First off, let me just say that much of the time was actually just spent learning web development. (Go, Vue, Tailwind). I was a complete beginner one year ago.
That also why I don’t regret having built the site: I learned a ton and I’ll be able to build my next project 10x faster.
That said, here’s what you can learn from my mistakes:
- Don’t be afraid of competition.
Going after markets with low competition isn’t a bad idea. You can be a big fish in a small pond. But it gets problematic when the market is so niche that noone actually needs what you are making. With my next product, I’ll go after a proven market. Sure there’ll be competition, but at least people will be interested in what I have to offer.
- Design is less important than you think.
I made 3 different landing pages for my product, thaught there was something wrong with it every time and made a new one from scratch. Complete waste of time. Pretty design doesn’t change your value proposition and is never going to be a reason someone buys. Sure, good design can improve conversion rates, but if there is no instrinsic demand for what you offer then design won’t help. 0•x = 0
- Know your customers
One of my main challenges when building my product (keepyourstory.com) was that I was never really sure who it was for. I just built something I found cool and hoped people would appreciate it. Next time I’ll start with a niche, find a problem people are experiencingbin that niche and market it precisely to them.
Interested in how you pick the Vue and Go combination.
The letter L isnot showing in my phone. 😬
Learning programming by building a project is indeed the best way to learn, but also the hardest to ensure financial success. I also started coding about a year ago and the main result I have seen is my confidence in that truly anything can be built and it is not outside of my capabilities.
Right now I am building a tool that I know I will use so that at least there will be 1 user with interest. Maybe there are more like me out there who will prefer to pay me for access to the tool instead of spending tons of hours learning how to code at night while doing their day job :P
The other way is to start with pre-selling a solution: Look for a problem, getting the users to tell you what the solution is and then using simple html, css and js to create a mockup of what they suggested. Get them to pay you upfront for the fully working solution and off you go. However, this takes away from actually building and spending many hours speaking to people about the problems they want solved. However, if done correctly, house should be at least building with income!
It definitely looks to me.like you learned the right lessons though!
Then again, I haven’t had any income yet so probably not necessarily the guy to listen to ;)
I’m in your boat!
I’m a self taught Android developer who, like you, created an app to help in my day-to-day job. Here’s the thing, I use my app daily and it indirectly has earned me thousands by making me more efficient, making less mistakes and quickens my day up (it even prints receipts!)
I’m planning on releasing it soon but I’m re-writing the code because I know a lot more today plus my rewriting will make it faster. I’m also switching from Java to Kotlin and SQLite to Room.
While I hope to make money by releasing it, I don’t care if it doesn’t because it helps me. My one visible app in the Play Store doesn’t make me a penny but again it helps me. That was never designed to make me money, simply so I could understand and get a presence on the Play Store.
I love your passion because I have the same. I code at night, not because I have to, but because I want to and love coding.
I understand you 100%. I don’t regret the time I spent building it. The coding skills alone I acquired were totally worth it. I don’t think I could have learned full stack development if it wasn’t for that project.
You should totally do a post about your project once you release it, would be happy to try it out!
A good start but I believe that your point about design is a fallacy. Keep in mind that you didn’t get any customers so you can’t judge based on your experience. Design also is a very broad term. It can include a FAQ section or anything about making your customer understand what you’re selling and solving for them. I don’t see anything like that on your page. So please don’t think design doesn’t matter. It does if you apply it properly. In terms of A/B testing I agree that it comes at a later point and doesn’t really matter in the beginning as long as you see some demand.
- Design is less important than you think.
I made 3 different landing pages for my product, thaught there was something wrong with it every time and made a new one from scratch. Complete waste of time. Pretty design doesn’t change your value proposition and is never going to be a reason someone buys. Sure, good design can improve conversion rates, but if there is no instrinsic demand for what you offer then design won’t help. 0•x = 0
I mean, i havent seen the other landing pages but the current ones design is likely a big contributor to driving away potential users. The problem is it doesnt offer ANY details regarding the ‘when?, where?, how?’ regarding the product. I have the ‘what?’, youre helping me write a memoire via AI. cool, thats useful for the few people who want to do that. But like how? when/where/how do i give details of my life to the ai that will become my story? You dont explain ANYTHING about what your product entails besides ‘a story’ and ‘ai’ without me having to sign up for your service. no fuckin way am i signing up to an email list when i cant even tell when the product is or how it would work. Your “free demo” needs to be an ACTUAL free demo, open and available to all and not something you get to try AFTER you sign up. This is why no one is signing up, becuase your design doesnt tell anyone what theyre getting.
