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Roast
Roast Backlogs landing page
Hey WIPers 😉,
Their marketing is so good. It seems everyone in the world loves it. I cannot resist, so purchased their license two days ago.
I replaced quit a lot of code with their existing components, mainly for Hero Section, Feature Section, and Pricing Section.
I am also thinking to enhancing the user's dashboard page, that would be another todo.
But for now, let's roast it:
https://backlogs.co/
Much appreciated, 🙏
Damon
Their marketing is so good. It seems everyone in the world loves it. I cannot resist, so purchased their license two days ago.
I replaced quit a lot of code with their existing components, mainly for Hero Section, Feature Section, and Pricing Section.
I am also thinking to enhancing the user's dashboard page, that would be another todo.
But for now, let's roast it:
https://backlogs.co/
Much appreciated, 🙏
Damon
👋 Join WIP to participate
the only thing I'm skeptical about is the Lifetime deal for your project. Did you test this? what's the data behind that decision. In my opinion the Lifetime deals are not good for SaaS. In your case I don't the the reason why should I choose the Yearly plan instead of Lifetime plan? Nothing different in the perks.
Hey Anna, thanks for your input! There are limits spots for lifetime plan, maybe 200. It's just a way to generate some initial revenue😉 Definitely I cannot afford to have every client to be a lifetime user. The lifetime plan will be removed once all spots are taken😅
My main two issues with these kind of collaborative roadmap services are:
Customer don't generally know what they want. They often request a specific feature, but if you follow up and really get to understand the problem, there's likely a better solution than what they came up with. You can't blame them though. It's your job as the entrepreneur to translate their feedback to a useful product.
Most customers won't bother filling out a form to request a feature. They just tell you through support what isn't working or ask about something you currently don't have a solution for. Asking them to add it to a roadmap is customer-unfriendly. Plus, you're better to continue the conversation 1:1 anyway as that's the fastest way to understand their underlying needs.
I've seen some other startups tackle these problems, by integrating with support services like Intercom. The support team can then create "feature requests" or link support tickets to existing "feature requests". This lets the product team see all the relevant custoemr conversations in one place, and support can follow up once the feature is shipped (or solved in a different way).
This requires a vastly different approach, but I think that's more likely to fullfil its promise. Many people have tried creating these public roadmaps, but I have yet to see anyone succeed. In all those years think I've only participated in one as a user.
Your landing page mentions "loved by indie hackers" and I think that's exactly the type of person that likes this idea. They like building in the open, but aren't sure what to build. They hope with a public roadmap their problems will be solved. But I think it's unlikely. They are likely to have limited budget, so monetizing properly will be hard.
I suggest focusing your efforts on the most successful users you have. And really try to understand their needs. And disregard any feedback from customers with small budgets.
Thank you so much for you inputs Marc 🙏
You are right that customers sometimes don't know what they want. But it would be a good start to spark some new ideas, not necessarily to be exact the same with what customer wants.
I also agree the 1:1, real-time chat is the most efficient way. Actually we do have the comment area where project owner can chat with customer directly. It just provides a central place to manage all these discussions.
This micro saas product is only targeted for indie hackers and bootstrappers like us. I haven't yet created those integrations and ticket assignment process. It wouldn't fit in the indie hacker's mode. So I wouldn't bother to add those features into the current version, haha
We do have people signed up, but not yet converting one to the paid user. Yeah, monetizing would be hard. For me, just want to offer the most comfortable price for indie hackers with small budgets.