Comment by karim79
10 years ago
In 2013 we show HN'd Kraken.io Image Optimizer: https://kraken.io while still working at our day jobs. Three years on and gazillions of iterations later, we're in profit, have received significant funding, and are serving thousands of paying customers and tens of thousands more free customers. We have since comfortably left our day jobs, and have built a technology stack we can be proud of. I expect we will still be hacking at this for years to come.
That's quite cool. Would you mind explaining something to me? Where do you find customers?
I've always wondered how apps like yours (single isolated feature done well, available many other places for free) get customers. I've only built things which are niche-based so it's easier to find customers, but with your type of project it feels to me like gaining traction would be quite difficult. I always want to learn from people who have taken something so simple (not downplaying your efforts, just the 'concept'), and made it stick.
That's a good question, and as I'm replying from my phone, I'll try to be concise and to the point.
1) It started out as just an image optimization API (so it was a little bit of a niche product back in 2013).
2) Our API covered all major image formats, and supported both lossy and lossless optimization modes, which again, was pretty rare at the time.
3) Listen to customers, fix things, and add sensible features such as image resizing. Always listen to customers and try to understand what they want even if they don't know how to explain it themselves.
4) With enough people using our platform to essentially replace the development work, R&D and infrastructural requirements needed for a decent imaging workflow, the app will essentially market itself.
5) Develop a stack which can be rapidly scaled up and simultaneously allows for costs to be kept as low as possible. Pass on the value to customers at every available opportunity.
6) I'll edit this post and add more detail once I get to a real computer.
I think in this particular case a significant portion of customers are actually being converted through the free WordPress plugin that they provide. People know what quality looks and feels like, and are more than willing to pay for it. I suppose that's one slice of the cake. Needless to say, bloggers have promoted Kraken willingly because they want to provide content like "best image optimizers" etc,.
Beautiful website. Really love it.