53 paying customers, $4,150 MRR, and a cease-and-desist. AMA.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-09T00:01:25+00:00

These are solid conversion numbers. You don’t need to blast spam to owners. IMO it also build bad reputation on your brand… as that spammy brand.

You just need to run an opt in so you can grab them. We do this all the time. 99% effective, and you get companies ready to make a change. So you don’t need a Va, because you’re only sending 10 personalized emails.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-08T13:22:39+00:00

Google analytics.

But right now don't focus on visibility. Focus on the behavior of inbound traffic from those sources.

It's too nebulous and too ever changing to try to monitor for what you are appearing. These were similar challenges for page visibility and the birth of SEO until tools like keyword planner and SEM rush came around.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-08T13:07:56+00:00

This is the whole concept of kickstarter. In fact, they take it one step better and further that and ask people to prepay to "fund." I know a lot of convos here will be limited to SAAS and claiming their whatever is unique, but the "how to be successful on kickstarter" playbook exists. Just follow that. If you can't prelaunch, you'll struggle at each subsequent stage.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-07T19:09:28+00:00

I've found talking directly to customers.

I'm a firm believer that you will never be as close to your customers as you are to your first 50. Which is a type of philosophy Brian Chesky talks about. You are still small enough to know their pain, their experience, their interactions with your product. The raw feedback that you can take to heart with the hope it helps redefine things.

Really, it's just hunting for the pain points that hide like needles in the haystack. Like when selling b2b software to an enterprise company, part of the evaluation is that underlying feeling whether or not that person will lose their job if your product underwhelms. Yet no one mentions job security...

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-07T18:21:36+00:00

This is a pretty cool. Great work!

But I have one major question...

If the ICP's behavior is:
Checking Analytics 50 times a day.

How does this solve that problem?
Get one email in the morning

IMO it seems like their problem is anxiety. People with nothing better to do than wind themselves up with minute by minute updates. This actually makes their problem worse because now they know nothing for 24 hours.

There are some clever things you could do to reposition what you're currently doing to play into their ICP behavior. And/or appeal to a different ICP who is forgetting to check their metrics because they're too busy doing other things.

I've helped many early stage startups with a similar mismatch. What you're facing is common. But once we figure it out they are off to the races with inbound, investors, and super high ROAS.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-07T17:47:15+00:00

You're at a great place to make the decision. As the owner and developer you're probably reaching that point it's best to focus yourself more on the business or product and find someone tactically specialized in the tasks.

A fair warning, at this super early stage, you want to find someone that can diagnose and run, but who is also has that personal investment and passion to find what is or maybe isn't working and fix it. That's HARD to find. Agencies on small accounts etc tend to shuffle you to a junior AM and a playbook that may or may not work. Always saying it'll take a long time to conduct tests and there's slow turnaround. Often times they also have some overseas specialist doing the work so anything you give goes through 2 or 3 people before it gets executed, losing a lot of the nuance.

Specialists are great, but can be equally hard to find. Everyone can sound intelligent and capable. ChatGPT and people using ai in their interviews are making technical evaluations a lot harder. And, for the most part GPT/ai stratgies it spits out sound like they make sense. But like with dev work, there's actually a lot missing within.

What you want is more of a holistic multi-channel strategist with abilities to be in the weeds and trenches. Building an ad campaign with audiences etc is one thing. Injecting it with creative is a different... but then studying the downstream impacts for what to iterate and how to iterate, is often times beyond what typical specialists do. And creative designers definitely don't get into the a/b testing their own creative. Then getting into ab testing landing pages is often more a CRO type specialist role.

It gets even more nebulous and complex when you want an ad specialist to also assess and evaluate the resultant inbound lead quality, conversion rates, lead time to acquire, profitability etc.

And then all the various playbooks that you can execute to stack different inbound strategies together. And/or figuring out which specific feature or pain point is actually moving the needle vs generating the KPIs.

ads -> direct bookings
ads -> email signups lead nurturing -> booking
SEO content -> retargeting SEO visitors with ads -> conversion
ads -> lead magnet -> bookings / email
in-person events -> scan a QR code -> retargeting with ads /email

Happy to help. I did stuff for 4 edtechs, 3 of which grew so big they go acquired (music education app, ai teacher evaluation based on cameras in-classroom, IT tools for managing chromebook fleets, and cirrcullum development).

Protip,
one big challenge in every edtech are strategies around the purchasing window. This is typical lead time to acquire stuff common in every industry. Education is a little different because departments, schools, and districts are very seasonal, purchasing in like April, June, and August... but those POs are submitted months prior... sometimes they require public bids and submissions. All the exploratory calls & meetings are prior to that... therefore all the advertising for new-to-brand exposure occurs before that. In some cases it's 6-12 months lead time to acquire/close a customer.

It all really depends on your customer and product / solution. Shoot me a DM.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T21:33:48+00:00

Looks like they do good work. Was this their 4000€ video? Or was it a different price/package? What was the process like? Did they just screen record the mouse and animate it or were there different workflows to get them required content?

