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How can I pivot my startup?

3 points by whichdan ↗ HN
http://easyendorse.com

It's a SaaS app that lets a site collect/display testimonials.

I developed it from scratch a few years ago and pay for everything out of pocket, so it's easy for me to hack on, but hard to market.

I should have realized this as I was developing it, but my target market is essentially small business owners who dislike Yelp.. which are extremely hard to market a tech product to. I've considered building an affiliate system in and marketing toward freelancers, but I'm not really sure how to gauge interest in that.

My gut feeling is that I've developed a nice product that completely misses the mark.

Any thoughts?

Edit: To be clear, I have no paying customers and very little traffic.

16 comments

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efounders
It all depends on what you want to achieve/build with your business.

I'm not an expert in collect/display testimonials solution but have you validated the need for such a product? Any paying customers yet?

If so, clearly define your typical customers and find ways to reach out to them.

Hope it helps.

whichdan
I used to do contract programming, and worked with a few businesses who expressed issues with external review websites, but I have a hard time jumping from that topic to selling my product.

I unfortunately do not have any paying customers, nor much traffic in general.

"and find ways to reach out to them" do you mean lots of cold-calling?

efounders
You wrote down: "my target market is essentially small business owners who dislike Yelp" => is this an hypothesis or a fact?

Before doing marketing, make sure there is a market/people ready to pay for your solution.

Only if so, start doing marketing (outbound, inbound,...).

whichdan
Ah, it's a hypothesis.. I am/was under the impression that marketing is partially a way of testing that.
bdfh42
The classic lean startup approach is to pivot in response to feedback from potential customers. You need to talk to your target customer group. This is not easy (particularly if like me you find that sort of thing difficult) but you have to do it. Call them on the phone - email will not work. What you are trying to find out is "will you pay for this service?".

If not, consider a pivot. But here again you have to do your market research. Again you have to talk to potential customers and find out if they are interested, how they would like to access the service and how much they might pay for it.

There is no way you can avoid this. Your pivot has to be positive or you are just wasting your time.

whichdan
What sort of response do you think I should be looking for from cold calling? Any time I hear stats like "only 1-3% of calls will lead anywhere" it seems like a massive time-sink. But maybe that's unavoidable?
bdfh42
The key here is not to sell but do research. Perhaps you might devise a short questionnaire to research the general area addressed by your startup idea within the context of your potential customer's business.

You will find that people are surprisingly helpful if you are clear about what you are doing and clear that this is not just a disguised sales pitch.

whichdan
That's a really interesting way of looking at it, thanks. I've always seen it as sales-or-nothin'. I'll see if I can come up with some solid questions to ask.
jjoe
I can definitely use something like this but I'm not sure I would want a whole page dedicated to testimonials. Perhaps as a side tab that once clicked becomes an in-page popup (just like uservoice's). That's much cleaner I think.

I don't mind providing feedback if you choose to go that route.

Good luck

whichdan
You definitely don't need an entire page dedicated to testimonials.

http://api.easyendorse.com/example.com/

I have it setup so you can drop in a form and/or list of testimonials using JS, PHP, or a popup window.

What made you think that an entire page is necessary? I'd like to improve the website's imagery/copy if it's at all unclear.

jjoe
The http://easyendorse.com/example/ page is the one I read. Just now I scrolled down to the bottom of your front page to read "Pop-up windows, Javascript, PHP, or direct API access - you can choose what's best for you."

So maybe it's in your interest to move the feature list to a more visible spot up top.

whichdan
That's interesting. I'll add that change to my todo list, thanks!
ig1
There's plenty of companies in the third-party on-site review space (TrustPilot, Feefo, Yotpo, etc.) - maybe you should look at how they work.
plax512
It would be cool if there was a service that let customers "text their testimonials" straight from their seat. So, customers would be able to write a testimonial right from their phone and send it as a text. These texts would go to a central backend, where the owner can approve/disprove each one as they come in. The ones that are approved get published to the site so customers can view the reviews in the tab. If I was a restaurant owner, I would pay a decent fee to for this service, especially because I get to approve of every review and I'll probably get a lot of them. It's different than yelp because all the testimonials go on the restaurant's website, as opposed to Yelp's own... Customers would like it because it's easy to write a review, and maybe restaurants can offer deals for customers who do write them or whatever. Textmonoials is where it's at...
whichdan
That's basically how EasyEndorse works, if you go to their website and submit the review using Safari. Texting testimonials is great in theory, but it would require either:

a) A custom shortcode, and a way to associate a message with a given restaurant.

or

b) An email address they could use in lieu of a number (since texts are essentially emails), but typing pizza-place-boston@easyendorse.com would be more verbose than just going to their site.

Did you have something else in mind?

plax512
Well, the idea is that for a fee, you will provide each restaurant with a custom phone number, maybe from twilio, but email would work I guess, but that doesn't seem as cool to me. Textamonials has an appeal, but I guess email can as well. You would probably have to have a feature where owners can either turn on or off, that when turned on, will send a follow up email back to the customer after they write a review saying "thanks for the testimonial, here's 10% off your meal!"

EDIT: To better explain it, because that was from my phone, I think it can work if you charge restaurant owners lets say $30/month in exchange for a custom backend and phone number, that allows customers to send their testimonials, and the backend is where the owner can approve of which ones get published to his site. THe backend would also be where the owner can turn on certain features, like the "rewards" feature... So, for a testimonial, a customer may get no reward, or 10% off his meal. That would be up to the owner. Of course, a phone number is only allowed one review, so you would have to keep track of each number. In the end, I think it's a very plausible idea though.