I'm Daniel Ch: /r/SaaS moderator[1], founder, etc. I'm launching to HN this podcast, "Talk To Your Users": https://anchor.fm/talktoyourusers
I've previously tested an idea on Twitter [2] (in typical 'talk to your users' validation fashion) and on subreddits [3]: live examples of 'Talk to your users'
The feedback seemed interesting, so... I am now launching it!
What's the idea? - I record (with consent) conversations with users. People that are/will/were users of my product. Why?
Situation: One of the top advice bits in the startup/product world is: talk to your users. PG said it multiple times, but double-stressed it by saying: Half the advice I give to startups is some form of "talk to your customers." And then there's The Mom Test: a book about how 'learning if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you'.
Problem: Ok, any practical examples? I mean me listening to founder X talk to user Y. With good and bad examples
My solution: I'm doing this: recording my conversations with users.
What product will I talk about? - The answer is: I don't fully know. I'm as of now building PriceUnlock.com, a tool that helps SaaS founders find&set the perfect pricing for their tool. But maybe due to the conversations, we'll see a pivot. Or two. Or maybe it'll all go well and I'll just 'talk to my users' about future features. Who knows where this takes us? But I'm launching today with 6 episodes.
As the moderator of /r/SaaS, what can I do to make this rank higher in the list? It seems like the subreddits are not ordered by # of subscribers all the time
Am a bit wary that the community might be against "info-products", but after the somewhat positive reception of my post the other day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27087688), I thought this might inspire others to:
* Validate at a fast pace
* Trade overthinking for getting something out
* Share their story/ies
It'll probably make some of you wince, the fact that the info product I've validated is "My first 1,000 Twitter followers", but in all honesty, I'm doing by best to be transparent about it: I plan to share what I wish I've heard before starting.
> I don’t really use Twitter, but I’ll put it on my list to reach out in a couple weeks and see if any of this was helpful. I’ll make sure to mention this thread.
Please do! Can I get your contact in any way? Would really hate to let this connection slip
Everything you've advised made sense, though I've got more questions (and curiosity/hunger for knowledge). Despite your precautions that it may not apply to me, some parts do apply really hard.
Especially the bit with "For one, being no BS means you may be neglecting good opportunities to get exposure and business because it feels fake." — this problem has been at the top of my list for the last year, and only now I've started to crack at it, as I started building an audience on Twitter ( went from 190 → almost 1,000 followers in a month).
That said, I'd love to avoid some mistakes and gain some insight from somebody like you who puts it this way
I don't want to push too hard the video call bit for like right now, but at least keep the door open for a moment in the future
> what happens when you get a request for an item that you've never seen before?
Just refund and try to make up for the discomfort (money's blocked for the customer for a few days) by offering a voucher — we tell them "we still owe them a perfect experience"
> could you write a post on how exactly you became so knowledgeable in telling fakes from authentic items?
Sure! Copying below from another answer
Honestly I just 'hamstered' all the material I could on the most popular items.
In the beginning, in those first 10 guides I mention in the article, I just curated all the splintered bits of info* from the internet into one mega-guide, and added what I found after analysing fakes
* bits of info from as little as a forum thread comment, lost on page 48, to a full-blown attmept at a guide that, to me, wasn't exhaustive enough
In time, it refined to partly what I did in the beginning, and partly our own research which got better with exercise
Package all that info in a free, properly formatted guide (with some imperfect English, I admit, as we're not natives), and that gives us the traffic figures I screenshot'd
Nothing that complicated. And it's not because I haven't explored that option
If anybody reading this is able to create something that can reach 99%+ accuracy in terms of authenticating items, I've (obvious in the post) got the distribution and the audience to sell this to — DMs always open if you've got something solid
Currently it's a fully manual process.
We have competitors claiming they're 'using AI' but it's a bullshit gimmick for the masses of users. Unless an 'AI' is having 99%+ accuracy, it's probably too risky to implement
I'm glad too and grateful for the second chance on the article!
> I just have a difficult time seeing how it could be cost-effective, without being eye-wateringly expensive.
We write the guides first, which 'earns' us the 'audacity' to claim we know how to authenticate. I thought of the academic world so as to prove the expertise (I'm the complete opposite of an academic)
But mostly B2C, so it's a consumer-focuseed service
> But I guess if it's really just sending links to Amazon listings
The products we're authenticating are mostly 'asset products', so items that are $300+, most of the time sold-out, have some resale value over retail OR retain more of their retail value than usual items (think: Chanel items)
Is there any chance I can get your mentorship over a vid call? No commitment for more
The 32-core, 32 GB of memory made sense to me
EDIT: Just to not risk losing this in a not-seen-HN-reply — if yes, let me know where I can reach out, or my Twitter is this: https://twitter.com/chddaniel
Honestly I just 'hamstered' all the material I could on the most popular items.
In the beginning, in those first 10 guides I mention in the article, I just curated all the splintered bits of info* from the internet into one mega-guide, and added what I found after analysing fakes
* bits of info from as little as a forum thread comment, lost on page 48, to a full-blown attmept at a guide that, to me, wasn't exhaustive enough
In time, it refined to partly what I did in the beginning, and partly our own research which got better with exercise
Package all that info in a free, properly formatted guide (with some imperfect English, I admit, as we're not natives), and that gives us the traffic figures I screenshot'd
That's why we never considered charging for our guides, even something as little as $1 → The point was to allow people to inform themselves about fakes, with as little friction as possible
That way, if we bump the % of people who get scammed by even a few negative points, we'd still be happy for a positive contribution
But the challenge would then be to explain something like this to the average non-techie who's just buying some expensive sneakers because they're cool