You’re right. I appreciate the valuable feedback.
- Design is less important than you think.
Tips for the future:
- Could you have made your solution without spending all that time learning how to code?Suggestions:
- Use no-code solutions and build the product in less than 1 week, immediately get the product to users, get feedback, iterate, repeat- only invest time in building it properly once you know there’s interest and have users
You’re right. But looking back, I’m happy that it pretty much taught me full stack development.
Definitely gonna apply your advice on the next project
Hey Blue, I just tried your product to make a book but I couldn’t figure it out. how do I just reply to the third bot it says 100% and I don’t know where to proceed now.
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Think like a user. once u start thinking you aren’t leveraging it and doing any Marketing. understand your user and market based on your user. understand what makes a user want to use this. i have seen u have used paid marketing. when running an ad, understand what makes users what to do this. is the idea interesting or people want to read others’ stories. make a vision in their mind. first u need to catch their attention using your add. second make sure they understand what the product ( this can be done either in the add or after they reach the website (if you do this make sure the Ad message isn’t vague) ). third make the process very simple. you are eventually making people sign up first ( nothing wrong with it ) people are too lazy to do it. so keep the signup process after they are done with the book. now they did too much work now they can’t throw teir work in the dustbin. they have to sign up.
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I never actually like paid marketing. I will tell you how to leverage user-based marketing ( sugar personalized products ( PM and UX terminology) ).( works for products like this )understand user and user behaviors how what does a person wants to do with a product keep with themselves share it with friends and family. leverage this make the UX process of easier and push them to share. 1. u can integrate a print on demand API. second make a share feature that automatically create a post, with if ur target audience is old Adults make Facebook share integration. if your adience is gamers leverage discord and others.
i have a lot to say but i am busy ith my final presentation i can share later with you if you want u can DM. and sorry for my English.
Hello Kassandra, I really appreciate the extensive feedback. There are quite a few things you said that I will try to implement. Thank you for trying out the product as well. Regarding your blockage: when you reach 100%, you can click on the button that says 100% ( it will light up blue). I will try to make this step more intuitive. And I really like your idea with social sharing. Going to implement that today.
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I’m in the same boat, what we learn in our first try will make the next launch quite faster.
I think design is important if you know well your userbase. I changed my website/convention booth so it looks more “like me”, so my product is easy to reconize and people who are into my stuff find it easily. Sometimes it can take a while to find your own brand.
I just signed up, and it seems like a cool app.
Technical issue: Email verification should not block the signup flow. I signed up, but the verification email went to the spam folder. Not a huge issue except I couldn’t login until I went digging through the spam folder. You shouldn’t really need to have users verify their emails for this app.
Product suggestion: Allow users to write their own prompt in addition to the three sample ones. Also consider letting people see a preview of the book before they finish the first conversation.
Marketing/positioning tip: I don’t have any interest in writing about myself, but I would be interested in getting down some family stories from elderly relatives. Consider marketing this to people who want to get family stories (or life stories of elderly relatives) written down. Assume that the users will be sitting with their relatives and jotting down their responses.
Thanks for sharing your story. I think it’s pretty impressive that this is your first web app and you were able to learn how to make it and create it in only a year. If you’re willing to keep trying out new use cases, you may find some people who are interested. Good luck on this side project or your next one!
This is really valuable feedback. Thank you so much 🙏
I think your concept is a nice idea.
Cool idea would be great to see some examples though!
I saw a platform doing basically the same idea as yours hiring for part-time engineers on Hacker News, so I do think a market is out there for this to make $. Forgot the name of it though.
What traffic have you been getting, did users sign-up for the free account? What was the pricing models like before?
Nice idea, I’ve wanted something similar as well
- It sounds like design being less I’m important is actually not the takeaway Because good design/Ux is actually extremely important and will beat out your competitors if you have product market fit.
Sounds like the takeaway is probably more realistically the following
If you don’t have a product that actually solves a problem for people then it doesn’t matter how beautiful your design and interactions are people will not come pay for it.