Thor, Batman and building a hyper specific app for one customer.
TLDR
Find a problem a single business has. Build them a custom solution. Once you've solved a real business problem for a real business, start worrying about the next steps and more customers.
An Idea in a Space I Enjoy
I enjoy comics and shop at a local comic book store. Generally, comics come out monthly. To keep up with the story, many customers subscribe to a comic through their local store. The store then manages the customer's subscription. This is a classic spreadsheet task (sometimes pen and paper) at a brick-and-mortar store. Sounds like a SaaS!
Adress My History of Failure
Some of the standard advice I ascribe to in indie hacking is, build for customers you like, stair step, ship often and don't quit. Historically, I've struggled with all this advice. This project worked out differently and some of that is due to this strategy. I doubt this applies in all cases. But for me, someone who has 100s of ideas and zero shipped products, t
Build for a Specific Need
I asked my local shop owner how his system worked. He eagerly talked to me all about it. I tried my best to interview in a Jobs to be Done, Mom Test style. I'm sure I did some of that correctly and still more wrong. Nonetheless, I got some marching orders about what I could build to replace his spreadsheet.
Meanwhile, I subscribed to a few comic book industry podcasts to ensure that I could learn about the industry.
Over time, we worked towards me building a product that covers:
- customers
- comic titles
- messaging
- ordering inventory totals
- receiving
These features are all part of managing subscription customers. It's quite literally, his ideal solution.
Ignore Customer Two
I have a potential second customer. I've reached out a few times. But for the most part, I keep working for the one. I'd remind myself of my mantra "Until the app has one feature that's great, I'm just focusing on one thing". This has kept me focused. I've ignored selling for the most part. I'm nervous to sell, and frankly not sure if this product will sell.
That said, my biggest issue is not delivering a product. Some people build amazing things and never sell them. Some people build things nobody wants. My issue is that I have ideas and abandon them. I never build anything. In this case, I'm building something one person wants. It's a tradeoff.
Delay the Big Idea
Over the conversations with my customer, it's become pretty clear that a CRM for brick-and-mortar collectibles shops is a decent idea. There are around 20k comic shops in the US. The market is clearly defined, large enough, and generally ignored by bigger players, perfect for indie hacking. Mostly the business is conducted over Instagram, Facebook, and notebooks. I can build campaigns, events, loyalty, and maybe even inventory and auctions! Let's get after it.
This is a common failure point for me. I get way too out in front of myself. Rather than building one thing, I get excited about everything possible and progress stops dead. Maybe because the idea is complicated and I don't know where to start.
Keep Shipping
Instead of building new features the big idea, I just kept polishing the app for my single customer. Keeping the focus tight. The app manages subscriptions for in-store customers who want to keep up with a comic. I resisted the urge to move on to the next idea. I was upfront about this process with my customer. I'd say, "let's just do this exactly right for now and see where that gets us".
I got very comfortable talking to my customer. We now have 100% of his customers, from both his stores, in the app. All his subscriptions are in there. We're not done with ideas, but we're almost at 100% feature-complete in-store subscription management.
Next Steps:
Stop ignoring customer two.
