I run https://allscreenshots.com, a screenshot API, since the beginning of this year.
Even before launching the product, I obsessed over the usual playbook: the landing page copy, pricing tiers, social media posts, waiting for the magical $ 10k MRR would happen. Instead of an overnight success, it trickled. We got a a signup here, a trial there, but none of the 10k overnight stories you read about (and, which aren't always 100% accurate).
The thing that actually gave us growth was the opposite of what I expected: the people who showed up annoyed. Someone who would try out product would hit a wall. For example, our docs were wrong, an edge case that gave an error 500, a feature they assumed existed and didn't, and fire off a frustrated message.
My instinct from day 1 was to treat those as fires to put out quietly. Apologize, patch, move on, minimize the damage. But above all: I'd reply personally, often from my personal email address. Sometimes I'd ask to hop on a call. It was never to defend the product, but instead to actually understand what they were trying to build and where it let them down. Let's be honest: nobody needs screenshots as their main product, it's always part of a bigger solution. To talk to hour users, and mostly listen, is to understand them better. And any reported issue, I'd fix immediately when I could. I'd fix the doc that day. Ship the missing param that week. Tell them when we working on it, and when it was live.
Almost every one of them converted to paid. It was not because I tried to sell them anything. To be honest, and this might sound strange, but it wasn't even the goal to sell. It was to improve the product, and by contacting them, they got to experience what it's like when the person behind the API actually gives a damn. A frustrated user is someone who cared enough to try to make it work. And the people who care enough to complain, are the people who need the product the most.
So, how we approach things now, is that every bug report is a free conversation with someone who's already decided your product should exist. They've done the hard part: they showed up and tried. All you have to do is not waste it. Now, in no way am I going to suggest that introducing bugs in the right way of doing business, but when there is a user who has issues, try not to get defensive on it; help them, fix things, and understand what they're trying to accomplish. The angry email is the opportunity, and showing you care will make you grow.
It's a slow journey, and def not a a 10k overnight success, but every week, https://allscreenshots.com gets around 1-2 paying customers, resulting in around 500 users with a little over 20 paying users. This is far from a sustainable business, but we're in it for the long run, and we see a slow, steady and accelerating growth in the last 5 months, and let's see where we are in a year from now!
Anyone else find their best customers came in hot?