🗞 What's New: Is AI scraping good or bad?

Scraping brings up privacy and copyright issues:

• Big AI is scraping your content. Google is already being sued over it. But some indie hackers think AI scraping is a good thing.
• Getting user feedback can be tough. Try setting up the lowest friction way possible. Offering support also opens up feedback.
• January: 10 users. June: 2K users. Focusing on acquiring just a few high-quality beta users was key to Klu's 900% growth.

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by James Fleischmann

Big AI is scraping content. Google recently updated its privacy policy to say that it’ll use...well, everything on the internet.

Obviously, this practice brings privacy and copyright concerns; a class action lawsuit for copyright infringement against Google is already underway. Indie hackers weigh in below.

Is scraping for AI good or bad?

Courtland Allen of Indie Hackers:

I’m a big fan of AI. It’s fun, it’s interesting, and it gives me superpowers as a developer and business owner.

I don’t care if AI ingests my content. It’s also a moot point. It’s 2023. We’ve seen this battle play out enough times to know that technology will ultimately win. Let’s just accept the inevitable, and focus on making the best of it.

Alexander Isora of Unicorn Platform:

It will be the greatest theft in the entire history of humanity. But is that good or bad?

Creativity is the process of creating something new based on the existing thing(s). If I get inspired by Rembrandt and Andy Warhol, and use the neural network in my brain to create a new style, am I a thief?

What if I teach a neural network in my computer to do this?

This is progress. It's pointless to judge it. And, there is no way to prevent it.

A crime?

Mateusz Buda of Scraping Fish:

If the content is public and all legal requirements are met, everyone should be allowed to obtain it, store it, process it, and even sell it in one form or another.

The stuff that Google does is totally legal, as it does only the things that website owners allow the company to do. It’s pretty easy to prevent your data from getting scraped, at the cost of not ranking and being found by potential users.

What does this mean for copyright and innovation?

Courtland Allen:

I’m not a big fan of copyright. It puts unnecessary restrictions on ideas, stories, and art, which are things that are naturally better if they spread.

I don’t buy the argument that copyright is necessary to spur creativity. Lots of people create art without any expectation of profit from licensing, because they love art. And lots of people get paid for their writing without relying on licensing, because they’re good at business.

Expecting a paycheck because ChatGPT or Bard or Claude scraped your writing seems like the worst of both worlds: Wanting to do art for the sake of business, but not being good enough at business to figure out how to profit.

Discuss this story.

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by Hugo Hamel

I have 27 paying customers for Sqriblr, a ChatGPT add-on, and they aren't responding to my requests for feedback despite my asking in multiple emails. How can I get them to respond?

Low friction

Get feedback in the lowest friction way possible. If you deploy a new feature and the user interacts with the feature for the first time, pop up a little thumbs up or thumbs down interaction. This is an extremely easy way for the user to provide feedback, as it doesn't require much on their part.

Piggyback off of that and ask if they want to provide more feedback, then link them to a survey.

I have found that showing a small banner asking for feedback (linking to a survey, for example) in the context of the app works also.

In person

Narrow it down to a few customers, then ask for in-person feedback. This can be virtual or a physical meeting.

Don't be defensive, and be open to all feedback. You may want to thank folks for their time with an Amazon or Starbucks voucher, or early access to the next version!

Support > feedback

Don't solely offer incentives, as the feedback may be dishonest. People will give you false answers to get whatever benefit you're promising. Also, emailing people asking for feedback can feel desperate.

Perhaps try just offering personal support, maybe by phone (until you scale). Talking with people about things they need help with in relation to your product will probably be the best feedback you can get. Offering your personal help is enough incentive to get people to act, and the complaints you get will be more honest than someone putting on their "feedback hat" and trying to be helpful.

Make yourself accessible to complaints, and you can derive feedback from those complaints. Feedback just for feedback's sake is unreliable.

Personalize it

If you know their name, use it. Introduce yourself as the founder. You are a small company, so perhaps don't use the collective "us" and "we." I would be more inclined to help a person (you) over helping a large company.

Don't ask vague, open-ended questions. Figure out what you really need to know, and give them a clear call-to-action!

Discuss this story.

by Rob Hope

Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips:

Replace your demo GIFs with video. Video offers:

• Better performance.
• More colors.
• Smaller file size.
• Ability to pause.

The argument for using GIFs is that they are easier to produce and save, but neither are reasons to use them on your landing page.

Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.

by Sveta Bay

Every week, I send a marketing case study profiling a profitable founder. Today, we have Sandra Djajic chatting about the secrets behind Klu's growth.

January 2023: 10 users. June 2023: 2K users, including Netflix, Product Hunt, Zapier, Gojek, and Dropbox teams!

The product and audience

Klu allows you to connect all your apps for seamless, unified searching.

In the early stages, our ideal customer was primarily a tech-savvy product manager in SMEs. As we've grown and evolved, we've extended our focus to other personas, also.

With our latest updates, we're now also catering to customer support teams, marketing departments, and developers. These teams often grapple with the same challenge: Efficiently managing and utilizing the wealth of internal data.

The journey

In January, Klu took its first steps with a private beta. We had the backing of 10 companies who saw potential in our product, and purchased our MVP through an annual plan. By the end of March, the user base had grown to around 200. Then, the game changed. We launched a public beta, prompting an explosive surge in user numbers.

By June, we'd reached a significant milestone: 2K users. This translates to 900% growth! We acknowledge that transitioning from a private to a public beta naturally inflates this growth percentage. However, even considering this, our growth has been substantial and worth noting.

How did you get your first 10 customers?

During the MVP stage, we employed a proactive outreach strategy, engaging mostly tech companies. In some instances, we had existing connections with product heads or team leads who were keen to trial our solution.

As we transitioned to the public beta stage, we launched on Product Hunt. Our target audience included teams within SMEs, and startup founders with smaller teams. Launching on Product Hunt brought in ~10K visits and over 700 signups.

Most of our initial customers from the MVP stage have continued to use Klu, and we're now focusing on how to keep growing and scaling to meet the needs of an expanding user base!

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to James Fleischmann, Darko, Hugo Hamel, Rob Hope, and Sveta Bay for contributing posts. —Channing