6 ms·

ASK HN: Feedback on my 9,356th attempt at a niche business.

34 points by apsurd 16y ago

apsurd 16y ago
Any and all feedback is welcome. Hacker News has pretty much been my cofounder, investor, mentor and friend all rolled into one. So as always, thanks everyone. If you like the concept please feel free to "Like" my application here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=129421017095211 http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=129421017095... This will help me do some customer development and also get my Facebook url (without the identifer).
piwebplus 16y ago
pretty good. I am wondering what are the three grey boxes doing in the sidebar? I am also interested in your other 92attempts.... that sounds a lot!~
carbocation 16y ago
This is what I see: http://www.uploadscreenshot.com/image/91811/1706063 http://www.uploadscreenshot.com/image/91811/1706063 Are the boxes intentionally gray placeholders that you'll replace with screenshots or the like?
- apsurd 16y ago
  Sorry, you are correct, they will be samples of Facebook pages made by the service. Sorry that it is unclear, I just felt it important to get feedback. Everything works though, the admin is functional and you can use the demo account provided on the sign up page.
  - cj 16y ago
    I clicked out of the page and didn't even try it when I couldn't find an example page created by the service. Screenshot/examples are essential.
    - apsurd 16y ago
      Thanks, that is surely first on my list: "show don't tell." Since I probably couldn't make compelling enough designs, I'll have to find some designers to work with.
jeb 16y ago
Seriously? You've failed 92 times? If so, perhaps you should try something else?
- apsurd 16y ago
  Haha, I would have thought 93 was an outrageously big enough number so as to be an obvious exaggeration. What I mean is that I am an aspiring web developer that happened to come from a non-related previous background. I chose not to go to college and after deciding to be a web developer, I just taught myself by building and building and building and building. I learned how to program horribly in PHP, and then I found Kohana and jquery which helped me code decently, and about 2 months ago I committed to learning Rails, built 3 Rails apps (including this one) and now I'd like to believe I'm pretty good! Don't feel bad for me, because I love it! Thanks
  - jeb 16y ago
    It's not high enough, change it to 930th and it would be an obvious exaggeration.
    - apsurd 16y ago
      You know, I think there is a lot of value in what you are saying. I mean literally what you are saying... "93 is believable". And you know what, you are right! I think that's a great startup lesson... 93 is believable! I like that! I will take your advice.
  - prototype56 16y ago
    I love the spirit . What you become while reaching a goal is more important than where you reach in the end.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Ah, but think of all the stuff you already know that does not work. It's like the search for a lightbulb filament, you've probably learned more trying out that stuff than you'd have ever learned if your first trick had taken off. You are so much better prepared to really make a go of it once you find a live one.
edo 16y ago
If this really is your 93th attempt, I must commend you on your persistence, yet at the same time urge you to learn a little about lean startupping. It might save you another 100 failed attempts ;-)
mickeyben 16y ago
Not exactly the same service, but worth a look : http://tigerlilyapps.com/ http://tigerlilyapps.com/
- apsurd 16y ago
  Thanks, that is helpful as I didn't find that one during my research. I know of http://northsocial.com/ http://northsocial.com/ which is nicely done. Also this writeup on http://pagemodo.com http://pagemodo.com @ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/04/facebook-tab-creator-pagemodo/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/04/facebook-tab-creator-pagemo... lists some services in the comments. The services I've seen focus on freemium and "ease of use" relative to non-developers/designers. Specifically pagemodo is a template generator. I'm positioning aplanofattack as a service for designers/developers to use on behalf of their clients as a means to add to their product offering. Pretty much exactly what http://campaignmonitor.com http://campaignmonitor.com is for email newsletters. It gives freelancers and extra product to offer, without the infrastructure headache. Thanks for your help.
- kilian 16y ago
  "Universal choosed Tigerlily music"? Ouch.
todayiamme 16y ago
One of the things that I've noticed is that you have too much text on your home page. The fact that I had to scroll down isn't a good thing. You have to make a sale FAST to an internet user. Trust me they have extremely short attention spans. How about this? Are you a designer forced to dance to FBs tune? Use aplanofattack to deploy hassle free and concentrate on what matters the most; beautiful, seamless design. Wanna learn more? Check it out. I would chip away those lines again and again until it sounds like the voice in their head is saying it to them. Also, have you thought of making it an intermediate thing? As you've replied in the comments something like this already exists for non-technical users, and you want to target developers, but why don't you target them both? It's a matter of UI design. You can just about recess the less commonly used, and more complex functions out of sight, or make different views like WP has a visual compose mode and a HTML mode that works pretty well. Also, it would be awesome for a developer short on time to jump into modes for that good enough mockup.
- apsurd 16y ago
