haha well that makes sense. Good luck on your product hunt!

I know this isn’t what you are looking for but wanted to make sure you know about it:

Somfy makes a tilt motor that can be self-installed in 2" blinds. It uses batteries (both AA or rechargeable)and is made by a good quality manufacturer. It works in power outages. We have had a bunch installed for almost a year and have not changed batteries or needed to changed them yet. If I wanted local control I would mount a remote at the window and it comes with a mount to do just that.

These are a tilt motor only. Opening the blinds as in up or down is still done manually with the pull string.

Is the local API expected to stop working?

This money is already passive income. Take a small amount to fix your current issues. Pay off the car, get your rent situated, don’t be paycheck to paycheck. Keep the rest invested.

Check out the personalfinance subreddit.

Entrepreneurship is kind of a gamble not a means to an end. It is unlikely that you will double your money every 7 years as a business owner. You might…but you might not.

It really depends on where your users are. I believe this is trial and error to see what works for you. I thought I would get more IG followers than I did up front. Most of my IG followers are influencers in the same field. I do have a few actual potential end users in the mix but not many. I am also not really producing enough compelling content at the moment.

When I launched I went to the reddit sub that was dedicated to my niche and announced what I was doing and how my product helps the community. In doing that I had a lot of interested people go to the website and order my product. A few even turned into paying customers. But I spoke to those people in that post. It was more personal.

For FB, I will occasionally comment on a post mentioning how my product could help them. I see a direct correlation with orders for every post that I do that on. It’s a quick uptick and then tail off.

A few people will sign up for my social media accounts when I do the FB posts but it’s not as many as I would have thought. If I had more compelling content I think I could get more. I sell a sort of lifestyle product and I think that needs to tell a story. I just have not been able to do a great job with that yet.

Let’s say you are a local restaurant, I would go to your towns Facebook page and post a 10% coupon or something. Let people know you are there. Call the coupon FBNOV23 so you know where your users are coming from.

If you are a machine shop…make sure you are listed in Google maps for your area, show some videos of your shop, making parts, etc. let people know your business is open and producing great products.

You’ll need to understand where you get customers and where you want to get customers from.

You need to build a following of people who buy your service or products. Just having social media doesn’t mean those people see your posts. You need to continue to be engaged to build your customer base. Comment on other posts, get your social media account noticed by people who will buy your product/service. You need potential customers to see the social media so that they can like it, follow it, and share it.

In 2 months I would think you should get at least one inbound but that assumes people see your social media, not just that you have social media.

Edit: I saw results in 2 weeks when I launched. But I posted my new product on Reddit and FB pages specifically on my niche. So those people saw my post and came to me to try/buy my product.

Got admitted to hospital, had surgery, and came home with a life altering change. Boom, instant invention muse. :/ 0/10 Would not recommend

We say we are limiting samples to 1 per order. We don’t have a specific policy on re-ordering samples. Luckily(?) no one has ordered free samples more than once. If they did I would have to find some way to respond. I would probably send out the second free sample and then follow up with an email telling them we can’t provide further free samples. I’ll have to work on a polite way to say that.

I have a follow-up survey being sent to people two weeks after they make a “purchase” but only 1% of customers filled it out. This shop has only been up for a month. I don’t have a lot of customers yet but I definitely would have expected more responses from my audience.

I wonder if there is a better way to register interest. Maybe a pre-purchase survey would be a good idea. I can get some usable info while at the same time adding a little friction.

The one thing I don’t plan on doing is continuing to send free samples. So far, no one has come back and requested a second free sample. We have seen that once they try the sample they come back and purchase a product. So it seems to be working. I just want to try and convert those first time visitors to opt straight for the paid product.

I think you’re 100% right that we can offer discounts to those who have tried the product samples. We can send them coupon codes (at least the ones who have opted in for marketing).