Thread by @anmolm_

This piece by @shuvi was probably one of my favorite reads of 2019 so decided to write a thread on "Things I built in 2019 that didn't work". I love tinkering with side projects and worked on 3 semi-complete projects (some code, some low/no-code).
linkedin.com/pulse/stuff-di…

1- A content delivery platform for WhatsApp (think @SubstackInc but consuming the content on WhatsApp vs email). A couple reasons why I think this would work:
- Indians love to consume content
- Indians prefer WhatsApp over Email
- WhatsApp (& SMS) have higher open rates.

I do think daily newsletters in India would work in India but not as an email. And with users downloading fewer apps, it makes sense to bundle this into WhatsApp itself.

But I also came across a couple of cons of such a platform:
- Text-only content isn't super engaging (could do small blurbs + links)
- No clear monetization path (ad platform wouldn't bring enough rev)

The way it worked was fairly simple:
1. You messaged a number on WhatsApp.
2. You chose which newsletters you wanted to subscribe to.
3. Whenever there was a new post, you'd receive it as a message on WhatsApp.

The reason why I didn't continue to work on it was because although it was a fun project to hack on (basically built it for myself to get substack posts over SMS when I ran out of data), I didn't think the biz aspect of it was super fun.

That being said, @palakzat is working on a similar platform (albeit not on WhatsApp) called Broadcast Lists that I've really enjoyed using 😊

2- The second thing I built last year was when the "@Superhuman for X" hype was rampant. I essentially wanted to build a automated receptionist for everyone's phone (& charge them $5/month for using it)

My hypothesis was around how people in India waste a lot of time on the phone speaking to people trying to sell them things (DND doesn't work well in India), but wasn't sure how many people would actually pay for it (I estimated that <1M would even consider paying for it)

The flow was quite nifty:
- You'd sync your contacts with an app
- Each phone call (not in your contacts) would be asked to provide their name + reason for calling which would be sent as a notification to the app.
- Phone calls from known contacts would trigger the normal ringer.

Was also talking to @rajeshsawhney about it several months ago and he agreed w/ me that most Indian users would not want to pay for it (would to use it for free but no way I could monetize it) but it might work in an enterprise model (Digital Receptionist for the office).

But at that point, I'd just be building another call center software which also didn't sound super fun to me + after talking to a lot more potential users I decided it wasn't worth the time and capital to build it (I did use it for myself for a couple of weeks and it was fun).

3- And lastly I wanted to build a rent collection app for landlords (@khatabook for Kirayadars). Didn't actually build a product for this just a landing page (kiraya.landen.co w/ @landenapp) & a no-code app w/ @AdaloHQ that I showed a bunch of property owners.

My initial hypothesis talking to people renting apartments was that cash/cheque payment methods were tedious for them which many agreed but convincing landlords to use (let alone pay) for something to collect their money was going to be hard.

Showed a good # of them how the platform would work:
- You'd add your properties & renters on an app
- Each month renters would get a payment link on WhatsApp to pay via UPI
- And then the platform would send you the money via UPI

I was trying to reduce the friction in the transaction b/w renters & landlords but most of them told me that they didn't care or mind the friction involved and changing that kind of consumer behavior would be impossible.

I do think there are a couple of niche spaces where the third idea could work (selling property management + rent collection software to PGs/Co-living spaces) but I think there are a couple of players in that space so excited to see what they build

All in all, building is fun but talking to real users is super important (also s/o @getfrapp for helping me run small surveys & experiments). 2020 will probably be some tiny projects solely for myself (1st- crore-million.now.sh) & a lot more writing (ama.substack.com/p/coming-soon)