  Are you a designer forced to dance to FBs tune? Use aplanofattack to deploy hassle free and concentrate on what matters the most; beautiful, seamless design. I like that! Thanks for your input. I definitely hear you on the "show don't tell" aspect. Ideally I'd have a catchy line like the one you made and then a slideshow of beautifully designed Facebook pages with a link to the actual live FB instance. My goal here is to validate the core concept, hopefully gain some useful contacts/help and of course get some beta users. As for the intermediate thing, definitely. If I can grab a couple of interested users, it would not be too difficult to build upon the functionality. My concern as of now is just to laser focus on my own unique angle. Pagemodo is really not something I'd want to emulate personally, but having easy wysiwyg templates is definitely useful. I appreciate your feedback. Do you mind if I try to implement your phrasing?
  - todayiamme 16y ago
    >>>I like that! Thanks for your input. I definitely hear you on the "show don't tell" aspect. Ideally I'd have a catchy line like the one you made and then a slideshow of beautifully designed Facebook pages with a link to the actual live FB instance.<<< Don't do a slideshow either. It takes too long to load on a slower internet connection and people tend to lose interest by that time. Instead photoshop something like coverflow with 3 beautiful pages. I am not telling you to rip off coverflow. Don't do that. Your customers are very sensitive to such things Make a draft layout on paper and play with it. Cut out pieces of paper and move it around on your desk. >>>My goal here is to validate the core concept, hopefully gain some useful contacts/help and of course get some beta users.<<< I can understand that, but they are humans too and humans tend to get bored if they aren't engaged within those first 20-30 seconds. I am not asking you to make a fluff piece. No, I am asking you to make a hook to pull users in. >>>As for the intermediate thing, definitely. If I can grab a couple of interested users, it would not be too difficult to build upon the functionality. My concern as of now is just to laser focus on my own unique angle. Pagemodo is really not something I'd want to emulate personally, but having easy wysiwyg templates is definitely useful.<<< That sounds wise, but be careful not to box yourself in. I wish I could advise you more, but I haven't done any serious software development. So, I have no clue what challenges it brings on this side. >>>I appreciate your feedback. Do you mind if I try to implement your phrasing?<<< Of course not! I'll be honored if you do so. :) If you think that I can help you in anyway at all then don't hesitate to contact me at yesthisisananonymousid at googlemail P.S.- Do I get a free account? :p
vaksel 16y ago
the page needs to be designed better you are trying to sell design services...your sales page should show the high quality of your product
- apsurd 16y ago
  Thanks. I am not a designer per say so if anyone can help out with designing a couple sample facebook pages (for local businesses possibly), email me with a rate and/or we can work out some other agreement!
lionhearted 16y ago
Serious question - what went wrong with the other 9,355 business attempts? Where did things not come together - unable to get traffic, to get conversions, to get sales, to monetize...? How much did you work at it in the past before giving up and moving on? If you've had problems at a similar area each time , there might be a blind spot or mistake in how you do things around there that needs specific refinement, as opposed to general feedback.
- banuelios 16y ago
  My guess (from personal experience) you launch and... nothing happens. The life goes back to normal and you're seeing 30 visits/day in Google Analytics. So you try sending out press releases, asking bloggers you know to mention your site, all those efforts result in a few spikes to 2-5K/day and then it goes back to 30. After a while you give up and move on to the next thing. Did I guess right?
- lionhearted 16y ago
  Just found this in your profile: http://plusjade.com/ http://plusjade.com/ The tattoo and testimonial ideas both look they're fundamentally solid and workable, and would now require lots of Real Life Walking Around (TM) to compliment technical refinement. For instance, this was part of Patrick Kalzumeus's (patio11 here on HN) plan when launching Appointment Reminder. Emphasis mine: "This summer I’m going back to America for about a month to visit family, do a bit of consulting, and have something of a vacation. Over that time, I’m going to be taking the demo (or the product) on my laptop and showing it to as many service providers as I can stomach seeing. Thankfully, I expect that they’ll indulge my request for an interview — I intend to pay them their normal hourly, so coffee and a discussion of their industry and opinions about the software will work out just as well as offering a haircut/massage/etc would." http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/05/14/unveiling-my-second-product-demo-included/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/05/14/unveiling-my-second-prod... That's probably what you need at this point - showing your service to as many people in the business as you can stomach seeing. Face to face is different from behind a screen, much different. If you hate doing this and/or aren't good at it, that might be reason to partner with someone with has good face to face pitching/communicating/selling skills.
- 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
pclark 16y ago
