https://www.lunadio.com/ Recent content on Lunadio Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 30 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/alex-from-unicorn-platform/ Sun, 30 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/alex-from-unicorn-platform/ Why is less sometimes more? How to build a product people love to use? And how to find a perfect match for selling your beloved project. I talked to Alex, founder of Unicorn Platform, about that and even more. He shared his story of finding the right idea through execution until his successful exit this year. Let’s dive into the interview. Alex, what led you to start the Unicorn platform? First, I co-founded a web design agency. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/lifetime-deals-the-growth-opportunity/ Fri, 20 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/lifetime-deals-the-growth-opportunity/ We’ve run 3 lifetime deal campaigns for our SaaS project to sell $50k in revenue and boost our business. In this post, I’m sharing why I think LTDs could be a good idea, how to prepare for this campaign, and how you can benefit from it in the long term. Intro We are 2 indie hackers building a Quora marketing tool. We were very skeptical about lifetime deals because it means users can get lifetime access to your product for a single, one-time payment. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/from-freelancing-to-building-a-million-dollar-project/ Sat, 25 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/from-freelancing-to-building-a-million-dollar-project/ I had the pleasure to meet many great indie makers in our community. One of them is Albert. A very humble developer from Barcelona working in his dream job - building his online product. He was able to turn his side project into a profitable, growing business over the past few years. I talked to him to learn more about his journey as a tech founder. Hi Albert, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself and the project you are working on? https://www.lunadio.com/blog/we-made-2500-dollars-from-our-product-hunt-launch/ Mon, 25 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/we-made-2500-dollars-from-our-product-hunt-launch/ We launched our Quora marketing tool on Product Hunt at the end of August. We had a solid user base with hundreds of users back then, so we thought it was the right time for this campaign. QApop ended up in 6th position with about 250 votes and almost 100 comments. We were pretty satisfied with these results. However, it’s not about upvotes and comments. You can’t buy bread with them, right? https://www.lunadio.com/blog/the-story-of-a-unicorn-solo-founder-making-dollar500000-arr/ Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/the-story-of-a-unicorn-solo-founder-making-dollar500000-arr/ Do what you love, build projects and features people want, and the success will come. I bet you heard that many times. This saying is well known, but I need to point out it takes time to get results. Many founders give up too soon and break their consistency. It’s not the issue of Ivan Kuckir and his project Photopea. He has been building this online photo editor for 7 years now, and it’s paying off. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/linkedin-automation/ Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/linkedin-automation/ With more and more salespeople and marketing professionals using LinkedIn’s sales superpowers, new products take on the role of aiding them in the outreach process through automation. Over 57 million businesses have LinkedIn accounts, a 2022 social app report shows, and the competition is only growing yearly. This places salespeople in the position of having to enhance their ability to reach more people, faster, through their outreach efforts. Fortunately, there are plenty of outreach tools that help automize outreach campaigns through either cloud-based solutions or Chrome extensions (browser-based solutions). https://www.lunadio.com/blog/best-email-marketing-tools/ Sun, 07 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/best-email-marketing-tools/ When pre-launching my new tool that discovers verified email addresses, I had to find a reliable way to send welcome emails to anyone who signed up for our early-access form. I tried almost every email marketing service out there—anything from Mailchimp to Pipedrive. The latter is even a CRM (yes, that works too). I researched dozen of email marketing tools, and I think my notes might be useful for anyone who is launching a new project. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/reach-your-customers-before-building-a-product/ Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/reach-your-customers-before-building-a-product/ We got a great question in our private community of indie hackers: “Everyone says that you should talk to your customers before actually building the product. And this advice makes a lot of sense. However, it is hard to find people who wanna talk with you. I tried emailing them, Reddit, forums…I got some positive feedback (5-10 people). Most of them didn’t even have their own SaaS, though. Did you talk with your customers first or started building first? https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-overcome-struggles-in-your-startup-journey/ Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-overcome-struggles-in-your-startup-journey/ Most of us experienced that feeling when you just don’t know what to do next. It is normal to have this issue. But the important is to face this problem and overcome it. Based on our recent research made with indie hackers joining our community, we found out that many people find it hard to focus, lack an important skill, or are just stuck. In this blog post, I go through project stages and advise on how to move your project during each phase smoother. