10 ms·

Fomo.com is doing a few million and is owned/operated by 1 individual (although he has a small team). Believe he acquired it and grew it like crazy. I’d reckon

Fomo.com is doing a few million and is owned/operated by 1 individual (although he has a small team). Believe he acquired it and grew it like crazy. I’d reckon (if he chose) the company could do a 100k a month in profit.

ashelmire 8y ago
This is an example of a product that probably does something cool, but really doesn't do a good job of explaining what it does or why I would use it on the front page. But it looks pretty.
- justaguyhere 8y ago
  Look at the bottom left corner of the screen, then it becomes clear immediately. And yeah, it looks pretty.
- sosodev 8y ago
  You know those annoying notifications that usually say something like "Dawn in Idaho bought a 3 pack or gorilla stickers just now" on e-commerce sites? That's what fomo does.
- ryanckulp 8y ago
  thanks for the feedback. this homepage is actually our 3rd and probably most abstract implementation. 1st, 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20161108025452/https://www.usefomo.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161108025452/https://www.usefo... 2nd, 2017/2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20190107040431/https://fomo.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190107040431/https://fomo.com/ indeed, the numbers speak for themselves. over the last few weeks since deploying we saw lower signup conversion rates. but, we also have a few product launches forthcoming. balancing between "be short and to the point" and sharing a vision is perhaps more art than science, and that's why we have so much art on our website.
  - ashelmire 8y ago
    Second one seems to come closest for me. I prefer something clear like "see that notification at the bottom left corner of the page? We do that". But I get it; you're selling why someone should use the product (a bit abstractly, perhaps). As a tech product though, don't forget to highlight the actual product(s) and to be specific. The "Install Fomo in 29 Seconds" section from the first iteration makes me feel confident, as a developer, that there's a clear path to get your product working for me and it won't be a pita. A documentation link at the top, rather than hidden at the bottom, would be nice - see how Facebook presents their tech offerings (granted, open source) at https://reactjs.org/ https://reactjs.org/ etc. I'm just one guy who makes decisions about what techs to use for myself and others though, so yada yada grain of salt. Maybe I'm not who you're targeting as much as salespeople themselves.
  - i_cant_speel 8y ago
    Yeah I clicked around and came back here, still not knowing exactly what your product is. IMO it should be made a bit more explicit on the landing page.
weka 8y ago
I've been looking at their site for about 5 minutes and I still have no idea what fomo.com does...
- lostgame 8y ago
  It says 'marketing' right on the front page, right next some unique drawings which indicate the kinds of things they can create. It took me less than 5 seconds.
- kowdermeister 8y ago
  Same here. What problem do they solve?
  - puranjay 8y ago
    They "automate" social proof. That is, when someone buys something on your site, or performs a specific action (such as sign-up for a newsletter), FOMO will show a little pop-up in the left corner stating so ("XYZ from ABC just bought 2 widgets"). The idea is that knowing something is popular will make others more likely to buy it. I reckon they could do a better job of conveying this, but I work in marketing and I understood it immediately. So I imagine their target audience understands it well enough.
    - aerovistae 8y ago
      That is so weird to me. Does that actually work on people? I see it now that you point it out, the popups in the lower left, but before I had been automatically mentally dismissing it as just annoying sales bullshit, like any other popup ad. There's statistical evidence that sales are actually influenced by that kind of nonsense? That amazes me.
      - ryanckulp 8y ago
        https://blog.fomo.com/tag/case-study/ https://blog.fomo.com/tag/case-study/
      - 8y ago
tomp 8y ago
Incredible. If the stats on the website are to be believed, they have 11k users, and the cheapest plan is $35 per month (with yearly disocunt applied) so that must mean several $100k per month (though older customers might have cheaper legacy plans)... Edit: https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/growing-a-social-proof-marketing-platform-to-88k-mo-in-revenue-05b996966c https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/growing-a-social-proo...
- ryanckulp 8y ago
  hey, the 11k figure is active websites. you can verify all this via our Open API: https://fomo.com/open https://fomo.com/open since a customer can have unlimited websites per plan, we actually have around 5,500-6,000 customers. many will add a personal site and a company site, or an ecommerce store and a blog. yes, older customers have plans as low as $8-12 /month. good times.
  - arbuge 8y ago
    How did you get started with this, i.e. how did you get your first customers? Looks like a really interesting business.
    - ryanckulp 8y ago
      thank you. we actually acquired a Shopify app, which already had some customers via organic app store traffic. more here: https://blog.fomo.com/how-we-bought-a-small-software-startup/ https://blog.fomo.com/how-we-bought-a-small-software-startup... (note, 2.5 year old post)
      - arbuge 8y ago
        Great read, thanks. Congrats on your success.
gadders 8y ago
I always thought that a lot of those "Fred just purchased T-Shirt X" pop-ups when you are on a site are all fake data anyway.
- ryanckulp 8y ago
  many of our competitors do allow customers to plug in fake data, it's sad + illegal + gives the space a bad rep. sigh. this is why we aggressively build native integrations, sometimes 1 per week. deters bad actors. changelog: https://new.fomo.com https://new.fomo.com
  - gadders 8y ago
    Fair enough :-) You should label/brand your pop-ups with a link to somewhere that explains this.
- Skrillex 8y ago
  Maybe they are. I know of one site that had a premade array of "X bought Y" in the source HTML, which I imagine they repopulate after some amount of time.
Consultant32452 8y ago
That website called me a loser because I write code.
Toine 8y ago
René Girard would approve
wonderofworld 8y ago
Fomo is the same offering as Proof (https://useproof.com https://useproof.com). Great case of the same idea in the market with difference customer segments able to produce paid users in a semi-automated-saas model

ashelmire 8y ago

This is an example of a product that probably does something cool, but really doesn't do a good job of explaining what it does or why I would use it on the front page. But it looks pretty.