Instant impressions: Page loads too slowly. Too much text. Dislike the name. The text in the yellow is hard to read, why are certain words in an even more yellow background? The secondary marketing line isn't quite english: "Probably depends on how good of a designer you are!" I'd change that top bit to say: > Create facebook pages for your clients with our WYSIWYG editor. > A simple one page promotion page on Facebook is easily worth $500 for your clients. Design and sell them with A Plan of Attack today! The problem with your text is that it's challenging and instills doubt. Am I good enough of a designer? Maybe not, oh well lets not bother. You want to say: Is a simple one page promotion page worth $500 to your clients companies? fuck yes - and we let you make them trivially! "sell" is a bad word - especially to designers. Maybe "earn $500 by making your clients facebook landing pages" if that doesn't sound too dodgy. The images on the right are just grey boxes, the login link should be top right. Let me create a page without signing up. (make the demo account auto login and obvious) The sign up button should probably be on the right hand side of the page, i dislike how it turns red (too jarring) The "Aplanofattack is in beta..." paragraph should be added on the sign up page, if not later. Sounds too sketchy on the first page. Reiterate the service is free - on the sign up button. Stick a contact button more obviously on the home page. Kudos for saying "benefits at a glance" and not "Features at a glance" but now remove 80% of the words below that header.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
A. Fewer words, more action or pictures. You've heard this already. B. Wordsmithing. You need a copy editor, with a degree in English or its moral equivalent, to go over every line of this with you. Let's take apart just the third sentence: Probably depends on how good of a designer you are! "How good of a [X]" is a very awkward phrase in print. It might work in very casual spoken English, but in print it looks amateurish. Starting a sentence with "probably" is likewise too casual. Your customer base is made of designers. They often care about such details. You should also consider avoiding the exclamation point. Heed the words of Elmore Leonard: "You are allowed no more than two or three exclamation points per 100,000 words of prose." Now, having marginally improved the sentence by changing it to something like: It probably depends on how talented a designer you are. ...you should delete this sentence altogether, because it is an awful sales pitch. You are, literally, questioning the skill of your prospective customer. Let me translate this opening: If people aren't paying you $200 to $500 to design simple things, you probably suck! Guess what? Your prospective customer is probably not currently being paid $200 to $500 for custom Facebook pages. If your customer already knew how to build these pages, he or she would not be shopping for your product. So your opening pitch can be further distilled to: Dear customer: You suck! Ouch. Get the whole thing off the page and replace it with something more like this: Customers will pay you $200 to $500 for custom-designed Facebook pages, and you can build them in minutes with this tool. Only with fewer words. C. For a product that offers to simplify a complicated process, the home page looks awfully complicated. Too much technical jargon. Don't write things like this: Forget about learning XFBML, FBML, FBJS, FQL. You are trying to convince your customer that they need not learn or even think about these acronyms. So don't name-drop them. That's like trying to sell a Caribbean vacation by saying: Forget about sharks, food poisoning, skin cancer, or pickpockets. Make the prose on the page be as easy and soothing as the product is meant to be. Speak to your audience. Don't use any technical terms except those that your customers need to know: "HTML" and "CSS". If a subset of your customers needs to know about the XFBML, put it in the FAQ. D. The name. I hate to have to say it, it's like picking on someone's kids, but "A Plan Of Attack" is not a good product name. It doesn't suggest Facebook, it doesn't suggest design, it doesn't sound like the name of an application or product, it contains too many words, and it starts with an "A" which will turn your word-of-mouth recommendations into an Abbott and Costello sketch: A: "What should I use for my simple Facebook pages?" B: "'A Plan Of Attack'" A: "Which plan of attack?" B: "No, that's a spreadsheet. Use 'A Plan Of Attack'" A: "Did you even hear my question?" B: "Third base!" E. A/B testing. Clearly you should not accept my word for any of this. I have no idea how to sell your product. All I have are hypotheses. So be sure you have a method for testing and winnowing hypotheses. Good luck! If I ever need a custom Facebook page I will be sure to try your product.
Grinnmarr 16y ago
I can't really comment on the viability/marketability of your product concept, but I will offer this very important, if not somewhat trite, piece of advice. If you are going to try to sell something to designers and use words like aesthetics in your sales copy, you will most likely fail if your own presentation is not aesthetically pleasing. Others have given some great suggestions below. I just want to emphasize that before you work to send any traffic to your site you should greatly enhance the look.
tlack 16y ago
First off, and most importantly: the business idea itself is sound. I'm saying that as a guy who's transitioning into doing a lot of stuff on FB, and it's a frustrating process. This factor is more important than anything else. The homepage is a good start, but could be slimmed down and needs to be more visual, as others have already said. The actual admin though (I signed up) is a bit chaotic. The list of widgets is only one widget and I don't really understand how it all works together. The code editor looks great: I'd suggest having some sort of drag and drop interface that pulls the widget UI and the code editing UI together.

