different interviews he did (which promoted his resume builder: "Interview with SEO Buddy", "Interview with Starter Story", "Interview with Clarin", "Interview with IndieHackers").
"It was selected as #1 Product of the Day + #1 Product of the Week on Product Hunt"
"ResumeMaker.Online was also featured by BetaList (6) and Designer News (7), won the "Most Loved" award by OnePageLove.com (8) and selected as one of the Top 25 One Pagers from 2018 (9), and popular weblogs Genbeta (10) and Siecle Digital (11) both wrote articles about it."
Not to mention this (submitted) blog post which is a giant advert for his product and all the blog posts about "resume building" he's already written (plus the additional ones in the queue: https://twitter.com/Fer_MOMENTO/status/1555275471960645632). But sure, he has "no time for marketing".
How do you do all the tax reporting / payments one has to deal with when selling internationally?
As far as I know, you have to collect the country of every customer and if they are an individual or a company, and then send reports and pay taxes to their country of origin.
How do you manage that?
" Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread. "
This is just a medium post, no actual product, but it then makes the front page. Seems like the only way to actually get traction on ShowHN is to not follow the rules and actually ask people you know (or users of your site) to generate discussion/ up vote it. Mine didn't even make it to the actual ShowHN, just got stuck in the Show New.
That would be an unbelievable SEO growth story, and based on the rest of the article that would be most of the value of this project.