justaguyhere 8y ago
Look at the bottom left corner of the screen, then it becomes clear immediately. And yeah, it looks pretty.
sosodev 8y ago
You know those annoying notifications that usually say something like "Dawn in Idaho bought a 3 pack or gorilla stickers just now" on e-commerce sites? That's what fomo does.
ryanckulp 8y ago
thanks for the feedback. this homepage is actually our 3rd and probably most abstract implementation. 1st, 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20161108025452/https://www.usefomo.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161108025452/https://www.usefo... 2nd, 2017/2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20190107040431/https://fomo.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190107040431/https://fomo.com/ indeed, the numbers speak for themselves. over the last few weeks since deploying we saw lower signup conversion rates. but, we also have a few product launches forthcoming. balancing between "be short and to the point" and sharing a vision is perhaps more art than science, and that's why we have so much art on our website.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  Second one seems to come closest for me. I prefer something clear like "see that notification at the bottom left corner of the page? We do that". But I get it; you're selling why someone should use the product (a bit abstractly, perhaps). As a tech product though, don't forget to highlight the actual product(s) and to be specific. The "Install Fomo in 29 Seconds" section from the first iteration makes me feel confident, as a developer, that there's a clear path to get your product working for me and it won't be a pita. A documentation link at the top, rather than hidden at the bottom, would be nice - see how Facebook presents their tech offerings (granted, open source) at https://reactjs.org/ https://reactjs.org/ etc. I'm just one guy who makes decisions about what techs to use for myself and others though, so yada yada grain of salt. Maybe I'm not who you're targeting as much as salespeople themselves.
- i_cant_speel 8y ago
  Yeah I clicked around and came back here, still not knowing exactly what your product is. IMO it should be made a bit more explicit on the landing page.

weka 8y ago

I've been looking at their site for about 5 minutes and I still have no idea what fomo.com does...

lostgame 8y ago
It says 'marketing' right on the front page, right next some unique drawings which indicate the kinds of things they can create. It took me less than 5 seconds.
kowdermeister 8y ago
Same here. What problem do they solve?
- puranjay 8y ago
  They "automate" social proof. That is, when someone buys something on your site, or performs a specific action (such as sign-up for a newsletter), FOMO will show a little pop-up in the left corner stating so ("XYZ from ABC just bought 2 widgets"). The idea is that knowing something is popular will make others more likely to buy it. I reckon they could do a better job of conveying this, but I work in marketing and I understood it immediately. So I imagine their target audience understands it well enough.
  - aerovistae 8y ago
    That is so weird to me. Does that actually work on people? I see it now that you point it out, the popups in the lower left, but before I had been automatically mentally dismissing it as just annoying sales bullshit, like any other popup ad. There's statistical evidence that sales are actually influenced by that kind of nonsense? That amazes me.
    - ryanckulp 8y ago
      https://blog.fomo.com/tag/case-study/ https://blog.fomo.com/tag/case-study/
    - 8y ago

tomp 8y ago

Incredible. If the stats on the website are to be believed, they have 11k users, and the cheapest plan is $35 per month (with yearly disocunt applied) so that must mean several $100k per month (though older customers might have cheaper legacy plans)... Edit: https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/growing-a-social-proof-marketing-platform-to-88k-mo-in-revenue-05b996966c https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/growing-a-social-proo...

ryanckulp 8y ago
hey, the 11k figure is active websites. you can verify all this via our Open API: https://fomo.com/open https://fomo.com/open since a customer can have unlimited websites per plan, we actually have around 5,500-6,000 customers. many will add a personal site and a company site, or an ecommerce store and a blog. yes, older customers have plans as low as $8-12 /month. good times.
- arbuge 8y ago
  How did you get started with this, i.e. how did you get your first customers? Looks like a really interesting business.
  - ryanckulp 8y ago
    thank you. we actually acquired a Shopify app, which already had some customers via organic app store traffic. more here: https://blog.fomo.com/how-we-bought-a-small-software-startup/ https://blog.fomo.com/how-we-bought-a-small-software-startup... (note, 2.5 year old post)
    - arbuge 8y ago
      Great read, thanks. Congrats on your success.

gadders 8y ago

I always thought that a lot of those "Fred just purchased T-Shirt X" pop-ups when you are on a site are all fake data anyway.

ryanckulp 8y ago
many of our competitors do allow customers to plug in fake data, it's sad + illegal + gives the space a bad rep. sigh. this is why we aggressively build native integrations, sometimes 1 per week. deters bad actors. changelog: https://new.fomo.com https://new.fomo.com
- gadders 8y ago
  Fair enough :-) You should label/brand your pop-ups with a link to somewhere that explains this.
Skrillex 8y ago
Maybe they are. I know of one site that had a premade array of "X bought Y" in the source HTML, which I imagine they repopulate after some amount of time.

Consultant32452 8y ago

That website called me a loser because I write code.

Toine 8y ago

René Girard would approve

wonderofworld 8y ago

Fomo is the same offering as Proof (https://useproof.com https://useproof.com). Great case of the same idea in the market with difference customer segments able to produce paid users in a semi-automated-saas model