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/product-development-for-indie-hackers/ Sun, 23 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/product-development-for-indie-hackers/ Today, I would like to open a topic of indie hacker product development. Many founders struggle to build a product that people want. Based on the research, the number one cause of startup failure is no market need. Founders are working on products adding feature by feature, hoping their users finally see the value. But they don’t. Product development costs are skyrocketing, and you run out of money or time pretty soon. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/3-reasons-to-start-building-your-email-list-before-you-launch-your-products/ Sun, 16 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/3-reasons-to-start-building-your-email-list-before-you-launch-your-products/ For early-stage startups, building out an email list might seem like a “nice-to-have… much later” task. But what if I told you that starting list building before you launch can get you: A list of potential clients who are a great fit for your product (so that you don’t have to play the numbers game with cold emails) Fans who are excited to spread the word about its awesomeness A list of people representing your ideal target audience you can reach out to develop your value proposition, firmly grounded in customer data, instead of trying to guess what’s likely to resonate with your ideal audience (and then get a paltry 1-2% conversion rate from your website) Access to a warmer audience than anyone you might reach with paid ads Not waiting to start building your email list until after launch can get you that - and more. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/a-wild-start-to-my-indie-hacker-story/ Sun, 09 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/a-wild-start-to-my-indie-hacker-story/ Storytime. Back in 2018, I was stuck in Brno, Czechia creating designs and code for clients in our small agency. One day, I stumbled upon Pieter Levels building a profitable site by himself while traveling around the world. Just a laptop and a week’s worth of clothes. It sounded incredible. Amazing and terrifying at the same time. Naturally, I wanted to try it. My girlfriend was finishing her degree and didn’t know what to do next, so it was the perfect time for both of us. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/7-mistakes-ive-learned-during-7-years-of-software-development/ Sun, 02 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/7-mistakes-ive-learned-during-7-years-of-software-development/ I was doing custom software development for 7 years. I started as a freelancer. I was coding website front-end, creating the design, and running marketing campaigns occasionally. Later, I founded a dev agency with 9 people in our team. We focused mainly on mobile applications both for Android and iOS. During the time I’ve worked on numerous projects for clients all around the world. Everyone had a different approach, different requirements, and different business goals. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/my-first-side-project-got-acquired-in-9-months/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/my-first-side-project-got-acquired-in-9-months/ In 2017 I was lead designer at a local company that sold goods for kids. Because a big part of my job was to support the marketing department, we had to create hundreds even thousands of ad banners per month. Long story short, I hated this part of my job. Fortunately thanks to that I got an idea of creating a Photoshop script that can generate ad banners instead of our team I was responsible for. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-start-a-saas-project-3-the-stack/ Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-start-a-saas-project-3-the-stack/ In the previous parts, I wrote about the importance of having a data model and some necessary features every SaaS project needs. Today, I’m going to write about the tech stack – i.e. the services and tools your project needs. This time, it’s not possible (nor useful) to keep it high-level without mentioning concrete examples. This time, I’m going to tell you what tools and services I personally use to stay true to the original goals: https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-spot-and-fix-the-biggest-ui-problems/ Sun, 12 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-spot-and-fix-the-biggest-ui-problems/ We are in the new „super-agile” era, an in many cases low-cost MVP’s are being built, that skip the Designer role for financial reasons. There are great design systems and free libraries out there, so even the developers can create something that looks high-fidelity enough for initial user testing and idea validation. Whether it is adapting a design system, or coding your own based on some inspirations, there are some problems you’re going to encounter along the way. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/full-stack-founders.-who-are-they/ Sun, 05 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/full-stack-founders.-who-are-they/ Probably, many of you heard the phrase “full-stack developer”. This notion reflects a developer who is able to create a front-end, back-end, and database for the website. Those people are extremely valuable and it’s very hard to catch them. They are like pokemons 😅. **But, what about startup founders? How valuable are they? ** Especially, If you are a solo founder you need to understand multiple domains. You need to know how to create a product. