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Ask HN: Scaling a project that only HN likes?

2 points by Alex-Programs ↗ HN
I've spent my gap year working on a language learning tool, https://nuenki.app. It translates appropriate-difficulty sentences into the language you're learning as you browse. Whenever I mention it on HN, people quite like it and a very high proportion subscribe.

I'd like to grow it. A similar startup, Toucan, built a simpler tool (single word, contextless translations) that gained traction and was acquired by Babbel. I'm not quite sure what they did that I'm missing.

I've run Reddit post ads. They get positive comments and feedback and lots of people trying the free trial, but very few convert, unlike the people from HN. I wasted my product hunt launch, which did well, because there wasn't a trial at the time.

Now I have a product with a small group of very positive power users, but I don't really see a path to growing it. I'm quite close to just putting it on the backburner and working on something else, but it seems a shame because there is a group of people - tech savvy language learners - who really like it, but I have no way of reaching them.

I'm 19, so I'm not in a position to spend much money without knowing that it has good returns. I've already wasted quite a lot of money on ads.

I'd really appreciate advice!

2 comments

[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 20.9 ms ] thread
codingdave
You've outlined a really good marketing lesson - you need to know where your ideal audience actually puts their eyes. I've found, like you did, that Reddit is wonderful for getting traffic but terrible for actual conversions. So don't waste time or money marketing your product there. At least, not generically - if you have a specific subreddit that is your audience, that might be viable as long as you are not spamming.

Where do your ideal customers really spend time and pay attention? Maybe put an ad on Duolingo? Maybe hang on out forums of people looking to move to a new country? Maybe ask your current positive users where they think people of like minds would appreciate hearing about it?

Alex-Programs
My marketing strategy for Reddit focuses on specific language learning subreddits. It's fascinating how easy it is to get demo signups from that demographic, but how difficulty it is to get people to actually pay for it.

I wonder if it might be because I've not made it very intuitive for non-technical people - I sometimes have people filling in the deletion survey with "Please add [feature]", where the feature already exists and can be turned on with two clicks.

> Where do your ideal customers really spend time and pay attention? Hacker News! Except I can't advertise here, and I can't think of anywhere with a similar demographic where I could.

I've also put ads up for expat subreddits (r/iwantout and place-specific ones), as well as r/hackernews, and they all follow the same pattern of easy free trials and no conversions. You make a good point, though; I wonder if I could advertise on old-school forums. Thanks.

I'll ask some of the people in the Nuenki discord whether they have any ideas.

Thank you!