Comment by grhac | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grhac | Hacker News Reader

Its incredibly hard to build a "product" and also run a services business. Ultimately the services business will take priority, simply because each deal represents significant $$.

I predict this product will become a sideshow, generate $50-100k/yr over a few years and be sold off, of course unless you start to focus on the product and get rid of the consulting gigs.

If you do turn into a product business you will quickly realize $4/mth is not even remotely sustainable when you add ANY kind of marketing spend (or sales/success people). Just too low. You cannot make it work. Your customer acquisition costs will cost 12-24+ months MRR, and SMB churn is brutal. typical 30%+/yr. Even at $10/mth/user its a slog. Which is why you see other calendly alternatives charging $10-30/mth/usr at min.

Good luck.

All good points. Here is my take.

Churn is so high because the cost is high. Cost is high because they spend money on marketing and sales. They need to spend that money to have growth because product is the only thing we are doing.

You could be right that with consulting on the side neetoCal might not be able to grow. It's also possible that because of consulting neetoCal would be able to grow. We are not going to spend money on marketing on sales because we are earning so less. We will rely on marketing blog like this one and the word of mouth from our users.

Once we have reached a certain level and neetoCal is mentioned as a "Calendly alternative" in most discussions then the need to spend on marekting is even less.

Lasly we are ok with having a life style business. Important thing is to be alive and not die. That's why we are prioritizing being sustainable over the growth.

Your last paragraph is a good one. But these products do cease to be relevant every so often. It's a good idea to work on something else once you get this to the point that it's paying your bills, in my opinion only of course.

This person businesses.

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