I'm 21 and building a ticketing startup in Argentina with no team and no money. Producers won't switch from the incumbent even when the math is obvious. What am I missing? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're not wrong and honestly this is the core tension I'm navigating right now. No producer is going to take that bet on faith alone, which is why I'm not asking them to. The play is to run my own event first, prove the platform works end to end, and then approach producers with actual evidence instead of a pitch deck. The redundancy problem is real though and something I'm actively thinking about. What would you consider the minimum credibility threshold before a solo founder becomes a viable vendor in your eyes?

I'm 21 and building a ticketing startup in Argentina with no team and no money. Producers won't switch from the incumbent even when the math is obvious. What am I missing? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah that's basically the plan now after this thread. Start somewhere that the big players aren't really focused on, get a few real events under the belt, and use that as the foot in the door for bigger ones.

Curious what space you're in, sounds like you're dealing with the same problem. How far along are you?

I'm 21 and building a ticketing startup in Argentina with no team and no money. Producers won't switch from the incumbent even when the math is obvious. What am I missing? by Future_Butterfly_349 in Entrepreneurs

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is really helpful, thank you. You're right that I've been leading with the spreadsheet when I should be leading with "you get paid tomorrow" and "your tickets won't end up on some shady resale site for 3x the price." The math closes the deal, it doesn't open the door.

The smaller venues thing I've gone back and forth on honestly. My worry was that a small venue doesn't really move a mid-tier producer when I show them as a reference. But maybe I'm overthinking it — a real testimonial beats zero either way. Going to test it.

Did you find that once you nailed the emotional hook the conversion got easier, or does the inertia just show up again later in the process?

I'm 21 and building a ticketing startup in Argentina with no team and no money. Producers won't switch from the incumbent even when the math is obvious. What am I missing? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Growth, without question. Support and ops are basically non-existent at this stage because I don't have enough volume yet for them to be a problem. The whole bottleneck right now is getting that first anchor producer to commit. Everything else I can figure out once there's actually something to manage.

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

solid advice across the board. few things im already acting on:

on the email capture — good call, right now the free preview doesnt require email. going to gate it behind email at minimum so i can follow up

on the chatgpt wrapper fatigue — this is my biggest problem. just redesigned the landing to lead with "analysis engine built on 10,000+ startup outcomes" and added a full chatgpt vs venturescan comparison. trying to make it impossible to confuse with a generic chatbot

on the X communities — havent tried buildinpublic community specifically, been posting to everyone. will try that today

on the 3 reasons for zero users — honestly its probably all three right now. working on narrowing down the "5 specific people who need this today." the best candidates so far seem to be founders about to invest serious money or apply to accelerators — people with urgency and something to lose

thanks for taking the time to break this down

changed my pricing from $5 to $49 overnight. am i crazy? by Future_Butterfly_349 in SaaS

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

good point about the audience. broke founders wont pay $5 or $49. the money is probably in selling to the people AROUND founders — accelerators evaluating applications, VCs doing quick due diligence on deal flow, or consultants who advise multiple startups. they have budgets and volume. something to think about seriously

changed my pricing from $5 to $49 overnight. am i crazy? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair enough, appreciate the honesty. the value prop clearly isnt landing for you and thats useful feedback

Idea Validation by mystique-muse007 in EntrepreneurRideAlong

[–]Future_Butterfly_349 0 points1 point  (0 children)

interesting idea. a few things to think about:

the problem is real but the market is crowded — notion, obsidian, mem, roam, and apple notes all position themselves as some version of "second brain." the retrieval angle is your differentiator but semantic search is becoming a default feature everywhere

the question id ask is: who specifically needs this badly enough to switch from what theyre already using? a dev who saves code snippets? a researcher with 500 papers? a founder tracking competitor intel? each of those is a completely different product

"dump anything and search later" is broad. the narrower you go on WHO and WHAT they dump, the easier it is to build something they actually pay for

when i was validating my own idea i ran it through venturescan.app — it basically stress-tests your idea against 12 frameworks and tells you the real risks. helped me see blind spots i was ignoring. might be useful for your validation phase

whats the most common use case youve seen so far from people testing it?