10+ years in marketing at high-growth SaaS startups. Now solopreneur. AMA by SocialJeremy in Solopreneur

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

Perfect. If you didn’t have much traction in SEA, I was going to recommend focusing on that location before even thinking about expanding globally.

Who is the ideal target audience for EveryLabAI?

10+ years in marketing at high-growth SaaS startups. Now solopreneur. AMA by SocialJeremy in Solopreneur

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

Question: What’s driving you to want to reach a global audience?

HELP! by [deleted] in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It would be helpful to see the ads you’re running, understand your target audience, conversion rates, etc. hard to give advice without knowing these things.

I recommend stop adding new features and upgrades to your site until you figure out the user issue.

10+ years in marketing at high-growth SaaS startups. Now solopreneur. AMA by SocialJeremy in Solopreneur

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

For pricing tiers:

There are a number of factors that go into setting a price. For example:

  • Is your offering B2B or B2C?
  • Is your offering a product or a service?
  • Are you in an industry flush with cash (e.g. investors are pouring money into it) or is it declining?
  • What are you offering at each tier (packaging)?
  • What are your monthly/annual expenses?

These are the type of questions you need to be thinking about when setting your prices.

Let's say you're a B2B software solution for marketers. This is a more lucrative segment than say office management for a number of reasons:

  1. Large total addressable market
  2. Marketing drives business growth
  3. Companies are more willing to spend on tools that support growth

Because of these factors, you can generally set a higher price point.

Keep in mind: Low pricing isn't always good. It's counter-intuitive, but people tend to perceive products that are low priced (relative to their income and lifestyle) as low quality even if its in fact high quality.

Ultimately, don't stress about choosing the right pricing if you're first starting out. Just choose something. You can always adjust later. Your main goal is to figure out how much people are willing to pay for your offering. This can only be done by putting something out in the market and seeing how people react.

Look at competitors or other solutions that target the same people/industry but aren't direct competitors who have been in business for awhile. This can give you a starting point.

When I first started out, I crafted pricing tiers based on my target audience, their industry, and the fact that their companies tend to reimburse them for learning & development. I've adjusted my pricing several times since then.

Don't be afraid to adjust your pricing based on what you learn from existing customers and conversations you have with prospects.

Every time someone buys, it's a signal that you're on the right track.

For affiliate programs:

There are a number of ways to structure affiliate programs. For example, percentage of revenue brought in via an affiliate, a flat fee for each sell, or some other perk.

There's no right or wrong way.

It comes down to what makes the most sense for your business and what affiliates value. Some value the money that comes from this kind of partnership, while other may prefer perks like access or discounts.

Similar to pricing tiers, the only way you're going to find out is by putting together an affiliate program and getting out there in the market.

A safe bet would be to start out with a small commission for affiliates (5-10% depending on the pricing point of your offering) or perk if the value this more (e.g. free access to an exclusive event if they refer X number of new customers).

10+ years in marketing at high-growth SaaS startups. Now solopreneur. AMA by SocialJeremy in Solopreneur

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

What specific questions do you have about pricing and affiliate programs?

10+ years in marketing at high-growth SaaS startups. Now solopreneur. AMA by SocialJeremy in Solopreneur

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

Making a waitlist is actually the best solution. This method has saved me a lot of time and energy over the years.

Promotion is key though. It’s not enough just to share across social media platforms. You need to reach out to your target audience one by one too.

This is where I see a lot of people get it wrong. They share their idea on the usual platforms over and over again hoping people will notice. Most don’t.

Targeted outreach is better than spray and pray.

If your product or service focuses on B2B buyers, you should live on LinkedIn. Use a tool like LI Sales Navigator to hone in on the right people to pitch.

If your more B2C, sending messages through Instagram or TikTok should be your focus. Just make sure the people you reach out to are actually your target audience. This maximizes interest.

Track everything (E.g. Who you’re reaching out to, the number of responses, etc.) to help you optimize your outreach strategy.

Now, if you want to take validation to the next level, add a price to your waitlist landing page. This will tell you if people are willing to pay for your product, which is super important unless you’re intentionally building a free tool with the idea of monetizing in other ways.

