Ask HN: How best to get early feedback from users?
6 by anonfounder747 | 6 comments on Hacker News.
TL;DR: I'm nervous about my product's future as I don't talk to users. I want to change that asap. I'm a solo founder with a product out for 6 years now. Although it's in a big market, it has a small user base (1000 monthly actives) and brings in a small amount of revenue (~300 USD MRR). Savings from prior job are enough to get by where I live. I have the skills to make the software a lot better but I've been burned enough by building features that might or might not get used. So, I've kind of frozen further product development until I figure out how to get users to talk. I'm a good communicator, genuinely care about solving problems for users and love talking to users, but I can't seem to get users to reply. I used to do hand-typed emails and got some success out of it with poor conversion (1 out of 200 replied). Because hand-typed was hard, I started using automated welcome emails and got almost nil response. I've been using automated welcome email for more than a year now and yesterday I turned it off as I thought it might be hurting my brand rather than helping. I'm feeling down that I have the capability to build but I can't get users to talk. YC advises to "talk to users".. but "how to first get them to reply to my request for feedback" is the #1 problem for me. I'm starting to think I have to up the psychology game to get a reply. Some solutions I've thought of but yet to implement: 1. Persistence: hand-type email to users and follow up gently week after week up to 3-4 times. 2. Bribe: entice users with a good offer on the product or a gift card to get them to reply 3. Be goody two shoes: provide an opt-in for emails during sign up. But I think nobody will opt-in. Any advice on what could yield a reply from a user? I am prepared to hand-type emails every day if that's what it takes.