Been at it for 9 months and still haven't made a dime, but have spent over 13k. Would love any guidance.

[soag]

A Little Backstory

I launched Emailemu.com in November 2023 as a hub where you can discover, save, track, and analyze emails from top-tier companies.

The launch was pretty solid for my first time out of the gate.

First 30 Days:

• 13k page views
• 1.1k unique visitors
• 120 new accounts

First 90 Days:

• 16k page views
• 2.8k unique visitors
• 220 accounts

Since Then:

• Averaging 7,100 page views per month
• 1.2k monthly visitors
• Total of 400 accounts created

Current Situation

We haven’t managed to convert any free users into paying customers yet.

I’ve invested $13,847 in development, backend services, and an SEO agency since January, but I haven't spent a dime on marketing.

User Conversations

Every couple of weeks, I chat with marketers and founders—our target audience—to understand their challenges better. These discussions revealed a huge opportunity to evolve our platform into a more comprehensive competitive research tool, a point that often comes up naturally.

Vision

These insights clarified our long-term goal: to become the "Glassdoor for marketing content and competitor tracking."

The Bet

By building an extensive database of marketing content, we hope to attract founders and businesses looking to enhance their strategies or monitor their competitors. Eventually, this should open up revenue streams from those who value access to our data and insights.

The Dilemma

So far, I've funded everything myself, and although I’m not in a financial pinch thanks to my day job, I’m pondering over whether I’m too close to the project to see it objectively. Should I continue to invest, or is it time to adjust my spending?

The Question

Should I focus on monetizing soon, or stick to the long-term vision since I currently have the luxury to do so? I’d love to hear your thoughts or advice.

My Plan

I’m leaning towards sticking with the long-term vision. My aim is to enrich the site with more content and brands over the next six months to boost traffic. Then, I’ll explore serious monetization opportunities.

In the meantime, I’m looking into ad sponsorships to generate some revenue and trying to cut costs. Fortunately, I've found a developer eager to maintain their skills, which should help keep development costs down.

 

[asmodea]

@soag Perhaps the free tier gives people what they need. Maybe consider a free trial, but no free tier.

 

[nasa321]

@asmodea I think this is relevant - I saw the same with my product, people don't subscribe easily if the free tier is very generous. When I nuked it, 4 people paid within a week

I saw the Email Emu website, I think it's a great idea but the kind of people you're targeting might think it's too cheap hence not good enough. I'm guessing your target audience is probably atleast small-mid enterprises? For them $5/mo would sound too low, wonder if this also downplays the product value

Try making it an yearly subscription and reducing the free tier's features and experiment!

Also some feedback - when I was trying to signup, it showed me the "weak password" error even under the name and email fields and 'where did you hear about us' fields

 

[soag]

@nasa321 Thats a good point the perceived value isn't good because the price is just too damn low.

 

[seeker0]

@asmodea This imo 100% you’re giving away the whole thing for free . I presume the boards are for organizing and won’t be needed by a majority of users , also if it’s a large company they can just create 2 accounts etc . I would siggest restricing certain features e.g. the amount of emails / brands they can check or something like that and put more value in the subscription

 

[soag]

@asmodea I'm starting to hear this as a theme. The way I have been thinking about addressing this is

Gather brands for another month or two then, then "turn off" beta mode and switch to a paid only.

Without creating an account(maybe just enter their email) people can still see the top 25 brands but have to pay for access to anything more.