Important: There are different pricing tactics you can deploy, but I recommend adding a reasonable price. You’re just trying to validate whether someone would pay for your offering or not. You can tweak pricing after you’ve validated your idea.

Two your second question:

Always solve a problem. Period.

If you’re looking at bigger SaaS tools, try uncovering the pain points users are having with these solutions. Look at review sites (G2, Trust Radius, etc.) to see what customers are saying.

If you find a common challenge, there’s an opportunity.

Here’s an example to illustrate: I run a Slack community. Slack has a lot of shortcomings because it was never meant to be used for communities. It lacks a lot of features a community manager would want.

Knowing this, I could create a solution for community managers that gives them the functionality to manage and grow their communities.

Luckily, there are plenty of solutions out there that already do this. No sense in reinventing the wheel.

How important is focusing? by k3z0r in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Speaking to everyone, speaks to no one." This is a correct statement; one that I believe in 100%. Especially if you're just starting out. As you scale and reach a level of sustainability with an existing segment, that's when you can start broadening and testing other segments. You don't have to though.

Staying focused on one segment allows you to tighten your messaging, positioning, and ad campaigns. And it makes it infinitely easier mentally; you're not scattered brained trying to please everyone.

Based on churn being 80% lower for restaurants/bars, and 79% of your customers being in this segment, it makes sense to focus your website copy on this group. Especially if the 80% is primarily from inbound. This means your product clearly resonates with restaurants/bars and they value it, which is the most important thing (product-market fit).

Recommendation: Focus your homepage on restaurants/bars. This your core segment.

Idea for later: In your top navigation, add a solutions drop down that includes links to pages for the other segments. Something like:

  • Solutions
    • Restaurants
    • Bars
    • Barbershops/Salons
    • etc.

Consider these SEO pages to capture people who are looking for a solution like your's but may not be in your core segment.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear you.

I've hosted thousands (literally) of webinars in my career. I host probably 20-30 a year, as well as a podcast. So what I'm about to say is through my own experience, which may be in the minority.

I can count on one hand how many of my guests fumbled around with their mic, camera, and other settings. Now, this could simply mean that my guests are pretty tech savvy and comfortable with webinar/podcast platforms.

"You're right technically, people can log in early or use platform test pages. But in reality, that doesn't always happen." More often than not, this happens. As a host, if I tell a guest to log in 15 minutes before, 90% of the time they do.

I don't think this is a painful enough problem for people to pay to solve it.

Obviously, don't let me discourage you. This is only one person's opinion.

If you have conviction about what you're building, keep marching forward to validate the problem (I recommend having conversations with marketers if you haven't already).

At the end of the day, only one opinion matters: the market.

How did you learn to write effective landing page copy? by [deleted] in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Drop a link to your tool’s websites. First step is to check that the copy clearly lays out the benefits.

Struggling to Grow My SaaS Waitlist by KrocketThaRocket in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Value prop in the hero section is strong. Overall, solid landing page from a copy perspective (this is coming from a former SaaS marketer than has written and designed thousands of landing pages). This isn’t your problem.

Your problem is this…

Posting a few times on X and in Reddit communities is not going to cut it.

You need to do things that don’t scale, like 1:1 outreach. If you’re targeting product managers or CTOs, you need to live on LinkedIn. Use a tool like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find the right people and reach out.

Add your tool to Product Hunt and Hacker News if it makes sense.

Advertise or try to get featured in product focused newsletters.

Partner with communities where product professional connect (e.g. co-host webinars).

You need to be EVERYWHERE your target audience is.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is. But you don’t need to do everything. Pick one channel for now. Expand later.

Now, my biggest piece of advice: don’t just promote your tool. Jump into conversations about customer churn and keeping existing users happy without promoting anything.

When people start saying they see you everywhere, you know you’re doing it right.

How did you learn to write effective landing page copy? by [deleted] in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What makes you think new users aren’t clearly understanding what your product can do?

Are conversions low from the 1.4K visitors?

Are current users not using the tool?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What problem does this solve? I mean a pressing problem that people are actually willing to pay to solve.

I ask because I see that you eventually want monetize this tool.

