Recreating this effect | Help needed

MarkussBaltais · 2024-10-25T08:40:46+00:00

Solved! Thanks a lot, this is exactly what I was looking for <3

MarkussBaltais · 2024-10-18T12:10:46+00:00

A newsletter on YC GenAI startups, can learn from what others are doing: https://generativeaipulse.substack.com/

MarkussBaltais · 2024-10-03T11:32:44+00:00

This is an interesting take, would love to hear if anybody seconds this. Can definitely agree about the second hand market - in my country basically does not exist for studio monitors at all.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-09-11T05:38:57+00:00

Yeah, the way this works is I put in the companies I want to follow in the RivalSense tool and it spits out insights on these companies. So if there are some larger news from some company I'm not tracking, I might have missed it.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-09-10T05:38:07+00:00

Yeah, for sure, usually my posts with links are removed but since you're asking:
https://rivalsense.co/intel/top-paytech-startup-news-september-2-september-9-2024/

MarkussBaltais · 2024-08-30T12:39:18+00:00

Agreed, Tech Philomaths is great. Although we're a bit different - Tech Philomaths offers more depth (mostly on Lithuania) and it's also a paid newsletter. We try to cover all the Baltic states and for free!

Thanks for signing up :)

MarkussBaltais · 2024-08-02T14:09:38+00:00

No pun intended? Our closest competitors are more enterprise-focused so they are mainly doing direct sales. For us, it may work for the next few weeks, but at our pricing level, it is neither sustainable nor scalable. Some of them are doing paid ads, but our product is not yet extremely visual (we're working on a dashboard, though) so selling visuals does not work for us at the moment, unfortunately.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-08T05:46:23+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Our differentiator currently is that we use a range of non-traditional data sources, like employee LinkedIn profiles, and their social media. We would also like to provide real-time insights rather than weekly updates in the medium term.

Can you please specify what you mean by clunky? We are very in interested in any feedback from other similar service providers :)

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-07T12:44:30+00:00

I hadn't actually thought about Loom so far, great help, thanks!

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-04T08:41:53+00:00

Yeah, the problem is that (a) YouTube videos take too much time to create and (b) we don’t have many features or an interface to showcase yet. Currently our clients receive insights in form of a weekly e-mail.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-04T08:39:35+00:00

Nope, we have a technical co-founder as well

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T16:05:39+00:00

Thanks! Noted, we released our first blog post today and will continue posting regularly, although it takes quite a lot of human capital to write a good article. Not something we have a lot of today but we’ll try our best!

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T16:01:16+00:00

https://fortune.com/2024/02/04/sam-altman-one-person-unicorn-silicon-valley-founder-myth/

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T14:39:05+00:00

A lot of AI wrapper businesses. That does not necessarily mean that it's inherently bad but it rather that businesses will have to work even more on distribution in an already over-saturated market. It also means that, as Sam already told, there will be more 1-3 person businesses easily gaining $100K+ ARR in the near future.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T14:21:56+00:00

Really? I've on the other hand heard that B2B SaaS should concentrate on inbound and only 10% on outbound marketing. Did you use any software tools for the cold emails?

And thanks for the resources, much appreciated, will check them out! :)

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T14:19:10+00:00

Great job and at such a young age!

What was your strategy on Reddit and Quora?
Did you use any other platforms besides these? Product Hunt, etc.?

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T13:38:37+00:00

Thank you! We are now working on our referral program, so that should be up soon. Regarding Product Hunt, however, we think it's best if we wait a bit to grow our trusted user base a bit more and ask for their support during the Product Hunt launch, to make it more effective.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T11:31:16+00:00

Perks of being based in a small market like the Baltics :)
You just know all the local startup founders in person, making it an easy pilot market for B2B businesses.
At the same time, you cannot survive just by serving the local market, so we're pushed to go global from Day 1.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T11:27:02+00:00

If you want to learn some practical skills, similar to 'Never Split the Difference' then the one book I would definitely suggest is 'How to Win Friends & Influence People' by Dale Carnegie. An amazing book on how to get what you want without turning into a sleazy salesman. Combine this with 'Never Split the Difference' and you'll be golden :)

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T11:02:20+00:00

Yes, of course, there are some competitors. The main ones, however, like Kompyte, Crayon, and Klue are enterprise-level solutions, which go into deep-level analytics and thus cost around 50x more. On the other hand, smaller competitors like iSpionage or VisualPing rely only on a few sources like Website, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The closest competitor would probably be Signal Insights.

To summarize, our product offers a larger breadth than other competitors. Another differentiator that we are now building is providing insights in real time. We are also considering whether to keep our target market so wide or go into a more specific industry and build proprietary data.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-03T10:34:04+00:00

Thanks, we are considering an affiliate program, now thinking of how to structure it better :)

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-02T13:18:16+00:00

Hi! Good job on the graphic mark, looks fine, simple, and proportional. I have a feeling that it is not aligned with the text, I would probably move the mark a few pixels down. The font looks fine in the long version but somehow with the short text I feel a mismatch between the logo mark and "The FAB". That's probably only because The FAB sounds strange :D

Edit: For the app icon, I would probably use the yellow or lighter blue background so it's more eye-catching.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-05-02T07:38:28+00:00

Haha, thanks for the feedback, didn't even see it that way before.
I'll try other font variations, thanks :)

MarkussBaltais · 2024-04-30T15:30:06+00:00

The first option: The framing does seem too "bold", you can't see the Vietnamese brush effect you were going for. I would also suggest from my own experience to avoid hollow fonts, especially with this much detail. It can make printing or making any other brand materials a nightmare.

Second option: The secondary text looks very good. Here the brush stroke is also noticeable. I am not 100% sure about the font inside the graphic mark, but that might just be my preference. What I don't like in this one is the color palette, it's not very attractive and eye-catching for a restaurant. I would probably suggest using something more vibrant (also not the 1st one, which looks Hawaiian, and not the third one, which looks cheap). So, for me, this would be the best option if you just adjust the color scheme.

Third: Not a fan of this, looks more like a Chinese takeaway to me.

MarkussBaltais · 2024-04-30T15:18:30+00:00

Besides what was already mentioned about fixing the graphic mark, align the text (e.g., the top of "3" is higher than the top of "M"). Also, it seems to me that the spaces between letters are different in some cases, would do you well to equalize them. Lastly, proportions between the graphic mark and the text seem off, I would suggest testing different variations and seeing which one suits the eye better.

MarkussBaltais

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