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independence2 unconnected · 1 more author in those circles
applies to

b2b and consumer, needs an existing audience

confidence

high

evidence

4 claims · 4 articles · 4 receipts

window

2014-02-28 → 2020-12-30

2 builders who never spoke to each other

Relaunch the thing that already sold

A product that worked two years ago is a better bet than a new one, because the changes since justify a second edition and the buyers are already there. Expect sales to stall once word of an update spreads, and design any follow-up as a discovery route into the original rather than a rival to it.

The method

  1. 01

    Refresh and relaunch a product that already worked instead of starting something new; two years of change is enough to justify a second edition

  2. 02

    Build the second product as a discovery route into the first, not as a competitor in a crowded category. Make the new format do a job the parent product cannot.

  3. 03

    Choose a product with adjacent expansion built in, because a product that only does one thing well leaves you with nowhere to grow once it is finished.

  4. 04

    Expect a dead patch in sales once word gets out that an update is coming, because buyers hold off until the new version lands.

What it returned

  • $50,000

    The first edition had made over $50,000 in its first month of sales two years earlier

  • 10

    Only 10 copies and $1,190 in the month before the re-launch

  • The writer's proposed alternative for Sip was a tappable daily list of the best apps launched on Product Hunt with a swipe to install, rather than another outlet reporting breaking tech news that plenty of others already covered.

  • Zue felt Place Card Me was essentially complete a year in, while Pegasus suggested a plug-in marketplace, a jobs board connecting Django developers to customers, courses, books and hosted deployment, following what Chris Oliver built around Rails.

Sources

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.

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More in product

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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.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.