34 points by apsurd 16y ago

Any and all feedback is welcome. Hacker News has pretty much been my cofounder, investor, mentor and friend all rolled into one. So as always, thanks everyone. If you like the concept please feel free to "Like" my application here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=129421017095211 http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=129421017095... This will help me do some customer development and also get my Facebook url (without the identifer).

piwebplus 16y ago

pretty good. I am wondering what are the three grey boxes doing in the sidebar? I am also interested in your other 92attempts.... that sounds a lot!~

carbocation 16y ago

This is what I see: http://www.uploadscreenshot.com/image/91811/1706063 http://www.uploadscreenshot.com/image/91811/1706063 Are the boxes intentionally gray placeholders that you'll replace with screenshots or the like?

apsurd 16y ago
Sorry, you are correct, they will be samples of Facebook pages made by the service. Sorry that it is unclear, I just felt it important to get feedback. Everything works though, the admin is functional and you can use the demo account provided on the sign up page.
- cj 16y ago
  I clicked out of the page and didn't even try it when I couldn't find an example page created by the service. Screenshot/examples are essential.
  - apsurd 16y ago
    Thanks, that is surely first on my list: "show don't tell." Since I probably couldn't make compelling enough designs, I'll have to find some designers to work with.

jeb 16y ago

Seriously? You've failed 92 times? If so, perhaps you should try something else?