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-create-effective-social-proof/ Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-create-effective-social-proof/ The idea to write about social proof came to mind when I saw 30+ commentary videos in which people tried to suggest improvements to other people’s landing pages for products. After hours of watching these videos, I realized that every one of them suggested putting social proof on landing pages and other parts of a product. If the social proof was on a page, almost everyone said that was a great thing. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-start-a-saas-project-2-necessary-features/ Sun, 21 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-start-a-saas-project-2-necessary-features/ In the first part of this series, I wrote about the importance of creating a data model first when building your project. This time, you’ll learn what parts are necessary for a SaaS project to work, what technical challenges await you down the road, and how to avoid problems. Same as before, I want to keep this guide more high-level – explaining the concepts, rather than a concrete piece of code. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/nocode-tools-to-build-an-mvp-for-your-startup-idea/ Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/nocode-tools-to-build-an-mvp-for-your-startup-idea/ After 10 months of work and $30,000 spent, Singulution ran out of money before finding any capital. The founder, Hunt Burdick, spent every waking moment during those 10 months building the product and never got a single customer from it. He even used his 401k as stock options as a runway for it. It wasn’t that the idea was bad. He’ll tell you himself: the greatest lesson he learned was that he should’ve focused on building an MVP. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/i-attended-10-hackathons-and-you-should-too/ Sun, 07 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/i-attended-10-hackathons-and-you-should-too/ When was the last time you built something from scratch? I mean some simple tool that solves your problem or helps you do a job. Hackathon is a great opportunity for this. Mostly, you build a project just for fun. Also, it’s time-limited so you don’t spend weeks or months building something. It takes a weekend or 3 days usually. However, you want to get a maximum from every minute. It means you are pushing your limits, trying to get the best of you, ignore a nudge to sleep and consume a lot of energy drinks. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/9-things-i-learned-by-running-an-event-for-8-years/ Sun, 31 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/9-things-i-learned-by-running-an-event-for-8-years/ After 8 years of working for a children’s camp, we decided to sell the project. By overcoming numerous challenges I gained the know-how that I use for online products right now. I will speak about the camp, but imagine an online SaaS product instead of that. The principles are similar. About the project: The children’s camp, Kemp Snov, was a 7 days offline event where we had on average 50 children. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/saas-signaling-as-a-service/ Sun, 24 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/saas-signaling-as-a-service/ Why does every cool startup use Intercom despite its astronomical pricing? What makes Basecamp so unique? Have you heard about Roam Research recently? What is signaling? Recently, I listened to a podcast with an economist Robin Hanson who (together with Kevin Simler) wrote a book Elephant in the Brain. They make two key arguments: Over 90% of our daily actions can be traced back to some kind of signaling We’re not aware of this and subconsciously try to hide it from others While it may seem that we’re doing something for a specific reason, in reality, there’s an underlying, selfish motive to increase our social status. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/time-management-effects/ Sun, 17 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/time-management-effects/ There is one thing you can’t buy. It’s time. Your time here is limited and you want to get the most out of it. It’s as simple as that. Time management is the art of organizing your time in order to be productive, healthy, and happy. And I’m calling it art because it’s not as simple as it looks. The world is noisy. You have tons of options so it’s hard to prioritize. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/i-got-400-signups-with-a-video-of-a-product-that-didnt-exist/ Sun, 10 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/i-got-400-signups-with-a-video-of-a-product-that-didnt-exist/ In this blog post, I would like to show you a practical example of a “fake it till you make it” approach to product development. To my mind, it basically means that you are trying to stay a few steps ahead of your current situation. You are “faking” the idea that you have progressed more, but you actually haven’t. This approach gave me invaluable answers for my product which were hard to get otherwise. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-start-a-saas-project-1-data-model/ Sun, 03 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-start-a-saas-project-1-data-model/ I read many articles trying to cover the topic of technical design patterns, but they’re mostly just describing a giant tech stack. That’s not helpful for people that want to start a business. If your priority is to solve a real problem as fast as possible and make money, you don’t want to spend time setting up container orchestration! Let’s say you have created the landing page for your idea and collected a bunch of emails. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/200-days-drawing-challenge/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/200-days-drawing-challenge/ I try to improve myself every day. I did long-term experiment (at least long-term from my point of view). At that time I didn’t know anything about theories like kaizen, the theory of continuous improvement, or some deep theory on how to build a habit. I just wanted to improve. And I wanted to start immediately. Let me tell you my story and share my personal experience with you. I believe it can show you the power of routine. