a single source, nothing corroborates it · contested
Do not assume your following is your demand
An audience that reads you is not the same as buyers who need the thing, and several launches here failed in exactly that gap. Jason Cohen had 50 paying customers from deliberate customer discovery before the WP Engine launch post ever went out, and points at a well-followed founder who sold six copies in a month. Where demand has genuinely accumulated, the launch feels like being dragged along by it.
What both sides agree on
- When demand has genuinely accumulated, the product sells itself from day one and the launch feels like being dragged along by it.
Where this splits
Cohen holds that reputation converts far worse than founders expect, while Tyler Tringas names launching to an audience he already knew would pay as the thing that separated his one success from his failures.
2 claims against 1
Jason Cohen
Get customers from discovery, not from broadcasting
- 01Expect your early customers to come from deliberate customer discovery rather than from broadcasting to your following.
- 02Treat a known name as no substitute for demand: another well-followed founder launching to his own audience saw the same collapse in numbers.
Launching to an audience that pays beats nobody
Launching to an audience you already know will pay is a far stronger opening position than launching to nobody, which is what separates this from products that never got traction.
What it returned
- 3,000
Balsamiq had 3,000 customers about eight months after launch and around $165,000 of revenue in the first half of 2008, which Peldi described as blowing up in his face.
- 50
WP Engine already had 50 paying customers before the launch post went out, most on $49 a month and a few above $1,000 a month.
- $216
Eric Sink sold six copies in the first month of his Winnable Solitaire experiment and $216 in total before selling the product for a small sum.
The author contrasts it with several other products of his that got no traction at all
Sources
- $30kJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · What causes revenue growth? · undated
- Reputation isn’t as powerful as you imagineJason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · Reputation isn’t as powerful as you imagine · 2010-10-25
- Storemapper: Bootstrapped to $50,000/year in 2 years (with live metrics) - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · 36 hours in a first class cabin · 2014-08-23 · dissenting
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in sales
- Charge for it before it exists6 unconnected
- Book the buyer calls before you write any code6 unconnected
- Package more of what you own into sellable slots6 unconnected
- Interview customers when sales stall, not buy traffic5 unconnected
- Borrow credibility from the customers you have5 unconnected
- Keep a named list of dream accounts and work it5 unconnected