Here were my core assumptions when starting Bashboard, and how Sales Safari turned them around.

All-in-one dashboards (like Cyfe) never have enough integrations to pull data from services.

True.

  1. This was confirmed when looking at Cyfe reviews, a lot of people complaining and no real workarounds provided. Yay! Core assumption is correct 🎉
  2. All other such services are also integrations based.

Developers who use Cyfe would like a more customizeable dashboard, they're willing to write code even.

Tricky, rather false.

  1. Most Cyfe users seem to be marketers (not devs) who want "allow access and get chart" type of easy integrations.
  2. There are developers on Cyfe also, but I could not find enough datapoints to figure out their needs or know where they hang out (how to reach them).
  3. Developers are willing to code. But automatic integration vs. POST request is not a contest, if you have 30 services.

Possible fix: Have Zapier on the side (You get all of the normal integrations, PLUS a dev can always add extra). But then I'll just be another Dashboard..

Marketers are willing to use a dev beside them to set up a super-flexible dashboard.

False.

  1. Most marketers are in a marketing company with few or no devs.
  2. If devs are involved the tool is probably too complicated for them to even get interested.
  3. I only found one user saying they had a dev help set the thing up, and this was about Google Analytics properly in their software, not connecting things.
  4. If marketers aren't able to customize (this is a major keyword) the dashboard how they see fit - they are not interested.

Developers need a quick and easy place to send data from their own systems.

False.

Developers don't seem to talk a lot about monitoring/dashboards actually. Marketers need funnels. Admins need monitoring of servers. Devs? What they need can be done with some simple Chart.js coding in the same app they're writing. If it doesn't take more than a day, why risk a third party service that may also take a day and can't possibly be any more flexible?

Admins need an easy to build dashboard without limits on sources (because they have many servers).

False.

  1. There are loads of tools that give amazing insight into server/iot/network/containers status, rarely is there something they're missing and it's probably doable with a little work.
  2. "easy" must either mean premade integrations (which competition has) or manual labor (my POST request system). If admins wanted the same insight they get from say NetData, they would have to put in a lot of effort.
  3. Major one: Admins actually don't want to do ETL (or in-between-scripts that take data from point A and sends it to point B).

Ugh.. I was hoping to find a more specific target audience and fix my landing knowing who to target specifically. Before I thought I knew many groups who need me, now I know no groups need me. Not sure where to go from here.

It seems currently I have no direction to pivot to and I don't want to give up just yet. I have no choice, but to target vague, launch on HN/PH and then cry since that is the final confirmation this service is not needed.. 😪

Got ideas?