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-not-to-build-a-startup/ Sun, 19 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-not-to-build-a-startup/ This is the story of how I built FeedBear. It’s the first of my projects I take seriously as a real business. Now, on its 2nd birthday, let’s take a trip down the memory lane to revisit the beginnings. I did so many things wrong it amazes me to this day. Yet despite that, I still managed to build something useful and get that first, happy, paying customer even before the official launch. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/guide-to-a-perfect-landing-page-content/ Sun, 12 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/guide-to-a-perfect-landing-page-content/ If you’re creating a landing page for a project or you want to optimize the current one, I have a few ideas for you. I will show you the example structure of the landing page that converts and I add some advice. Every good landing page should have set the main goal for conversions. It depends on you what conversion means for you. Whether it will be gathering email addresses or sign-ups or buying your product, you should set the one main goal. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/what-facts-can-cause-designers-irrational-decision-making/ Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/what-facts-can-cause-designers-irrational-decision-making/ In my previous blog post, I wrote about the fact that we fall in love with solutions which we built. Just because we built it. In this article, I would like to focus on irrational decisions. I want to introduce you 3 cognitive biases, which can help you make better decisions. 1. What you see is all there is (WYSIATI) What you see is all there is psychological effect named by Daniel Kahneman https://www.lunadio.com/blog/best-landing-page-template-options/ Sun, 29 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/best-landing-page-template-options/ Hello, startup people! My “idea to launch” blog series continues with the next article. In the first blog, I presented you a way how you can come up with a million-dollar idea. Then I showed you some great examples of idea validation. Today we will look at landing page template options we have to create a perfect website for your product or service. I did some research and looked for options we have to create a perfect landing page. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/the-double-edged-sword-of-a-lifetime-deal/ Sun, 22 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/the-double-edged-sword-of-a-lifetime-deal/ When I developed the MVP of FeedBear two years ago, I saw a friend doing a lifetime deal (LTD) to raise money for his project. I don’t know if I was living under a rock until then, but it was the first time I noticed a lifetime deal for a startup. Somehow I thought that it was a marketing stunt only big companies use. What is a Lifetime Deal? If you’re in a similar situation like I was back then, let me explain. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/4-cognitive-bias-examples-you-should-be-aware-of-as-a-designer/ Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/4-cognitive-bias-examples-you-should-be-aware-of-as-a-designer/ We, as humans, do a lot of illogical things. Moreover, they are easier to spot on other people than on ourselves. Psychology and behavioral economy call these illogical decisions cognitive biases. _ “Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment."_ [1] I chose 4 specific cognitive biases examples that are worth mentioning. Especially in design. Cognitive biases are like fire. On the one hand, they can cause you some trouble. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/validate-your-idea-with-pocket-money/ Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/validate-your-idea-with-pocket-money/ Let’s say you have a business idea. Now, you want to validate your idea and find out if it is worth doing. How to do it low-cost with no programming skills and no marketing costs? When I was running a dev company, many people came to me asking to build a product they didn’t know is going to work. Of course, they wanted to do it with a tiny budget because they didn’t want to invest too much into something that could fail. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-come-up-with-a-million-dollar-startup-idea/ Tue, 25 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/how-to-come-up-with-a-million-dollar-startup-idea/ So, you want to build a startup. Do you think you have a million-dollar idea? All projects or products start with an idea. The idea itself can have value, although the execution is important as well. You can get the startup idea while you are talking to people, or if you get annoyed with some work that you hate doing, or even in the bathroom taking a shower. Mostly you can’t control it, and inspiration sparks out of nowhere. https://www.lunadio.com/blog/efficient-feedback-management-as-a-growth-tactic/ Tue, 11 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.lunadio.com/blog/efficient-feedback-management-as-a-growth-tactic/ Y Combinator is one of the world’s most renowned accelerators. Their main mantra is “Make something people want.” Obviously, you need a product that fulfills your audience’s needs. But once you have that, it’s time to grow. In this article, I’ll explain why your customers should be an essential part of that process. You’ll learn when and how to make a survey, my problem with Net Promoter Score and how to give your customers a voice.