2 things we learned building Hemingly v.1

Hemingly v.1 was built to help writers make a living. We tried a lot of products, pivoting from a curated short story collection to a SaaS app that manages marketing. Ultimately, we shelved the entire project, but we learned some valuable things along the way.

1. Don’t make decisions based solely on data

We used to validate our product ideas by making a landing page and buying $100 of Facebook ads to get some conversion data. This was terrible because we had no idea which parts of the product were good and which part weren’t.

Then we got smarter and did interviews. We would then draw table and score how positively interviewees reacted to each feature of the product we were testing. This was bad because we took their reaction at face value instead of asking ourselves what problems people had that lead them to like a feature.

We ended up building the thing that scored the highest: an app that helps writers better choose and track their marketing spending. When it was done, nobody cared. What writers really wanted was better ways of giving their work exposure. An app that helps them maximize the impact of their marketing dollar was just a tiny Bandaid on a much larger problem.

2. It’s hard out there for most writers

The other thing we learned was how crazy hard it is to “make it” for a writer. With the traditional publishing system, writers are often getting below 10% of the retail price of a book. The long chain of retailers, publishers and agents siphon almost all the earnings from a book.

For those brave enough to try self-publishing, the royalties range from 30–70%, but comes at the cost of running a one-(wo)man publishing business. Not only do they have to write, they also have to find an editor & cover artist, learn marketing, promote themselves and do a plethora of other business activities.