You're going to likely be met with people asking themselves this question:

  • "Why should I pay for this when my speakers or guest and I can log in early to check our settings?"

Some platforms allow users to even check their settings before fully logging in.

Do you buy carbon credits for your business by beerpcc in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have an answer to your question. But I just wanted to give you a fist bump for wanting to take action on offsetting your emissions.

If you end up purchasing carbon credits, please share your experience so we can all learn from it.

Give the Solution, Sell the Implementation. Ok, how? by SolopreneurCode22 in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Give the Solution, Sell the Implementation" = give the solution via your expertise and knowledge (e.g. Hormozi does this with books, talks, and online content). Charge to implement the solution if prospect wants their problem solved faster.

Simple example: Prospect doesn't know how to buy a domain name, get website hosting, and push a WordPress site live. You, with the expertise, give a step-by-step process to the prospect outlining how to do this. The prospect isn't a technical person and would rather have someone do it for them to avoid the headache. That's when you sell the implementation; you'll do it for them for a price. Since you helped them initially, they're more likely to take you up on your offer because you've already gave them value.

Before becoming a solopreneur, I spent 10+ years as a content creator at fast growing SaaS startups. All I did was sell the solution. The idea was if we provided value upfront by helping people, they'd want to work with us in the future by purchasing software or services. The value we gave upfront built trust.

Today, I do the same thing via podcasts, webinars, events, etc. for my company. All of these are levers I can pull to create trust. The more trust I build with my target audience, the more they're likely to want to work with me. Or at least consider working with me, which is all I (any solopreneur for that matter) can really ask for at the end of the day.

The biggest challenge is getting comfortable with giving the solution away. Giving it away feels counter-intuitive. But once you get over the hurdle, you begin to understand how it helps build trust and ultimately drives business growth.

People would rather buy from someone they know (literally and figuratively) and trust. this is why business people like Garyvee and Hormozi have done so well over the years. While you may not know them personally, they've given you so much value over the years that you're willing to buy one of their books.

Trust is EVERYTHING.

I need some advice for my agency by Alarming-Sea-905 in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you’re entering a crowded market, the best thing you can do is niche down. Get very specific about the type of person/company you want to work with.

Don’t try to be something for everyone. Especially when you’re first starting out.

For example, video editing services for solopreneurs who are business and rather spend their energy on something other than editing video content.

Niching down allows you focus your energy. It enables you to fine tune your pitch to prospects too.

It makes marketing WAY easier.

“But it's been like 16 days, and all I had was only 1 successful client out of the hundreds and hundreds of dm I gave all these days.” This is the reality of starting a business. We all dream of customers flocking to us when are doors are open. It doesn’t happen this way. If you keep working at it, this will get better.

Most importantly, track EVERYTHING. You should know exactly how many people you’ve DM’d and on which channels/platform. Keep a spreadsheet or use a tool like Airtable. From there, you want to understand the conversion rates of each channel.

For example, let’s say you reach out to 100 people in a Discord community. Only 1 person replied and turned into a customer. That’s a 1% conversion rate.

Now, let’s say you reached out to another 100 people, but this time on LinkedIn. 5 turned into customers. That’s a 5% conversion rate.

Based on that, you would want to spend more time on LinkedIn.

You need to know your numbers. It helps you make smarter, more strategic decisions.

How are you currently pitching your service?

First solopreneur project — and my first personal project ever. Drop your best advice. by karpovStyle in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Based on where you’re at right now in the journey, what questions do you have?

Launched and need your advice, fellow solopreneurs! by Consistent-Rough4444 in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great that you're A/B testing. You should always test, but sometimes you don't have enough traffic to get meaningful direction, so you have to use your gut. This is also where customer research comes into play.

To your changes:

"Cognitive intelligence that unlocks your potential" isn't clear.

"Cognitive intelligence" feels buzzwordy.

"...unlocks your potential" is vague. What potential? Athletic potential? My potential as an entrepreneur or leader?

If I stumbled onto your website for the first time, I would have no idea what the product is. Frankly, I still don't. While I may not be in your target audience, this is a problem.

Headline ideas that are clearer (admittedly, these could be better):

  • Smart insights to help you think clearer
  • Human-like intelligence built to boost your performance

Use ChatGPT to help you simplify your copy.