apsurd 16y ago
Haha, I would have thought 93 was an outrageously big enough number so as to be an obvious exaggeration. What I mean is that I am an aspiring web developer that happened to come from a non-related previous background. I chose not to go to college and after deciding to be a web developer, I just taught myself by building and building and building and building. I learned how to program horribly in PHP, and then I found Kohana and jquery which helped me code decently, and about 2 months ago I committed to learning Rails, built 3 Rails apps (including this one) and now I'd like to believe I'm pretty good! Don't feel bad for me, because I love it! Thanks
- jeb 16y ago
  It's not high enough, change it to 930th and it would be an obvious exaggeration.
  - apsurd 16y ago
    You know, I think there is a lot of value in what you are saying. I mean literally what you are saying... "93 is believable". And you know what, you are right! I think that's a great startup lesson... 93 is believable! I like that! I will take your advice.
- prototype56 16y ago
  I love the spirit . What you become while reaching a goal is more important than where you reach in the end.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Ah, but think of all the stuff you already know that does not work. It's like the search for a lightbulb filament, you've probably learned more trying out that stuff than you'd have ever learned if your first trick had taken off. You are so much better prepared to really make a go of it once you find a live one.

edo 16y ago

If this really is your 93th attempt, I must commend you on your persistence, yet at the same time urge you to learn a little about lean startupping. It might save you another 100 failed attempts ;-)

mickeyben 16y ago

Not exactly the same service, but worth a look : http://tigerlilyapps.com/ http://tigerlilyapps.com/

apsurd 16y ago
Thanks, that is helpful as I didn't find that one during my research. I know of http://northsocial.com/ http://northsocial.com/ which is nicely done. Also this writeup on http://pagemodo.com http://pagemodo.com @ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/04/facebook-tab-creator-pagemodo/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/04/facebook-tab-creator-pagemo... lists some services in the comments. The services I've seen focus on freemium and "ease of use" relative to non-developers/designers. Specifically pagemodo is a template generator. I'm positioning aplanofattack as a service for designers/developers to use on behalf of their clients as a means to add to their product offering. Pretty much exactly what http://campaignmonitor.com http://campaignmonitor.com is for email newsletters. It gives freelancers and extra product to offer, without the infrastructure headache. Thanks for your help.
kilian 16y ago
"Universal choosed Tigerlily music"? Ouch.

todayiamme 16y ago

One of the things that I've noticed is that you have too much text on your home page. The fact that I had to scroll down isn't a good thing. You have to make a sale FAST to an internet user. Trust me they have extremely short attention spans. How about this? Are you a designer forced to dance to FBs tune? Use aplanofattack to deploy hassle free and concentrate on what matters the most; beautiful, seamless design. Wanna learn more? Check it out. I would chip away those lines again and again until it sounds like the voice in their head is saying it to them. Also, have you thought of making it an intermediate thing? As you've replied in the comments something like this already exists for non-technical users, and you want to target developers, but why don't you target them both? It's a matter of UI design. You can just about recess the less commonly used, and more complex functions out of sight, or make different views like WP has a visual compose mode and a HTML mode that works pretty well. Also, it would be awesome for a developer short on time to jump into modes for that good enough mockup.

apsurd 16y ago
Are you a designer forced to dance to FBs tune? Use aplanofattack to deploy hassle free and concentrate on what matters the most; beautiful, seamless design. I like that! Thanks for your input. I definitely hear you on the "show don't tell" aspect. Ideally I'd have a catchy line like the one you made and then a slideshow of beautifully designed Facebook pages with a link to the actual live FB instance. My goal here is to validate the core concept, hopefully gain some useful contacts/help and of course get some beta users. As for the intermediate thing, definitely. If I can grab a couple of interested users, it would not be too difficult to build upon the functionality. My concern as of now is just to laser focus on my own unique angle. Pagemodo is really not something I'd want to emulate personally, but having easy wysiwyg templates is definitely useful. I appreciate your feedback. Do you mind if I try to implement your phrasing?
- todayiamme 16y ago
  >>>I like that! Thanks for your input. I definitely hear you on the "show don't tell" aspect. Ideally I'd have a catchy line like the one you made and then a slideshow of beautifully designed Facebook pages with a link to the actual live FB instance.<<< Don't do a slideshow either. It takes too long to load on a slower internet connection and people tend to lose interest by that time. Instead photoshop something like coverflow with 3 beautiful pages. I am not telling you to rip off coverflow. Don't do that. Your customers are very sensitive to such things Make a draft layout on paper and play with it. Cut out pieces of paper and move it around on your desk. >>>My goal here is to validate the core concept, hopefully gain some useful contacts/help and of course get some beta users.<<< I can understand that, but they are humans too and humans tend to get bored if they aren't engaged within those first 20-30 seconds. I am not asking you to make a fluff piece. No, I am asking you to make a hook to pull users in. >>>As for the intermediate thing, definitely. If I can grab a couple of interested users, it would not be too difficult to build upon the functionality. My concern as of now is just to laser focus on my own unique angle. Pagemodo is really not something I'd want to emulate personally, but having easy wysiwyg templates is definitely useful.<<< That sounds wise, but be careful not to box yourself in. I wish I could advise you more, but I haven't done any serious software development. So, I have no clue what challenges it brings on this side. >>>I appreciate your feedback. Do you mind if I try to implement your phrasing?<<< Of course not! I'll be honored if you do so. :) If you think that I can help you in anyway at all then don't hesitate to contact me at yesthisisananonymousid at googlemail P.S.- Do I get a free account? :p

