How can I save my failing product?
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Background: My product extracts data from pdf files. Free users get 8 free jobs. Paying users get 40 jobs. Each job is a data extraction from a pdf file.
Problem: User engagement terminates after they run into a bad extraction. On some pdf files it just doesn't work, it returns empty data. Most times it extracts data but not exactly to what the user had in mind (duplicate, mismatching column, unwanted data). Right after this happens, the user will either try a few more times with other pdf files or just give up and never return again. To fix the cases where it returns empty data, it takes me at least 10 hours.
Concern: I can't support myself to work on such fixes and I can't see the number of bad data extraction that needs to be fix decreasing for each user. It's very tough problem to extract data from pdf files, it's never perfect but I was hoping it was good enough for some users. Even a paying user with their number of fix requests, I would have a hard time getting to them all. The bigger problem is that I priced is cheap so I would get more users, turns out this would lead to a far greater number of problems being encountered with the data extraction process.
Search for solution: My immediate thought is to ditch the free plan, increase the product price and somehow deal with the number of fixes being requested and barely breakeven.
I don't know if anyone's been in this situation, it almost seems like the end user cares about the result of the data extraction unlike say a bookkeeping web application that has a much narrow scope of problems expected. Like if a pdf doesn't extract correctly, it's of no value to the user so they will want this to be fixed right? And as they keep encountering more and more fixes I won't be able to keep up....I'm really about call it quits I've worked long and hard on this project and I don't think I can go on.
Problem: User engagement terminates after they run into a bad extraction. On some pdf files it just doesn't work, it returns empty data. Most times it extracts data but not exactly to what the user had in mind (duplicate, mismatching column, unwanted data). Right after this happens, the user will either try a few more times with other pdf files or just give up and never return again. To fix the cases where it returns empty data, it takes me at least 10 hours.
Concern: I can't support myself to work on such fixes and I can't see the number of bad data extraction that needs to be fix decreasing for each user. It's very tough problem to extract data from pdf files, it's never perfect but I was hoping it was good enough for some users. Even a paying user with their number of fix requests, I would have a hard time getting to them all. The bigger problem is that I priced is cheap so I would get more users, turns out this would lead to a far greater number of problems being encountered with the data extraction process.
Search for solution: My immediate thought is to ditch the free plan, increase the product price and somehow deal with the number of fixes being requested and barely breakeven.
I don't know if anyone's been in this situation, it almost seems like the end user cares about the result of the data extraction unlike say a bookkeeping web application that has a much narrow scope of problems expected. Like if a pdf doesn't extract correctly, it's of no value to the user so they will want this to be fixed right? And as they keep encountering more and more fixes I won't be able to keep up....I'm really about call it quits I've worked long and hard on this project and I don't think I can go on.
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Something really important : for what kind of clients is your product for? Who do you want to attract? You said that it is cheap, so you want consumers? – Francis L 10 years ago
1 Answer
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Who are your client? Do you have paying consumers right now? Who are they, and how to they use their product?
The problem I see with you product is that you can't make people pay if they only need a onetime extraction. And they won't pay only to test if it works or not. If they pay and it doesn't work, you'll be in a lot of trouble.
So, who are the people who will pay? To me, I think they are businesses that needs to extract data regularly from PDFs that are always the same canvas.
The first think you should do is figure out that, and then you'll be able to choose the correct strategy.
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