Parabolica #45 - What I learned getting 90 users and $0 in 3 months
Yes, user count is a vanity metric.
It only goes up and to the right. 90 users doesn’t feel like much after 3 months, especially when I see so many other viral success stories.
I have $0 revenue. I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m trying to be less wrong over time.
Anyway, hope you can learn from some of my mistakes…
It all started when my friend Mark invited me to join him in something called buildspace. It was a 6-week program to work on your idea, any idea. Join me in season 5! It started August and at the time, I was growing my performance marketing agency after quitting my job at Cash App in December 2022. I felt like I finally had a handle on what to do after months of head-scratching.
So I asked myself:
“How much time will this buildspace thing take?”
“Should I take time away from my agency?”
“Can I just quit the buildspace thing if it takes too much time?”
….
Well, I’m stubborn and don’t quit.
Fast forward to today and I can say that it’s taken up quite a lot of my time. I am building systems to leverage my time better with my agency so I can keep cash flow coming while I’m building Sovran.
Here’s what I learned building it so far
It’s very difficult to have someone be completely happy with an auto-video ad.
They can nitpick the caption, visual hook, script, duration, “on-brand”, and voiceover. I can further explore the technical possibilities with the video editing API I’m using and the latest ChatGPT API functions. With the video editing API I’m using, the final video output will always be lower quality than what a great video editor can produce with tools CapCut, DaVinci Resolve, or Premiere Pro. I have to be honest with myself about what I can build as a marketer, how long it will take, and how it ranks among the other things I have to do.
CapCut came out with their script-to-video feature around the same time. Can a solo builder compete with their distribution?
‘Marketers’ is too broad.
Try ‘Video Editors in Performance Marketing a/b-testing over 10 video ads every week’. Talk to your ideal customers as often as you can to see what problem I can solve. I can’t build in a vacuum.
I need a reliable system to get new users.
What I would do if I started over again
Aim for a less difficult problem than automating video ads.
CapCut offers a robust feature set. Video editing APIs are scalable but the tradeoff is less customization. The transitions and effects you see from CapCut aren’t available via video editing APIs (that I know of).
Be incredibly clear who I’m helping and what problem I am trying to solve.
Start very niche and just do one thing really well. Like I mention, “Helping Video Editors in Performance Marketing a/b-testing over 10 video ads every week deliver in minutes instead of hours”.
Nail the homepage.
Clear headline, add social proof, show don’t tell, handle objections under the CTA, CTA should be value-driven, tell a story.
Building something valuable instead of building something cool.
I started because I was excited to combine the latest AI video and image generation methods with modular creative in video. AI video is advancing very quickly with Runway, Pika, and Stable Video Diffusion but it takes a few tries to get the look you desire.
Invest time into lifecycle marketing to nurture new sign ups and customers via email.
I started with a free trial where you could create 3 free videos first before being asked to subscribe. About half of people would sign up and not create a video. Something pressing could have came up and they forgot about creating a video.
Reconsider free trial - ‘request a demo’ or 14-day money-back guarantee instead.
The benefit of ‘Request a demo’ is that you get to talk with the prospect to understand their situation. Though people from different timezones might not be able to find a good time for them.
The benefit of the hard paywall is that you get to validate your idea quickly - are people willing to pay for it?
I’ll keep you updated along the journey and share my wins and losses.
Manson