vaksel 16y ago

the page needs to be designed better you are trying to sell design services...your sales page should show the high quality of your product

apsurd 16y ago
Thanks. I am not a designer per say so if anyone can help out with designing a couple sample facebook pages (for local businesses possibly), email me with a rate and/or we can work out some other agreement!

lionhearted 16y ago

Serious question - what went wrong with the other 9,355 business attempts? Where did things not come together - unable to get traffic, to get conversions, to get sales, to monetize...? How much did you work at it in the past before giving up and moving on? If you've had problems at a similar area each time , there might be a blind spot or mistake in how you do things around there that needs specific refinement, as opposed to general feedback.

banuelios 16y ago
My guess (from personal experience) you launch and... nothing happens. The life goes back to normal and you're seeing 30 visits/day in Google Analytics. So you try sending out press releases, asking bloggers you know to mention your site, all those efforts result in a few spikes to 2-5K/day and then it goes back to 30. After a while you give up and move on to the next thing. Did I guess right?
lionhearted 16y ago
Just found this in your profile: http://plusjade.com/ http://plusjade.com/ The tattoo and testimonial ideas both look they're fundamentally solid and workable, and would now require lots of Real Life Walking Around (TM) to compliment technical refinement. For instance, this was part of Patrick Kalzumeus's (patio11 here on HN) plan when launching Appointment Reminder. Emphasis mine: "This summer I’m going back to America for about a month to visit family, do a bit of consulting, and have something of a vacation. Over that time, I’m going to be taking the demo (or the product) on my laptop and showing it to as many service providers as I can stomach seeing. Thankfully, I expect that they’ll indulge my request for an interview — I intend to pay them their normal hourly, so coffee and a discussion of their industry and opinions about the software will work out just as well as offering a haircut/massage/etc would." http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/05/14/unveiling-my-second-product-demo-included/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/05/14/unveiling-my-second-prod... That's probably what you need at this point - showing your service to as many people in the business as you can stomach seeing. Face to face is different from behind a screen, much different. If you hate doing this and/or aren't good at it, that might be reason to partner with someone with has good face to face pitching/communicating/selling skills.
16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

pclark 16y ago

Instant impressions: Page loads too slowly. Too much text. Dislike the name. The text in the yellow is hard to read, why are certain words in an even more yellow background? The secondary marketing line isn't quite english: "Probably depends on how good of a designer you are!" I'd change that top bit to say: > Create facebook pages for your clients with our WYSIWYG editor. > A simple one page promotion page on Facebook is easily worth $500 for your clients. Design and sell them with A Plan of Attack today! The problem with your text is that it's challenging and instills doubt. Am I good enough of a designer? Maybe not, oh well lets not bother. You want to say: Is a simple one page promotion page worth $500 to your clients companies? fuck yes - and we let you make them trivially! "sell" is a bad word - especially to designers. Maybe "earn $500 by making your clients facebook landing pages" if that doesn't sound too dodgy. The images on the right are just grey boxes, the login link should be top right. Let me create a page without signing up. (make the demo account auto login and obvious) The sign up button should probably be on the right hand side of the page, i dislike how it turns red (too jarring) The "Aplanofattack is in beta..." paragraph should be added on the sign up page, if not later. Sounds too sketchy on the first page. Reiterate the service is free - on the sign up button. Stick a contact button more obviously on the home page. Kudos for saying "benefits at a glance" and not "Features at a glance" but now remove 80% of the words below that header.