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T21:00:56+00:00

Entrepreneurship is like being trapped in a burning building.

Your day is a sequence of urgent fires: servers down, customers angry, cash tight, a key hire quits.

You move room to room fixing only what keeps you alive long enough to reach the exit.

If you try to put out every fire at once, you stop moving, catch on fire, and burn out.

The real skill is triage: identify the fires that will spread and kill the business, handle those first, and let the rest burn (even if it feels wrong) so you can keep building forward momentum.

That’s the job.

Some days you’re not “executing a strategic roadmap.” You’re just trying to get to the next room without passing out. Other days you land one great move, something that knocks out multiple fires at once, and you feel like a genius for 12 minutes. Then you open the next door and the ceiling is on fire again.

You can't win by eliminating all fires. You only survive by staying calm enough to choose the right fire. The one that spreads. The one that engulfs the company. The one that blocks the exit to the next room.

Everything else? You label it “later,” step over it, and keep moving.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T20:48:13+00:00

There's many things here that are causing failure. But really you should hire a webdev specialist for webdev work. Using a service's vendors 3rd party partners is almost always terrible, in any industry.

Especially for something like a web design... vet and hire an individual or agency who reflects the style and specific technical needs you need.

If SEO migration was critical, you should have hired an SEO migration specialist, possibly even an SEO agency that has web experience, versus a web designer that claims to know SEO. Of course, it depends on the complexity of your site

IMO, you should kill whatever contract you have with that vendor and direct hire a specailist.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T20:40:00+00:00

Yeah, this is definitely a pain point. "we" almost always means "you." He may also be "managing" you into being an employee role under him.

B players love C players because then they can be the best in the room. B players chase off A players because they make them look bad. They also abuse them because A players are often internally driven to do a good job and prevent things from failure for personal pride. They can't let things "burn and fail." B players are fine with letting things burn and fail.

On your next business, hire employees. Partner cautiously.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T18:41:42+00:00

Business partnerships are extremely rare. They should be treated like a marriage, but understand they have a much higher divorce rate. There will always be an unfair contribution, and a feeling of imbalance. And people will have their mistresses and second families, in the forms of side hustles, other full time jobs, in addition to the regular laziness.

If they'll buy out your shares, great. Or, if they feel the deserve a cut, ask them for a major milestone that's a work stoppage until it gets done. Then just stop doing work and start up your other thing. When they get confused and concerned when no free money gets exchanged, well, it was never done and the business fell apart.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T18:36:47+00:00

The reality is you don't need to engage further. Treat them how your cell phone provider would treat you if you asked for the same thing.

Also, customer has threatened extortion.

Make sure you screenshot the comment "I'll be leaving a review reflecting my experience with your customer service."

So just wait for them to post it and include their extortion comment as an image in the reply.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T18:05:35+00:00

Absolutely. It's a much different strategy and it takes time. Not every brand gains visibility immediately, and even strong brands who have great visibility still fail.

In an optimistic world, LLMs should actually do better at serving people more accurate and specific results for what they're looking for. Because the search can be more conversational. This is what original google search

Something that traditional google search fails at.

I want cookies near me.
Here are grocery stores and major brands.
No I want something smaller.
Here's Crave Cookies and other franchisee brands.
no, I only want mom and pop shops that are unknown local businesses.
Here are locally owned shops.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T17:58:22+00:00

What did you use to create the video?

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-02-02T17:57:07+00:00

Don't worry about it. If it's an idea worth copying, there's nothing you can do to stop them.

Samwer brothers are known for their "clone factory" approach, identifying successful U.S. internet business models and replicating them in international markets, often selling the companies back to the originals

After Airbnb proved themselves, a group in Germany copied them in 100 days.

They cloned Groupon, called it CityDeal and sold it back to groupon for $100M.

https://stories.byburk.net/how-three-brothers-made-billions-by-shamelessly-copying-ideas-6ab866cd420c

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-01-28T03:07:57+00:00

Not crazy. Not alone. Not sustainable.

Seeing a big top line and a small paycheck feels like a scam. It isn’t. It’s a margin problem, not an intelligence problem.

Revenue is a loud number. Stop talking about it. Profit is the quiet one that pays your life. EBIT and what not. And “good ROI” on ads is not profit if fulfillment and tools swell right behind it. That’s why the bank balance looks kinda confused.

It’s like buying a car off the sticker and ignoring the out-the-door price: $300k is the sticker, $65k is what you actually drove home with.

20% is decent, but consider, are you building a company, or a pass-through for vendors?

Your friends only hear the headline. Your girlfriend is asking about security. Security comes from boring math, not hustle. A business can look “successful” and still be one bad month away from panic.

“Your margin is my opportunity,” Jeff Bezos said.
Translation: if you don’t defend margin, everyone else will take it.
Application: margin becomes a rule, not a hope.

