The Cheezus Thread - A Startup Journey

Feek said:
I haven’t revisited this since you started. Didn’t I upload some images on your very first version? I wonder if they’re still there.
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Probably! You're one the many images now! I think we have over 100k images by now. And users in over 100 countries, which is cool.

I'll start to actually push some UK focused marketing once I've onboarded about 10-20 producers so we have cheese buying power in the app and once we have soft launched that to test it out... then I'll start a bit of a ramp up. Happy to do it much more slowly at the moment. I really would like to push this by Christmas. I normally always give tight timelines, but Christmas is huge for cheese, so would be great to aim for that and be realistic. Just need to make sure work doesn't get in the way. Damn those people wanting me to work for my money.
 
I've had several "oh snap, I should build that" moments, so it's awesome to watch someone who actually has the drive to sit down and make it happen. Excited to follow along here - any updates?
 
Worthy said:
@randomshenans - I've made my way through about 8KG of cheese over Christmas. I'm on detox now but I'm still thinking about cheese. Any cheese-related updates? :D
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Mate I did the same and literally this minute eating a cheese board for lunch!

We closed out the year on 2735 users - I need to check in on the development side of things. Once it's ready to go, we can at least start to see if I can make money from some of it. I figured out a few niggles I was having with the whole only showing things for sale for people in the country they're in i.e. you can't buy cheese from a producer that is in another country etc. so worked that out and some categorization (how to link existing Db entries with search/ products for sale etc. was a bit of a mission, but I did that over the last few weeks.
I'll do a proper update in the coming weeks, but we went from 1400 users to 2735 over 2022 so that's not bad for $0 marketing spend. It's not mega numbers, but it's not nothing! Now to try and make some money back from it!! I have a meeting scheduled next week on it :)
 
One of our most popular events we've run in the past was a cheese and wine night... Not just the normal wine paired cheesefest. We actually made Tapas type small bites containing the paired cheese. A lot of work but a very popular night.

Well done mate..
 
With over 2000 people in our user DB and mailing list, I wanted to bring more value in some way to promote the content we have to our users - with a view to look at both value creation and monetization possibilities.

I created the first issue of "The Cheese Board" today; Our newsletter that covers articles written on the site (I've been writing a lot and storing them for release over the weeks), new cheeses added by users (we have an absolute boatload), pairings recommended, and will also add things like cheese recipes, little tips etc. and updates on the app, but in smaller amounts. Make it about the cheese.

Will see how this one goes, what the unsubscribe / open rate looks like and how I can use this in the future to try and drive more value to users with cheese, but not just always in the app.

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Will see how it goes on this week's episode and report back.
 
Released the first issue of The Cheese Board today. Had about 25% open rate in the first 12hours which I don't think is too bad.

The Cheese Board! From Cheezus

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Shared it on 6 Cheese Groups on Facebook (only reason I stay on that place is for business stuff and not bloody personal!) which has actually led to some more subs to the newsletter.

Already had some reflections on how to use it in a better way; there were 3 articles in there, 1 new cheese, 1 pairing, 1 article about temps to serve cheese, which showed a preview and linked back to our site.

I think it'd be a good way to steer more people places with outbound links that I didn't really do in this one. I can also link back to the app, as well as the site. What's more, I can try layering in some affiliates with pairings in the future. I do want to try and create a decent value add for both readers and producers/ makers etc. so let's build it up slowly and see how the cadence goes.

I really need to completely redo the website this week as well. It's been on my list for ages and I have some ideas for it. Just need to pull my finger out now. Maybe I just outsource the ****** with my ideas. That sounds like a better plan... I might do that.

Still not jumped on a call about the new releases and features. I spent all the time doing this as well approving a boat load of images from the christmas period, adding descriptions, images and all that jazz to new cheeses, so now I have that up to date and content ready for the next few newsletters I can work out what's next.
 

Been signed off this week with a bloody chest infection that buggered up an old **** disc issue in my lower back, so I've been unable to do much but last few days climbing the wall and sitting was easier, so I decided to make the most of only being able to sit and not having to work... :D

So I redesigned the cheezus website, which I'll be implementing soon.

I'm still deciding what else to have on it. Do I want there to be cheeses from the app on there? The blog posts and everything can be, but other things? I'm unsure where to draw the line at the moment but either way, this is the design now.

I absolutely HATE the current one. It was thrown together 3yrs ago and I didn't like it then haha but never got round to changing it, so now I decided it was time to do so.
 
New site is being done in about a week once the dude has done something else for me first.

This March edition of The Cheese Board will be coming this week, too.


We just passed 3000 users and I started a tiktok because I have a plan to help me hit 5k users by this year
 
New site is all up and running now on cheezus.co

I've been testing for about 3 weeks tiktok as an acquisition channel. My aim is to build an audience there and leverage them to convert to both downloads and field ideas/ features / next steps with, too.
Just passed 500 followers on there today, which has been pretty quick tbf - I post every day without fail and it's made a huge difference. Aim to hit 10k on there and start to use it for the above.

Also worked in the tiktok content to the website as well. As my whole thing was education on cheese etc. I'm looking at ways to bring the app content, tiktok etc. all together. Maybe in the app if you're on a certain cheese, it also has a video on it, which is from tiktok etc. something like that I'm thinking.

Still want to drop the selling feature soon, too. Not going to push it hard yet though, I will aim for Christmas - with a release before that, which gives me time to: build my audience more, build users more, bring things together, pick a country and onboard some cheese companies ready. That way it has more of a chance in launching.

Just to say I've not given up and I've still been growing about 125 new users per month. I need a big upkick as I'd like to pass 10k users this year and we're on 3.5k - hoping this social strategy works.
 
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