mechanical_fish 16y ago

A. Fewer words, more action or pictures. You've heard this already. B. Wordsmithing. You need a copy editor, with a degree in English or its moral equivalent, to go over every line of this with you. Let's take apart just the third sentence: Probably depends on how good of a designer you are! "How good of a [X]" is a very awkward phrase in print. It might work in very casual spoken English, but in print it looks amateurish. Starting a sentence with "probably" is likewise too casual. Your customer base is made of designers. They often care about such details. You should also consider avoiding the exclamation point. Heed the words of Elmore Leonard: "You are allowed no more than two or three exclamation points per 100,000 words of prose." Now, having marginally improved the sentence by changing it to something like: It probably depends on how talented a designer you are. ...you should delete this sentence altogether, because it is an awful sales pitch. You are, literally, questioning the skill of your prospective customer. Let me translate this opening: If people aren't paying you $200 to $500 to design simple things, you probably suck! Guess what? Your prospective customer is probably not currently being paid $200 to $500 for custom Facebook pages. If your customer already knew how to build these pages, he or she would not be shopping for your product. So your opening pitch can be further distilled to: Dear customer: You suck! Ouch. Get the whole thing off the page and replace it with something more like this: Customers will pay you $200 to $500 for custom-designed Facebook pages, and you can build them in minutes with this tool. Only with fewer words. C. For a product that offers to simplify a complicated process, the home page looks awfully complicated. Too much technical jargon. Don't write things like this: Forget about learning XFBML, FBML, FBJS, FQL. You are trying to convince your customer that they need not learn or even think about these acronyms. So don't name-drop them. That's like trying to sell a Caribbean vacation by saying: Forget about sharks, food poisoning, skin cancer, or pickpockets. Make the prose on the page be as easy and soothing as the product is meant to be. Speak to your audience. Don't use any technical terms except those that your customers need to know: "HTML" and "CSS". If a subset of your customers needs to know about the XFBML, put it in the FAQ. D. The name. I hate to have to say it, it's like picking on someone's kids, but "A Plan Of Attack" is not a good product name. It doesn't suggest Facebook, it doesn't suggest design, it doesn't sound like the name of an application or product, it contains too many words, and it starts with an "A" which will turn your word-of-mouth recommendations into an Abbott and Costello sketch: A: "What should I use for my simple Facebook pages?" B: "'A Plan Of Attack'" A: "Which plan of attack?" B: "No, that's a spreadsheet. Use 'A Plan Of Attack'" A: "Did you even hear my question?" B: "Third base!" E. A/B testing. Clearly you should not accept my word for any of this. I have no idea how to sell your product. All I have are hypotheses. So be sure you have a method for testing and winnowing hypotheses. Good luck! If I ever need a custom Facebook page I will be sure to try your product.

Grinnmarr 16y ago

I can't really comment on the viability/marketability of your product concept, but I will offer this very important, if not somewhat trite, piece of advice. If you are going to try to sell something to designers and use words like aesthetics in your sales copy, you will most likely fail if your own presentation is not aesthetically pleasing. Others have given some great suggestions below. I just want to emphasize that before you work to send any traffic to your site you should greatly enhance the look.

tlack 16y ago

First off, and most importantly: the business idea itself is sound. I'm saying that as a guy who's transitioning into doing a lot of stuff on FB, and it's a frustrating process. This factor is more important than anything else. The homepage is a good start, but could be slimmed down and needs to be more visual, as others have already said. The actual admin though (I signed up) is a bit chaotic. The list of widgets is only one widget and I don't really understand how it all works together. The code editor looks great: I'd suggest having some sort of drag and drop interface that pulls the widget UI and the code editing UI together.