e.g. If you're starting a consultancy/dev shop, do you have people already trying to get you to do work for them or complaining to you about difficulties finding good freelancers? If so, there is clear demand for your specific services.
e.g. One of my most successful side projects was a web browser for the Roku that I developed after reading a bunch of people complaining there was no web browser in the Roku forums. The browser went on to get over 500k active installs (there are ~10mm active Roku devices).
e.g. Another popular way to do it that works great for local businesses (or SEO-based businesses like OP's Keto business) is to use the Google keyword research tool and see what sort of traffic your keywords get and how much people are paying for clicks on those keywords. If it costs a lot to buy search ads, the niche is likely too competitive.
I've learned the hardest part of a project. Is the one you've not been exposed too. While working on a startup idea. I'm hitting a lot of roadblocks on sales / marketing etc.
When I did consulting/freelancing, that was easier. I know how much a project is worth, the value provided etc.
In retrospect, I should have probably used it solely to get user data like Google does with Chrome and then done something useful with that data, but this was before I realized that (somewhat shady) business model.
You'll need:
- A small amount of money for the ad campaign itself (e.g. $50-$100)
- A compelling image (buy a stock photo, or get a graphic designer to whip something up)
- Some compelling copy (one liner for your pitch)
- Some time spent tuning the ad targeting to focus on your target market (or your best guess of who those people are)
>Admittedly I haven't followed your blog, so you may mention this somewhere on there. You seem to fall into the common developer trap of building a bunch of stuff without gauging demand and then trying to monetize it afterwards.
I've definitely been guilty of that. I wrote a blog post about how I did this without realizing it a few months ago:
https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too-late/
These are good questions! I'll try to answer each:
>Like, are there people out there clamoring for a one-stop location where they can check if food is keto?
Honestly, I think there are.
I initially got the idea while I was trying to find an audience for KetoHub, but I'd constantly see people post in keto Facebook groups, "Is X keto?" and they'd just get a lot of unsourced, contradictory information.
I have the problem myself if I forget whether a food is keto. Dark chocolate is an easy one but like "is thousand island dressing keto?" currently doesn't have a good result. The best you'll find are forum posts and people disagreeing with each other.
>Is your site less friction than just Googling "Is dark chocolate keto?" then reading the little blurb answer Google generates?
Google generates a little blurb, but it has to pull that information from somewhere. I'm hoping for Is It Keto to be the source that Google uses for most foods (it currently is if you Google "is propel keto" or "is pure via stevia keto").
Maybe some people are satisfied with the blurb, but about 1/3 of my traffic is currently SEO, so I feel like I can continue growing it.
>Can the bulk of your value proposition be copied easily by anyone with access to WordPress?
They could, but they'd have to spend a lot of time building up a corpus of food data. And they'd have to catch up to my (admittedly small) lead in search rankings. Unless you're talking about someone just plagiarizing all my content?
>IMO you are going after areas that are too saturated/competitive. Those sorts of fields are great for marketers that know how to navigate, differentiate, and promote them, but they are not so good for developers that mostly specialize in building complicated things.
I think that's true. I've been trying to think about smaller niches I could focus on. Like keto resources for other languages (seems to be fewer players) or keto + some other diet, like vegan keto, kosher keto, etc.
>Not trying to be harsh, just trying to help.
Not harsh at all. Thank you for the feedback!
This is a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks for clarifying.
For Is It Keto, those blurbs bring in a lot of traffic. The one for Propel is the most popular page on the site by far.
I've considered display ads, too, but I've been holding off on that because I think it cheapens the look of the site.
Like, are there people out there clamoring for a one-stop location where they can check if food is keto? Is your site less friction than just Googling "Is dark chocolate keto?" then reading the little blurb answer Google generates? Can the bulk of your value proposition be copied easily by anyone with access to WordPress?
IMO you are going after areas that are too saturated/competitive. Those sorts of fields are great for marketers that know how to navigate, differentiate, and promote them, but they are not so good for developers that mostly specialize in building complicated things.
In your situation it's probably fine to keep doing what you're doing since you have stacks of BigCo savings/investments, so you can more-or-less take your time and eventually build traction with something. I'm not worried about you specifically, just other people taking your approach that don't have such long runway.
Not trying to be harsh, just trying to help.