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Making a product, certifying it and making sure it’s safe is also hard. But marketing is extremely important and it’s just a very different skill than tech. I

Making a product, certifying it and making sure it’s safe is also hard. But marketing is extremely important and it’s just a very different skill than tech. I make these epaper calendar displays. https://shop.invisible-computers.com https://shop.invisible-computers.com I have invested thousands of hours into making them as good as possible. You couldn’t tell from my website :D I would probably profit much more if I just stopped improving them and focused on marketing. But I just feel much more drawn to improving the product.

robertlagrant 3y ago
That's great! Some small things about your website: - "Contact" page says "Kontact" in en-GB locale - Do you need a shopping cart for one product? Just have the "buy it now" and leave the cart out? - Do you need a search? There are only a couple of pages. - The Contact page might want to highlight to the user that there is a chat feature in the bottom right, if they prefer that to email. Other than those little bits, the site looks pretty good to me! Payments seem slick. Have you done things like ProductHunt?
- konschubert 3y ago
  Oh, wow, thanks for the feedback! No I haven't done ProductHunt. I am not sure if I can disable the cart on shopify? I think I need better pictures, and I need a better shopify theme.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I think the pictures are pretty good already, but yes, perhaps. If you wanted to dive into more feature work, possibly the next thing is thinking about CEOs who might want a) Outlook integration, and b) a way to shade off their calendar for privacy somehow. Another thing could be to stick more with consumers and have a way to display recipes on it? Maybe if there's a recipe service you could partner with that has a decent API? But in general I reckon you should market the Google Calendar stuff, which already exists and looks awesome!
  - mhb 3y ago
    A nice application for this might be places that have reservations that would be helpful if displayed. For example, tennis courts, squash courts, etc. People make the reservation online and, when they get to the facility, often don't remember which court they've reserved. Having it on a display would avoid having to look it up on the phone. Those sorts of places also might have a budget for something like this.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      That's a good point - outdoor places would appreciate screens like this that you can see in the sun.
- paddy_m 3y ago
  I'm a software engineer, and the most concerned about marketing in my circle... and I still suck at it and promoting my stuff. How do I get better? I would love to work on actual marketing projects with experienced marketers as a side project.
sumtechguy 3y ago
> But marketing is extremely important and it’s just a very different skill than tech. I once watched my father sell a single christmas lightbulb to another guy on a garage sale in the middle of july. "I convinced him he needed it" After that day I paid attention to sales. Some people just have that knack for it. They naturally know all the techniques and when to use them and how to properly use them. There used to be a very nice wikipedia article that broke most of them down but it looks like that page is gone (or I can not find it).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fxtentacle 3y ago
Seeing that you're German, too, I would suggest that you try to reach out to some newspapers. I know that's extremely old school, but it worked well for us. newsaktuell.de/ots is a service where you can send in a press release (and pay) and they'll distribute it to newspaper reporters for you. Also, they offer "Native Advertising" which is basically that you write an article about yourself and they'll pretend as if it was objective news written by them. And lastly, did you know that you can contact your local IHK and they will report about you in their membership magazine? You probably already pay for the IHK and you probably already get their magazine. A calender seems like something that other CEOs would want to hear about, so this might actually be great content for their magazine. And just like you, every other company owner is also a mandatory IHK magazine subscriber ;)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ta1243 3y ago
Yes, your website has two user hostile features which immediately make me want to click away 1) Sending cookies to track me, and then a big lie about how you "value my privacy" while trying to track me and sell my data to your "partners" " ► UpPromote Affiliate Marketing [Application] - Running..." 2) A cookie banner, which you completely ignore as you've already set 7 cookies before your javascript craps out ("TypeError: a.R is undefined"). At this point I haven't done a single thing on your page worthy of even a session cookie. 3) Once you "decline" your banner (which doesn't stop those cookies - including cookies you have set for 12 months in the future), you get a "chat" window with a red notification icon
- konschubert 3y ago
  I think your complaints are valid. For starters, I turned off that affiliate marketing thing, I wasn't using that anyways.

robertlagrant 3y ago

That's great! Some small things about your website: - "Contact" page says "Kontact" in en-GB locale - Do you need a shopping cart for one product? Just have the "buy it now" and leave the cart out? - Do you need a search? There are only a couple of pages. - The Contact page might want to highlight to the user that there is a chat feature in the bottom right, if they prefer that to email. Other than those little bits, the site looks pretty good to me! Payments seem slick. Have you done things like ProductHunt?

konschubert 3y ago
Oh, wow, thanks for the feedback! No I haven't done ProductHunt. I am not sure if I can disable the cart on shopify? I think I need better pictures, and I need a better shopify theme.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  I think the pictures are pretty good already, but yes, perhaps. If you wanted to dive into more feature work, possibly the next thing is thinking about CEOs who might want a) Outlook integration, and b) a way to shade off their calendar for privacy somehow. Another thing could be to stick more with consumers and have a way to display recipes on it? Maybe if there's a recipe service you could partner with that has a decent API? But in general I reckon you should market the Google Calendar stuff, which already exists and looks awesome!
- mhb 3y ago
  A nice application for this might be places that have reservations that would be helpful if displayed. For example, tennis courts, squash courts, etc. People make the reservation online and, when they get to the facility, often don't remember which court they've reserved. Having it on a display would avoid having to look it up on the phone. Those sorts of places also might have a budget for something like this.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    That's a good point - outdoor places would appreciate screens like this that you can see in the sun.
paddy_m 3y ago
I'm a software engineer, and the most concerned about marketing in my circle... and I still suck at it and promoting my stuff. How do I get better? I would love to work on actual marketing projects with experienced marketers as a side project.

sumtechguy 3y ago

> But marketing is extremely important and it’s just a very different skill than tech. I once watched my father sell a single christmas lightbulb to another guy on a garage sale in the middle of july. "I convinced him he needed it" After that day I paid attention to sales. Some people just have that knack for it. They naturally know all the techniques and when to use them and how to properly use them. There used to be a very nice wikipedia article that broke most of them down but it looks like that page is gone (or I can not find it).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fxtentacle 3y ago

Seeing that you're German, too, I would suggest that you try to reach out to some newspapers. I know that's extremely old school, but it worked well for us. newsaktuell.de/ots is a service where you can send in a press release (and pay) and they'll distribute it to newspaper reporters for you. Also, they offer "Native Advertising" which is basically that you write an article about yourself and they'll pretend as if it was objective news written by them. And lastly, did you know that you can contact your local IHK and they will report about you in their membership magazine? You probably already pay for the IHK and you probably already get their magazine. A calender seems like something that other CEOs would want to hear about, so this might actually be great content for their magazine. And just like you, every other company owner is also a mandatory IHK magazine subscriber ;)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ta1243 3y ago

Yes, your website has two user hostile features which immediately make me want to click away 1) Sending cookies to track me, and then a big lie about how you "value my privacy" while trying to track me and sell my data to your "partners" " ► UpPromote Affiliate Marketing [Application] - Running..." 2) A cookie banner, which you completely ignore as you've already set 7 cookies before your javascript craps out ("TypeError: a.R is undefined"). At this point I haven't done a single thing on your page worthy of even a session cookie. 3) Once you "decline" your banner (which doesn't stop those cookies - including cookies you have set for 12 months in the future), you get a "chat" window with a red notification icon

konschubert 3y ago
I think your complaints are valid. For starters, I turned off that affiliate marketing thing, I wasn't using that anyways.