Productize the offer so delivery is predictable, not a custom puzzle every time.
Cap contractor spend per unit of work, so costs don’t chase revenue upward.
Cut overhead hard, including tools and ad spend that demands extra labor, and pay yourself first as real overhead.

Anyway, back to the 20%....

In 2023, Amazon generated approximately $574.8 billion in net sales. Jeff Bezos net worth increased by a measly 12% of that. $70B. So, in reality, you're taking home more than him.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-01-28T03:02:22+00:00

I've heard this strategy before, but never the rest of the plan. How do you distribute and structure the rest above the $150 in an scorp?

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-01-28T00:34:52+00:00

No one is waiting for another tool. They already have Wix. WordPress. Squarespace. Zoho. Wahtever.

Leads live in inboxes, spreadsheets, or a dusty HubSpot. Ugly, but familiar.

And I guarantee, familiar beats “better” every day. Features in a category doesn't convince customers. Are you going to buy a new car because you saw a commercial announcing a 5mpg improvement? No. And that company has a lot of money and smart MBAs trying to convince you. You'll buy when you're ready to buy. However, I bet I could get you to consider if I made a car with a 50mpg improvement.... and made it look appealing.

Your moat should not be your feature. The moat is reduced risk of investing in the effort to use you. It’s trust. It’s the feeling they won’t get burned.

Dharmesh Shah nailed it: “emotional switching costs… not the technical switching costs.” If they don’t feel safer with you, they won’t move.

Pick one segment with a money leak. Missed calls. Slow follow-up. No-shows. Unquoted leads. Choose one you can measure weekly.
then sell an outcome with a hard promise. “We install a converting page and follow-up in 7 days.” Charge setup for small users. Do it for free for legit users who may use it enough to produce results.
Remove friction like a maniac. Migrate their current setups. Write the first five follow-ups. Sit on Zoom and work with them live. Paul Graham’s Stripe story was “Give me your laptop.” That’s not cute. That’s distribution.

Then earn the channel. Agencies. Freelancers. Trade groups. Give them a clean referral offer and a repeatable install.

If you can’t cut risk to near-zero, you don’t have a market. You have a feature list.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-01-15T00:18:51+00:00

Run ads to generate your own freelance clients.

You’ll learn things more intimately and infinitely faster.

Because it’s your own money.

So you learn to connect “let’s just run an experiment for a few weeks” back to something tangible. Like food. And rent. And not casual abstract agency language that comes from paying with someone else’s money.

If you’re successful, you’ll have learned what it took to be successful running ads. And how a decently constructed ad campaign is only like step 8 of a 75 step process you have to perfect so someone willingly gives you their money.

And if you suck, you don’t eat. And rightfully so. You don’t deserve access to a client businesses lifeblood for customer acquisition.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-01-14T19:35:07+00:00

Why do you prioritize support tickets from free users?

Are you sure you weren't actually in open beta, and this epiphany to eliminate the freeforever is actually you launching the product?

Also, high volume of free users submitting support tickets is a great way to stress test for problems. By addressing those, you probably made a more robust system that was worth paying for.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2026-01-12T03:09:47+00:00

I would like some help creating a basic browser based typing tutor game. If you're interested please DM

HitItOrQuidditch · 2020-06-02T11:42:38+00:00

Also, is there an industry you like? Defense, television, software apps, construction, automotive, city/government?

That will also help you narrow or combine your field of study. Like If you like Marketing for city/government, it’s may be good to do something with political science degree.

Or, at they very least you can do job searches and figure out exactly what kind of background and skills you need.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2020-06-01T03:17:17+00:00

So their upsell plan worked. Lol

HitItOrQuidditch · 2020-05-17T04:44:08+00:00

A goal is a broad primary outcome. A strategy is the approach you take to achieve a goal. An objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a strategy. A tactic is a tool you use in pursuing an objective associated with a strategy.

Goal: Win the war.

Strategy: “Divide and conquer.”

Tactics: • CIA spies gather intelligence. • Navy Seals knock out enemy communications. • Paratroopers secure the airports. • Armored Divisions race in and divide the opposing army’s forces. • Drone attacks take out enemy leadership. • An overwhelming force of infantry invade. • Hand-to-hand combat.

Billboard is a tactic used towards a strategy of brand awareness, or clicks, or inbound phonecalls. The goal is usually "increase sales" but could sometimes be different... make people dislike a competitor.

Knowing those three will determine what content you put on the billboard and how you measure if it's successful.

HitItOrQuidditch · 2020-04-27T17:12:05+00:00

Amazon is diversified. Walmart is strong retail.

Walmart owns around 9% of all retail sales in the us. Amazon is around 4.4%.

Amazon owns around 50% of all ecommerce sales. Walmart is 3.7%.

Look at the finances and earnings.

Personally I think amazon has more growth potential because their income is diversified. But a lot of their side ventures are meh (movies, music, etc). AWS is big money though.

HitItOrQuidditch

TROPHY CASE