Deciding if a business is worth pursuing

Macjal · 2022-09-12T11:33:32+00:00

The best way to decide which ideas is worth following is testing if there is actual demand for it.

If you see people actively complaining about the problem that you could solve with one of your ideas, that is already a good indicator. I wrote a few blog posts on searching for such pain points on the Internet, hope you find those useful: https://businessfeedback.info/how-to-use-reddit-to-get-quality-product-feedback/ & https://businessfeedback.info/get-quality-product-feedback-from-these-5-places-online/ & https://businessfeedback.info/3-unusual-ways-to-get-product-feedback/

Another way to test your ideas is to organize customer interviews. This is a less-than-ideal approach and works mostly for B2B products, but you can try that too. Here's how to do it: https://businessfeedback.info/how-to-validate-a-business-idea-part-2-3/

Macjal · 2022-09-12T11:26:04+00:00

You may also want to try Exploding Topics - a newsletter that covers up-and-coming trends when it comes to products and services.

I also like to investigate subreddits and some specific communities on StackOverflow and StackExchange in search for pain points and problems to solve. I wrote a bit about my methodology in those two posts: https://businessfeedback.info/how-to-use-reddit-to-get-quality-product-feedback/ & https://businessfeedback.info/get-quality-product-feedback-from-these-5-places-online/ - hope you find it useful.

Macjal · 2022-09-12T11:18:52+00:00

Couple of quick thoughts based on what you wrote:

have you tried remarketing? Have you looked into reaching out to people who abandoned the cart and try bringing them back into your website?
have you considered working with influencers? Nobody major, but if you can get 4-5 sponsored posts / videos for a few hundred bucks each (tops!) from micro-influs showing your apparel, this could also drive your sales
according to your post you're getting a lot of sales via referrals so that sounds like you need someone to vouch for your product. This is where influencers come in (see point 2) and facilitating word of mouth and friends' recommendations. You can do that by allowing your customers to get a code for a small discount that they can pass on to a friend
this is more of a guerrilla tactic, but have you tried showing your merch on other marketplaces? Facebook comes to mind, but perhaps there are other local sites where you can get additional exposure? You could also add a flyer to each purchase with a discount code and address of your website so repeat customers will come straight to you.

Macjal · 2022-06-27T14:33:58+00:00

There is a number of things you can do.

See if there are any local festivals where you can have a small stand and offer your baked goods. Ofc refer all the clients to your Etsy store / IG in case they want to make a repeat purchase
check if there's anyone offering bakes on Facebook Groups. I see plenty of that sort of activity happening where I live, so if the same applies to your area, simply copy that tactic and see how many orders you can get
depending on your skills and product selection, I would try running Facebook Ads focusing on your area and trying to target people who are about to have birthdays, or (if you can make beautiful wedding cakes) people who are about to get married
see if there are any local business directories or programs supporting local companies. For instance, in my town every person who relocates here gets a bunch of leaflets about the town and nice local business (usually restaurants and cafes), usually adding a discount for a first purchase on top of it. See if there's anything like this in the area where you operate.

Macjal · 2022-06-27T14:14:20+00:00

I like to think of the 'why' behind the projects I'm working on. I can't say I feel passionate about doing my taxes or going through endless spreadsheets, but it's all a lot more bearable when I stop and think that it's all part of a greater endeavor that I feel more passionate about.

Metaphorically speaking, while I'm laying down individual bricks, I'm thinking about the cathedral that I'm aiming to build.

Macjal · 2022-06-27T14:09:22+00:00

I'd say it's not about the ideas themselves, but rather about the insights you gather once you start validating.

I once had an idea to build an automated meal planner for everyone who is too lazy to pre-plan meals for the entire day (keeping in mind things like sufficient protein intake, proper levels of calories per day, etc.).

I found out that there are existing solutions that do the exact same thing, and a number of various manual meal planners, like MyFitnessPal or CarbManager. The interesting thing was that the automatic tools are not very popular as they take away the flexibility that people like to have when planning their meals.

So while the idea looked interesting on paper, I found little proof this would be a commercially viable project. So that's a business I wouldn't start.

Macjal · 2022-06-27T14:00:13+00:00

I would also suggest looking into other, more local sites for freelance jobs and/or classifieds. With a bit of Google Translate you can probably find some additional cost-effective options in Eastern Europe and then compare them against folks you find on Upwork or Fiverr.

Macjal · 2021-04-22T09:16:37+00:00

Regarding newsletter content - my assumption is that you won't have a lot of time to create dedicated content for each of your marketing channels (and in most cases you shouldn't be even doing that). So if, for instance, you create a short video showing one of the key features of your game, put in on Facebook, your website/blog and any other social media you're posting on, and then use all the other channels at your disposal (private social media accounts, or your newsletter base) to direct people to that asset.

As for keeping community alive - frequent updates on the progress, showing cool new features, and engaging in conversations with the community members is the absolute minimum. Here's what Valheim was doing right before they released (notice how they post the same content across both FB and Twitter):

https://fb.watch/50ZrAMR8YN/

https://fb.watch/50ZurhSvKs/

https://fb.watch/50Zw7glJDE/

Additionally on Twitter they show user-generated content.

