Should we continue our business or kill it? Help!
Hello,
I am the co-founder of novalux (https://www.novalux.io/).
After 6 months of development and publishing of the project we know that we’ve got nothing so far (10 registered users).
So here I am asking the community for help, should I modify the business model, or should we just drop the project?
The main goal of the project is to eliminate illegal light novel translations that can be found on the internet, the website would allow you to post and novel and allow other people to translate it so that people all around the world can read it.
If we had any users, the income would come from ads or some kind of premium subscriptions.
But after developing mvp we realized that getting people to use it is not so easy.
- We are targeting Asian writers mostly. We are of course open for other nationalities and languages but we do not and probably shouldn’t focus on that.
- We are not targeting the biggest writers, because of course, we wouldn’t be able to get them due to publishers, etc.
But since we cannot get to big writers we cannot solve the illegality problem, and unknown authors probably are not affected by rogue translations problem.
Our current goal is to contact Asian writers that have almost no recognition and encourage them to post their work on the website.
What do you guys think? Is there anything we could do to save this project?
I don't know what should be done now.
And yes I know - we should've thought about this more before we even started developing.
To be direct:
I'm avid reader and I've already translated a short novel for my friends. Yet, I'm totally unsure what your site is about. Your mission statement "The first platform that brings together novel enthusiasts, writers and translators." is meaningless for me. Be direct and clear: "Read great novels from small authors and help to translate them to your language so others can enjoy them too."
The site is empty. There's nothing for me as a reader or possible translator. So don't expect me to sign up. But I particularly love the idea.
What would I do being you?
The problem - You are building a marketplace where you want to connect more groups together and that's always tricky. The value for one of the groups is created by a presence of the other group.
The solution - Bring one of the groups first and offer it substitutive value. For example, I would probably reach small authors and offer them translations to key languages - that could be of some value for them. I wouldn't talk about the illegal translations and other concepts. I would say the truth - Hey, we want to connect smaller authors like you with more readers and for this reason, we are willing to translate your novels to get the initial content. Let's be the part of it from very begging. There's nothing to lose.
This way, you can build something interesting for the second group - readers. Once both groups start growing, you've got a marketplace with a traction and it can maybe get its own momentum.
However, I'm not sure about the situation on this market and how easy small authors can start publishing on Kindle via Amazon, etc.
So, the very first step I would do being you is to contact small authors with this particular offer and learn about whether they like it or not.
kill it. if you're confident about your products execution and only have 10 users in 6 months and have been proactive about getting new users, it sounds like your time would be better spent on a new idea.
The fact that you're questioning it should be a red flag. Typically i'll pursue an idea for 6-9 months and if it doesn't get traction i kill it. That's me though.
Statistically the more business ideas you try, the closer you'll hit a successful one. This doesn't sound like the one.
I would reach out to your current users and see if you can interview them.
Essentially you want to verify that your goals and assumptions align with their experience of the product. The biggest things to being looking for are:
Two comments:
There seems to be a mismatch between what you say the problem is and what your mvp accomplishes. When I navigate the platform I am not sure what I am supposed to do as a reader. And I see nothing that calls out the problem you are solving to either authors or translators. So on one hand, I am not sure you solved the core problem with your mvp.
Who is caused the most pain by this problem? Is this even a top 5 problem for the authors you are targeting? If you reached out to authors and got no interest maybe it's not really a problem.
"The main goal of the project is to eliminate illegal light novel translations that can be found on the internet, the website would allow you to post and novel and allow other people to translate it so that people all around the world can read it."
Could you articulate what the pain point is that you are solving?
Hello, essentially we've created a platform that brings together authors, translators, and readers in a legal environment and where everyone wins.
Today light novels written in foreign languages get translated and distributed without the authors consent. Why? Well because they're good stories and translation companies have not taken them into hand.
But generally that's the main point. Hope that answers your question.
I'm not too familiar with the space but maybe there's a way you can simplify it to start. Break down the pain points and try to solve one of them. It seems like there's a lot going in this market.
One thing you didn't mention is: How much time did you spend promoting this site? How much time did you spend talking to users?
Not enough. We shared it with some friends, tweeted about it, made a video about it, wrote an article on product hunt, we sent some messages to potential authors and translators.
Generally no feedback or no interest which is frustrating. Any feedback we get we implement right away.
We spoke about it to friends and had them try the app. Got good feedback that we took into account.
That's roughly where we are atm.
Your site is not opening, i suggest you to visit my website https://bit.ly/3cBiOSm
its great source of earing and its growing day by day.
Yeah the project is dead, but I am happy for you man, keep that up!
So sweet of you dear.