(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
MVPs are typically the gold standard for validation:
Want to share something with over 110,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
We all know the importance of validating a product before investing significant time and energy into it. MVPs get a lot of hype in this regard, because they're fast and can validate products with a high degree of confidence. But it can be more useful to validate your idea before even spending time on the MVP.
The tried-and-true way of validating an idea is with a landing page. I know indie hackers who swear by it, and some of the big guys too. Dropbox, Robinhood, and others started this way. So, if you've got an idea that needs validating, here's the quick way to do it!
Simply put, validation is the process by which we figure out whether a product is worth working on. It's often looked at as an absolute concept: The product is either validated or it isn't. But these days, I tend to think of it as an iterative process.
Each step in the validation process tests whether the product should move to the next step. And, while a landing page generally won't provide enough validation to justify spending months or years on a product, it often provides enough to justify building an MVP. Then, the MVP will tell you whether or not to continue building.
So, with that in mind, validation via landing page is likely the best way to go, unless you're able to build an MVP in roughly the same amount of time as a landing page.
When you've got an idea that you'd like to validate, here's how you do it:
Include an attention-grabbing title, product description (who, what, and why), how it works, pricing tiers, contact, and transparency around the product's availability.
Keep the important stuff above the fold. Remove friction wherever possible, and only ask for what you need.
Create a place to collect emails. I'd suggest positioning it as a waitlist offering early access to the product when it's ready. Some landing page builders will have their own solution or integrations for capturing emails, but you can also do it with a Zapier webhook. Of course, you'll need to stay in touch with them about your progress (or lack thereof).
Connect your landing page to analytics so you can track what's happening. Some landing page builders have their own analytics solution, but I'm personally a fan of Plausible, since it's privacy-first.
Here are a few solid builders to get you started. Most have a free tier, but those tiers don't allow for custom domains. This is a problem, so I'll also include the next pricing tier up:
Have you validated through a landing page? Share your experience below!
Discuss this story.
from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko
🤖 Google has announced AI tools for retailers.
🔑 The key to App Store optimization.
🛍 12 new Google Analytics metrics for e-commerce.
🤹♀️ Diversifying your content marketing.
📧 Email marketing design tips that can increase your revenue.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
from The Hustle newsletter by Ethan Brooks
The Signal: Famed investors like Reid Hoffman, Sarah Guo, and others recently discussed nine trends they're seeing in AI.
We called some of them months ago, like the importance of digital twins, and AI's potential in biological research.
Here are two other areas with exciting potential!
1. A copilot for every job:
Released to the public this summer, GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered code suggesting tool that was trained on millions of public GitHub projects.
In a recent survey of 2K+ users (mostly professional coders), a staggering 88% of respondents reported feeling more productive with Copilot. It's already being used to create a jaw-dropping amount of code:
*Source: Twitter
Not only that, but 60-75% of respondents said they were more fulfilled with their job and feel less frustrated when coding, and 73% say the tool helps them stay in the flow.
Reid Hoffman wrote:
This future is here. There will be an AI amplifying tool for every major profession within five years.
Sonya Huang, a partner at Sequoia, agrees:
Most writing assistants today are horizontal. We believe there is an opportunity to build much better generative applications for specific end markets.
The basic idea here is to take something broad, like Jasper, and build a finely-tuned version of it for a specific industry or task.
Don't be fooled; while they started simple, these tools are increasingly capable of understanding more complex tasks. Just take a look at Adept's Transformer, which is basically Siri on steroids, and imagine what could be possible in the next few years.
*Source: Adept
Where to start: Both Sonya and Reid point to white-collar industries, like architecture and law, as potential options.
Imagine a Copilot-type tool for bankruptcy lawyers that could help draft briefs and summarize case law.
Or, you could examine industries with low satisfaction and high rates of attrition (like healthcare), and develop tools to ease the overwhelm.
For example, an AI-powered (and HIPAA-compliant) version of Doubletime could help cut down on the crushing load of patient notes that many practitioners must maintain.
2. Going beyond the cubicle:
Another area where investors see great need is in skilled trades.
Many skilled trades are facing current or imminent talent shortages, or severe disruption from years of COVID-19 shutdowns and uncertain material supply chains.
Construction is estimated to be worth $1.3T in the US. We've written before about opportunities in the space, but now AI is unlocking new segments of the value chain for disruption.
*Source: TechCrunch
To give one specific example, current estimates are that the US alone will be short 400K welders by 2024. Path Robotics raised $171M to develop truly autonomous welding robots that require no programming from operators.
Specific, high-value niches facing significant talent shortages include:
What AI opportunities are most exciting to you? Share in the comments!
Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.
from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry
You've already done the hard work. Don't waste it.
Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.
Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.
by Bruno Hiis
Hi, founders! I'm Bruno Hiis, and last year, I set a goal of getting to $1K MRR. Today, we have 35 active paying customers, are doing over $1.2K MRR, and are growing faster than ever.
Some cool stats for 2022:
Read on for more about my journey!
1. Product matters:
In a competitive market, your product comes first. You have probably seen tons of memes about how founders only focus on building new features, while completely ignoring marketing.
So, when launching our MVP, we went crazy with marketing. We tried over 10 different marketing channels, and...none of them worked.
We almost quit back then, since the general founder's advice is that, if people don't care about your MVP after a few weeks, you should probably work on something else.
The problem was that our product sucked. Therefore, any marketing efforts were wasted because there were so many better options on the market.
I believe that in a competitive market, success is 70% product and 30% marketing. If you have a bad product, you are essentially trying to multiply by zero.
In our case, we can draw a straight line between our MRR and how good our product is. I wish we had doubled down on making our product amazing before wasting so much time on useless marketing efforts.
2. Pick one marketing channel and stick to it:
Rather than finding the next shiny marketing channel that could magically 10x your MRR, just pick one that fits your target audience, and master it. Pierre from ScrapingBee has a great video on this that you should definitely check out.
3. It's much safer to build in a validated market:
If you're great at building products and design, this is the way.
There are niches in big proven markets that you could hop into. Pick a few features from a bloated tool, and do it much better.
Remember that most of the time, it's a big red flag when you can't find existing competitors to your new fantastic business idea.
Your experience might vary significantly based on the market you are in and hundreds of other factors!
Discuss this story.
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 James Fleischmann, Darko, Ethan Brooks, Harry Dry, and Bruno Hiis for contributing posts. —Channing