Level 06 · Routes
It works. Nobody is using it.
This is the level builders are least prepared for, and the one where more good software dies than at any other. It is also the most learnable, because the first hundred users are not a marketing problem. They are a research problem, done one conversation at a time.
You are here if
- You have launched and it was quiet.
- You cannot say who it is for without using the word “everyone”.
- People say it is a nice idea and then do not come back.
- You are adding features because talking to people is harder.
One sentence, one person
Name the person and the moment: not “teams”, but “an operations lead at a 40-person wholesaler, at the point they are copying order numbers between two systems on a Monday”. If your sentence does not contain a person and a moment, no message you write from it can be specific, and unspecific messages get ignored by exactly the people who would have paid.
Broadening is the instinct and it is backwards. A narrow sentence is not a smaller market, it is a findable one. You can widen once anyone at all is using it, and by then you will know which way to widen.
Where they already are
Nobody discovers a new tool in a vacuum. They are already somewhere: a trade forum, a subreddit, a professional association, a supplier’s customer list, a conference nobody outside the industry has heard of, a WhatsApp group. Find the three places and go there as a person, not a campaign.
This is also where the honest version of “growth hacking” lives. Not tricks, just showing up where the problem is discussed and being useful about it long before you mention what you built.
The first hundred, one at a time
Make a list of fifty real, named people or companies. Not a segment, names. For each one, find the reason you are contacting that specific person: they posted about the problem, they just hired for the role that owns it, they are using the thing you replace. Then write to them about that reason, not about your product.
It is slow, and it does not scale, and that is the point: it is research. Fifty conversations tell you what the landing page should say, which feature is actually the product, and what people call the problem in their own words. There is no substitute, and the thing you learn is what everything later is built on.
Interest is not use
Encouragement is cheap and misleading. The signals worth counting are behavioural: did they come back the next week without being reminded, did they put real data in, did they show it to a colleague, did they ask what it costs.
Pick one number that cannot be flattered, and watch it weekly. Signups are not it. Returning users doing the core action is usually close enough at this stage.
Run it yourself
The checklist we would run.
There is nothing held back in it. If you work through this list and nothing on it is open, you have left this level, and you did not need us to do it.
- 01
One sentence naming a person and a moment
If it contains “everyone”, “teams”, or “businesses”, it is not finished.
- 02
Fifty real names, not a segment
A spreadsheet with a person, a company, and the specific reason you are contacting them.
- 03
Each first message references something true about them
If the same message would work for all fifty, it will work for none.
- 04
You can see who came back
The most basic analytics is enough. Returning is the signal.
- 05
One number that cannot be flattered
Weekly. Written down. Not signups.
- 06
Ten conversations recorded in their own words
The phrases they use are the copy for your site. You will not invent better ones.
What done looks like
- You can name ten people who use it and say why each one started.
- Your landing page uses their words, not yours.
- You know which feature is the product.
Where it usually goes wrong
A launch post as a strategy
One day of traffic to people with no problem you solve, followed by silence, followed by the conclusion that it does not work.
Building instead of talking
Adding a feature is comfortable and looks like progress. It is the most expensive way to avoid finding out.
Discounting before you know the value
A price cut when nobody has used it tells you nothing, and it is hard to undo later.
If you want company
The unglamorous half: who it is for in one sentence, where those people already are, and a first hundred approached one at a time with a reason. This is the lab’s own trade, and where Hyves came from.
This is the part of the climb the lab knows best: Hyves exists because we had to do it at scale. The manual version is what we teach here.
It starts with a conversation and innovate@isyncso.com, subject Hangar. Tell us the level you landed on and what is in front of you. If the answer is on this page, we will say so.