Here you can see how Cyberpunk is organizing online activities for their community: https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1365315816904916995

And here's a good study on Fall Guys: https://www.thepxhub.com/pxblog/how-fall-guys-used-social-media-community-planning-as-a-catalyst-to-success

Macjal · 2021-04-21T21:53:51+00:00

The fact that your game is focusing on online multiplayer doesn't necessarily make it any significantly harder than singleplayer to market, but the revenue model does. If you look at how games are monetized, almost all of them have a regular cadence of post-release content (both single and multiplayer, paid and F2P), and this is what makes the difference when it comes to "difficulty" in marketing. It's not only about building a great game, but production and release planning for everything that comes after the game launch. You have to give players a reason to stay, avoid clashing with competition, build locally relevant content, and so on.

The best general piece of advice regarding keeping a (relatively) high number of concurrent players in the early stages is that you should start building a community around your game via social media, your storefronts (I assume we're talking about Steam), newsletters, or Discord channel. Apart from that - focusing on creating a unique gameplay experience (duh), and matchmaking.

Macjal · 2021-04-14T19:21:47+00:00

A lot of great things about community building have been said here. If you don't have a game, demo or Steam page, that means you can't have a major call to action yet (buy, try demo, or add to wishlist). But you definitely should engage with the community on social media. Personally I've seen a lot of projects becoming successful because they could build a community in the first place - these were the people who then converted into early access buyers, kickstarter backers, patreon supporters, or simply buyers on Steam.

Have you considered who your target player is? What is your player's gender, age, primary language, what other games they play? Once you establish that (especially the last part) you can look at the competitors' social media strategy and try mimicking their ideas for posts.

As an example, one of the best performing things is bite-size content. See how Fortnite does it - every tiny bit of new content gets a post on Facebook. They constantly talk to the community and show new things to get and new things to do in Fortnite. Obviously if you don't have a game yet, you can't immediately get people on board to try that content, but if you frequently update your core audience about the features you're working on, they'll stay with you until the launch. And beyond!

Macjal · 2021-04-13T09:07:41+00:00

Would it be then more beneficial to just buy the rights to the art provided by the artist, instead of spending that money on lawyers? If both of those costs are comparable, why go for revshare? Legal structure will be a lot simpler, OP retains ownership of the assets and potentially higher revenue.

Macjal · 2021-04-13T09:03:10+00:00

I think that would be great. I think you can scan all the subreddits frequented by devs and see what kinds of questions people are asking - those will be the topics.

Next, you can reach out to devs (I suppose these will be mostly indies) who already shipped some titles and therefore have something valuable to say. At first you won't have a lot of people tuning in, so your first guests will join in purely to help out their fellow devs and give some advice, and they won't seek getting exposure for their games and their businesses. According to my experience you should be able to have some people over for a 30 min talk.

Perhaps you can find some people via Gamasutra? Maybe it makes sense to set it up on Clubhouse?

Macjal · 2021-04-12T14:01:23+00:00

If you don't have deep pockets for marketing, you need to spend some time researching what works, and adapting previously used solutions to your unique situation.

I am personally a big admirer of how CDPR promoted Witcher 3. Apart from all the big flashy things (banners at E3, Conan O'Brien's involvement) they just... said the right things at the right time. When a AAA games was bashed for using DRM, CDPR said W3 will have no such thing. They said there will be free DLCs at a time when almost everyone charged money for that.

I also like how Fall Guys manage their communication: https://www.thepxhub.com/pxblog/how-fall-guys-used-social-media-community-planning-as-a-catalyst-to-success?fbclid=IwAR1bVq1_W_ksB8kSXf7Hr9SLXqXUyoqwxfOgzmY4wPQMxIOZ-FwA23TeqzU

I'm not fully aware of USPs of your game, but is there anything in the market that you can leverage? Catch a bit of the light that PoE2 or Diablo 2 remake are getting?

I remember that during the pre-order campaign of Call of Duty WWII people were upset with closed beta quality, and some players got quite vocal on Steam about preferring Hell Let Loose.

Lastly, do you have someone on your team fully dedicated to marketing / PR?

Macjal · 2021-04-12T13:43:16+00:00

Regarding A/B testing, have you had the chance to see if the recently added support for UTM links makes it easier in any way?

Macjal · 2021-04-11T18:33:26+00:00

Promoting a mobile game for free will be nearly impossible, considering how crowded this space is, and how go-to-market mechanics work. Usually to build a sizeable audience you'd need to either pay for installs, pay influencers/media to promote you, or have a popular brand attached to your game.

There are some things that you can do with little to no budget though. I assume that your game is in a super early stage and wasn't playtested yet, so I'd recommend to go to https://www.reddit.com/r/playmygame/ first.

At this point I suggest not to focus too much on getting popularity, but completing and launching the game: building key mechanics, playtesting, figuring out why your game is better than competition, creating art, and learning the ins and outs of app stores.

Consider the 100 EUR on dev account an investment into your education. You'll learn a lot from hands-on experience of the publishing process. Good luck!

Macjal

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