What to expect?

2 points by dterra 15 years ago | 2 comments

Guys,

We are about to release a web app, that targets small business. Yes, another one... but turned out to be a great product. We will be doing a "phased" release targeting different channels and integrations to services.

I am sure you guys have the experience of what to expect in terms of users that will sign up to the web app.

We will be doing some marketing as we have some budget but will work basically on viral strategies we have in place. I know that it varies a lot based on who posts about the app, etc but taking everything to normal, in terms of traffic, posts, banner ads, etc. Normal is keyword here. What should we expect in 12 months? 20 users, 100 users, 500 users, 1000 users?

It is a stupid question, I know, but any guidance or numbers from other apps that you know?

Price will average the 30-50/month.

Apps like flowr, blinksale, bantamlive, indinero etc as examples. Do you know how many users they are averaging?

Any insight will be much appreciated!

Thank you

hamilcarbarca 15 years ago |

I am responding under the assumption that you are targeting generic small business that can be found in every town.

Do you have any friends/family who work in small business? Have they tested it? Have they been sold on it? My advice is to approach somebody who is a "real life" connection, offer them two to four months free if they participate as a test group that reports back about their experiences. Work with them in person through the installation / adoption process, noting any areas of poor UX in the application or anything confusing in the documentation. If it seems like it is an error that is likely to occur again, strongly consider fixing it.

If the first company isn't bullish on your project, find another. If you can't give your application away for free to people you know, it is unlikely to appeal to strangers.

Don't put your eggs in the one basket. Try to connect with as many companies that you can within these few initial months. Once you are reasonably confident in your ability handle troubleshooting in person, can explain what benefit your app brings based on real case studies and have at least a couple paying customers, maybe you should consider writing to industry bloggers, pitching your new project.

Get referrals from the people who work in small business to others who they think could benefit.Your success depends on how you are able to tap into the very competitive small business market. If you don't have a huge marketing budget, banner ads are not likely to go far. AdWords are more reasonable, but consider targeting them to people in your area and niche yourself there before thinking national.

You should think in terms of companies, not individual users. Small businesses will have between 5 and 50 employees. How many people from each business will be using your product? How many licenses do they get for your price?

Good luck.

devmonk 15 years ago |

Struggling to provide estimates of user adoption and hoping to get realistic numbers from someone else that you could use as a wild guess? Stop wasting time dreaming, get the app out, and get your numbers up. Don't scale until you need to, and don't sell numbers you won't live up to.