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You only get 5 seconds to let the visitor know what value you can provide them. This is typically done with a large page heading and maybe with a small secondary heading.

With a conversational landing page, you are making the visitor click on 3 buttons before he gets to "What is this and why should I care?". That is 3 clicks too many. I would expect a much poorer conversion rate with the new landing page. I have not previously head of conversational landing pages, but I don't see any benefit, and expect them to die soon.

Your old landing page needs a headline that explains the value add. All I see is (i) "It's finally time to live" (ii) "Zenify – Meditation, Clarity and Mindfulness" and (iii) a large block of text that is unreadable. I have no idea what your app does, whether it solves any of my problems and whether I really need it. I suggest you add a headline at the top that quickly tells me what to expect.

If you really-really want to try out the bot, I would go with putting the bot where you have the large block of unreadable text on the old landing page. - but ensure that you have a good headline and maybe secondary headline explaining what this does first.

P.S. I much prefer the colors of the new landing page v/s the old, so maybe you could copy the color to the old landing page.


I'm surprised no one has mentioned improvely.com by Dan Grossman.

I think it makes around $40K to $50K per month. Over the last few years, I've seen it grow from around $10K to $50K. That slow steady SaaS growth is pretty inspiring.


Find other solo founders from forums like http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/ and start a weekly mastermind


This looks like a good place too!


i just signed up here and started interacting. Looks like a good forum and community.


1. Pick up a tiny niche based on

(a) target audience already pays for tools online

(b) target audience is easy to find online - there exists at least one forum targeting this niche

(c) niche is so small that it is not profitable for most companies to go after

(d) you are passionate about the niche or already have some link to it (know enough people in your social circle)

2. Figure out how you will market to your audience. Spend tiny amounts of time/money on each channel to test whether you could gain traction through any one.

(a) Posting on forums

(b) Content marketing

(c) SEO

(d) Paid acquisition

3. Research on existing tools and competitors in the niche. Focus research on

(a) lack of functionality in the tools provided

(b) tool is too generic for the niche

(c) they are not using a specific marketing channel that you think would work very well

4. Out-compete your competitors on the following

(a) Build a better tool

(b) Do better marketing

(c) Provide better customer support

Important things to keep in mind

1. Never compete on price

2. Do marketing before product development. For e.g. if your main channel is content marketing, start writing content before you build your product. If it is forum posting, start posting on multiple forums and gaining credibility there before you think of your product.


You may want to follow how self published author of Wool, Hugh Howey has sold his books on amazon.

He broke each novel into a four or five book series and sold each book for a dollar. He also made sure to schedule the releases every two to three months. (agile-writing?)

He makes six figures a month on most months [1]

[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/07/tech/mobile/kindle-direct-...


Ooh, interesting. I'll think about that. But my main sticking point is actually marketing... I could give away part 1/4 and sell parts 3 to 4 for $1, but I'd still need to get part 1 to a lot of people somehow. And that's what I'm not good at :(


If your project does not generate any (or enough revenue), then it might make sense to purchase a $20 theme from websites like themeforest.net or wrapbootstrap.com.

These look polished enough that your customers won't know that you purchased a theme v/s hired a designer (they don't care anyways)

Once you have enough revenue coming in, you could then hire a designer to create a custom website for you (if you still really want to).


On Writing by Stephen King (narrated by the author)


Marketing is about figuring out what channel best works for your business and then scaling it up (what Dan said). Unfortunately, you cannot outsource this, until you have figured the channels out and chosen a few to focus on. Once done, you can then get someone who has experience in optimizing that channel and scaling the campaign up efficiently.

Adwords is amazing for validating your idea, but with the increased competition, it is becoming too costly if your LTV is not very high.

SEO takes a very long time (three years) as your domain needs to build authority. I would not bother about it at all, till I achieve product-market fit.

Look for other channels that your competitors are ignoring - channels like forums, or facebook ads, cross-promoting with a complementary product. Spend a fixed amount on each channel - say $500. You can then figure out which channel works best for your business.

As an example, for my self funded business, I did all the marketing and dev work for a year and a half. I tried adwords, facebook & twitter ads, buying banners on various relevant websites and forum postings. Once I had figured out the channel that converted the best (in my case forum sales threads), I hired someone for doing all the work in that channel.

If you want some suggestions on channels which might work, don't be afraid to mention your business here.


Thanks, I would appreciate all suggestions. My company is https://videocloudmanager.com and I am in online video platform market.we provide video hosting for business.


If this is a mature space because the channels are well defined. So the question is where do you expect paying users to come from? Have you gotten any successes with this approach? (Once you do, then it will make sense to get someone else to outsource the work to).

If you are building a video hosting service for businesses, do you know what they think of your business?

One suggestion would be getting someone unbiased to look at your competitors websites and your website and to pick who the top 2-3 solutions that they would evaluate.

If bills have to be paid, then pick up a job. But before you spend it on someone else, make sure that you are spending it on something that will have results.

One thought is if your product is in a mature space, I would recommend innovating with the channel. Maybe target a lower cost do-it-yourself customer? You will want your marketing (design, pricing, outreach/ads, and feature additions) to line up with that.


The math comes out to about $6k per year. I am guessing that is the starting salary for a fresh out of college engineer.


I hope you are joking!!

I started fresh out of college with an engineering degree back in 1987 and my starting salary was $AUD20,500.00 per year.

EDIT: AUD is Australian dollar.


You realize that's over 50k in today's money right?


I believe Windows Defender only protects you against malware. You need a separate anti-virus solution along with it.


That is wrong, they are the same thing.


Interesting - Windows Defender is an antivirus product for Windows 8+. However, for Windows 7 and older, it is only an anti-malware product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Defender


What's the difference between the two? Wouldn't all viruses be considered malware? Is there some standard that the software has to live up to to be labeled antivirus?


Viruses infect executable files (or other files that can potentially contain executable code) while non-virus malware infects machines, browsers, or other types of "hosts".


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