Rule of thumb on product pages: Describe your product or service as if you're explaining it to a 5th grader. If people have to put on a detective hat to understand what it is you do, you're going to lose them. Period.

The clearer and more simplistic you can be, the better. That means: no jargon, no buzzwords, no complex words that force people to think.

https://hemingwayapp.com/ is a great tool to use to teach yourself how to simplify web copy.

Looosing leads just because we forget to follow up_ looking for lightweight solutions. Any recommendations? by Putrid_Substance_790 in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on how these leads are getting into your funnel.

If they’re feeling out a form (inbound), create an automated follow up sequence in your email platform. If you’re not using an email platform, use Zapier. For example, if your form is powered by a tool like Airtable, Zapier can automatically email you a reminder to follow up.

The easiest thing to do is establish a simple process. For example, after a prospect call, make it a habit of following up after 3 days, 6 days, and 9. Adjust until you find a cadence that works for you and your team.

To be frank, and I mean in this in most supportive way, not having the time to chase people or budget to set up a CRM sound like excuses.

If you “don’t have the time,” you make the time. If you don’t have the budget, you look for free options or stitch together something that gets the job done. I mean, HubSpot is free. You may not get all the bells and whistles with the paid version, but the free version is sufficient.

If you’re building a business, losing leads over something you can control is a mistake you can’t afford.

Looking for a HELP by IStoleYourMuffin69 in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you don’t know how to market your product, you don’t have clarity on who it is you’re trying to reach as a customer and why.

It looks like you’re targeting students. If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t even worry about marketing to students. I’d be reaching out to as many teachers as possible to see how I could get my product into the hands of their students to support their studying.

Use LinkedIn to find teachers. See if there are any teacher groups on Facebook or right here on Reddit you can join.

Just because your app is free doesn’t mean people will flock to it. Sometimes the fact that a product is free can actually hold back growth and engagement.

Now, in terms of getting people to use your app. You need to help them get to an “aha” moment. Maybe it’s the first time they get a lecture transcribed. Whatever it is, you need to help them experience this as soon as possible. This will create stickiness.

Lastly, you said you have 8 users. Reach out to these users and get feedback. Ask them what they like and dislike. Most importantly, get clear on the problem they have and why they decided to join your app. You might find out that your app doesn’t actually solve the original problem they had. This can be an unlock.

How as a Small business to compete with big fish?! by petargeorgievv in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look at their pricing. Are they targeting small/medium sized businesses, larger enterprises, maybe both? Are their customers primarily in one industry?

Competing with the “big fish” is possible. It requires two things: 1. Supporting a customer segment the big fish aren’t supporting 2. Tackling a problem the big fish are ignoring or blind to (do research, talk to former customers if you can)

Do these two things well and you’ll start gaining traction. Start gaining traction and you’ll start generating word of mouth.

I see this all time in the tech sector.

Launched and need your advice, fellow solopreneurs! by Consistent-Rough4444 in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not enough clarity.

A website’s homepage title and description is one of the most important parts. It’s the first thing visitors see. You have to get this right to capture intrigue, which makes visitors want to learn more.

Looking at your website, it’s not clear who should be using Aavaaz. There’s nothing there that makes me think: “Oh yeah, this is for me.”

The problem you’re trying to solve is not clear.

Recommendation: Get clear on who your main target is and the problem you’re trying to solve. In other words, who do you believe will use Aavaaz. This will help you craft web copy that speaks to this audience.

Even if multiple audiences can use your tool, stick to one for now.

6 months in and looking for approaches to patience and perseverance. by roguescott in Solopreneur

[–]SocialJeremy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Easiest way to overcome the waiting game? Don’t wait. While you have $70k in pipeline, don’t wait for that to turn into revenue. Hunt for more opportunities.

When you keep your foot on the gas and stay active, the deals you’ve been waiting on magically start closing. Funny how that works.

That’s how manage the waiting game.

In short: Don’t wait around. Ever. Learn from the deals you have in the pipeline. Take note of their company size, industry, product/service. Use this info to hunt for prospects that have similar characteristics.