What's New: How to handle bad reviews
(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
How do you handle bad reviews?
- Always react quickly, offer a solution (if possible), and use the feedback to improve. However, if the review has no basis, fight it.
- Knowledge or skill + Action + Patience = Success. Learning a new skill, and sharing the process, can help you grow on any social platform.
- With -$282, Idan Masas realized that he had the wrong target audience, and decided to shut down. But a DM on X led to a $2.2K acquisition.
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Handling Bad Reviews 💬
After a decade of indie hacking, I've gotten the hang of how to effectively deal with bad reviews, and potentially convert them into good ones. I'm doing this with my current project, RatePunk.
Here's when to fight, when to submit, and when to just leave it!
Always react fast
If you don't have a customer support specialist working for you, make it your top priority to deal with the review, and the problem associated with it, the moment you notice it.
The quick response time will help your response get noticed by the reviewer, and by others interested in your product. Don't procrastinate.
Provide solutions (if possible)
If the review is legit and the issue is valid, make the possible solutions known to the reviewer in your response.
Valid negative review: Don't ignore it
Sometimes, you get people just being angry at your business and writing reviews just for the kick of it. Even if the issue was solved, or if it was their own mistake, people will most likely still blame you. Be ready for that, and always have a response ready for them.
Negative review with no validity: Fight it
If the review on your product is just a blatant lie without any basis, or is completely unrelated to the performance of your product, always contest it. Platforms typically support this, in the interest of keeping reviews honest.
Report it and email the platform about it, explaining why the review isn't true. I've had a lot of luck getting rid of bad fake reviews with this method.
Converting a bad review into a good one
The best way to convert a bad review into a good one is by providing a solution quickly and effectively.
If the problem requires a more personal touch and more time, try to establish a direct line of communication with the person, perhaps through an email. People notice the personal touches!
Pro tip
Never ask the person to change the review. That usually comes naturally after they have a positive experience with you.
Remember that if the person did have a bad experience, there's nothing you can do about the past. If the review doesn't change, that should motivate you to make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen again.
The most important part of reviews, after all, is feedback. Learning from your mistakes is the best thing to do!
Discuss this story.
In the News 📰
from the Growth Trends newsletter
🍎 Apple kills Epic's iOS game store plans over App Store criticism.
🏘 How community native companies are changing work. #ad
💻 Product-led vs. marketing-led SEO.
📱 Updates to app distribution in the EU.
📧 Email is still the most consistent, reliable marketing channel.
🤯 Why tech job interviews have become such a nightmare.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
Growing to 30K Followers on TikTok 🎶
by Arkim Phiri
In 2023, I was struggling with shiny object syndrome, so I decided to put The Jacob's Formula for Success to the test. This formula helped me grow to 30K followers on TikTok.
The formula
Knowledge or skill + Action + Patience = Success.
This is the basic breakdown, but you can learn more about The Jacob's Formula here.
I decided to choose something that I knew nothing about, and share my process. I chose spreadsheets: Excel and Google Sheets. At the beginning of the experiment, I had no idea how to use spreadsheets effectively.
The process
I dedicated a few hours each day to learning. In less than a week, I became so comfortable with spreadsheets that I was making videos to teach others.
The more I made videos, the more I grew and solidified my own understanding. I was posting the same videos on TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube to see how they would behave on each platform.
The results
- 30K followers on TikTok.
- 19K followers on Facebook.
- 1K subscribers on YouTube.
- A few clients further interested in Excel lessons and templates.
I decided to slow down on spreadsheet videos to focus more on my app, Codlixe.
Ultimately, I learned that if you work on something consistently and patiently for a good amount of time, you cannot lose. People also love learning along with you, so leverage that for growth!
Discuss this story.
🔥 Landing Page Hot Tips
by Rob Hope
Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips!
Space using ratios. Using ratios aligns your content better, and tightens up your landing page design.
For example, set a base size of 8px, then define your padding using multiples of eight:
- Tiny gaps = 8px.
- Small gaps = 16px.
- Medium gaps = 32px.
- Big gaps = 64px.
Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.
From Shutting Down to Selling 💰
by Idan Masas
At the end of December 2023, I decided to shut down my failed SaaS after six months of hard work. This was my fifth failed SaaS.
The journey
I had decided to stop searching for a groundbreaking idea and just hoping for the best. My strategy was to look for existing profitable SaaS products, see what they were doing wrong, and use my product to fix it.
Eventually, I found it: A social media management tool. The market is large, and the UI/UX is mostly bad. My tweet exploded, so I decided to pursue it! I started building in public.
For one month, I posted daily updates. I shared the good and the bad, and got lots of engagement.
Botched launch
After a month of fighting with Meta and TikTok for API access, I was finally able to launch the product. The launch went terribly.
I made it to #15 Product of the Day, with only 114 upvotes. Worse, I only got ~40 signups from the launch, mostly from people who just wanted to test out the product.
I tried Google and Meta paid ads, reached out to hundreds of people through cold DM, and launched an affiliate program, but nothing worked!
That's how I realized I was targeting the wrong audience. I tried to course correct, and eventually got to ~200 free users and one paying customer. I later found out that my paying customer only paid to make me feel better, because he saw how hard I was working without making any money.
At this point, I decided to give up. I didn't have any money left.
An opportunity
After posting about selling, I got several offers to buy SocialKiwi via X DMs. I went with the highest offer, which was $2.2K.
And this is how, instead of shutting down my product and losing $282 in revenue, I was able to actually make money off of it!
I learned a lot from this project, and plan to hit $10K MRR by the end of this year with my next one!
Discuss this story.
The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Justin Albertynas, Darko, Arkim Phiri, Rob Hope, and Idan Masas for contributing posts. —Channing
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