6 ms·

Launchable.io - A quick and easy way to test ideas

26 points by mitchellbryson 13y ago

bdunn 13y ago
This could serve as a really nice method of securing consulting engagements without the typical formalities of prospecting consulting engagements. I think $99/mo and especially free fall way short of things like "copywriter help" (there are many better ways of phrasing this), and you could essentially sell a retainer-until-you-launch product where you do nothing but help startups launch and setup experiments to net more email opt-ins/presales (all the while charging significantly more.)
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  Yes this is really what sparked the idea, I still get asked all the time to help setup a little one-pager (launchrock just isn't enough information) but I can't justify the time to do, hence a hosted option. Expanding that to just helping them get off the ground is a nice idea. Thanks.
jdiez17 13y ago
Haha, you're charging 99$ a month for a template. That was a good joke.
- prezjordan 13y ago
  No need to criticize their price so harshly. If it's too high, they won't make money, and they'll learn. They obviously think it's worth $99 - your sarcasm doesn't help anybody.
  - jdiez17 13y ago
    I'm not only criticising their price. I'm writing off this whole thing as a 'joke', because honestly, that is what it looks like. Have you looked at the source code? You should take a look at this[1]. If you say "well, that's not so bad - they don't know how to make two classes with different background colours, but who cares about that? Bootstrap is totally justified", you'll love this little gem[2]. That's right, they're including 265 kilobytes of javascript (and violating jQuery's MIT license in the process, but I'll let that slide) for a form validator. If you want my honest advice: do not go near this thing. It was built by developers who are either playing a very dark joke on HN or do not have a clue about web development. The 99$/month price tag is what makes me think it is a joke. I have asked a friend of mine who does freelance web development from time to time and "about a hundred bucks" is what he'd charge for developing a single page built with Bootstrap. [1] http://launchable.io/assets/application-f12be0d179f7589b0d588fa0c333f15d.css http://launchable.io/assets/application-f12be0d179f7589b0d58... [2] http://launchable.io/assets/application-99f549a279e10ccc7e069b5f497b07be.js http://launchable.io/assets/application-99f549a279e10ccc7e06...
    - voltagex_ 13y ago
      Violating the MIT license by stripping the license text, right?
      - jdiez17 13y ago
        Yes.
    - prezjordan 13y ago
      Point taken :)
    - lfuller 13y ago
      Really not sure what you're on about here. First off, trying to use their inclusion of Bootstrap as a negative comes off as elitist nonsense. Second, the file you are discussing is actually 131KB uncompressed and 43KB when gzipped. No issues there. This sounds to me like a serious case of "I hate this because someone else is making money off of it instead of me".
      - jdiez17 13y ago
        That's strange - I took another look at the JavaScript and it is indeed 131KB when uncompressed. I could have sworn it was 265KB last night. Anyway, including Bootstrap to use two containers with different background colours is a lack of professionalism. Why can't you make it yourself? I'd argue that it would take an experienced web developer approximately the same time to do it without Bootstrap. I don't really hate it because he's making money off of it, it's just that it feels like a ripoff to me. For $99/month [1] you can get a new website, specifically designed for you by a web developer, every month. [1] it looks like he has realised $99/month is a joke.
    - mitchellbryson 13y ago
      I'm deadly serious. The 2 points you consider evidence of me "not having a clue" are including Bootstrap and jQuery? Are you serious? It's the first iteration - I've included the entire bootstrap lib for speed and ease whilst developing a UI and the entire jquery lib because it just ships with rails. As for the MIT license stripping, that is a weird one, because I'm simply using the jquery-rails gem, no tampering on my part. I'll look into why it strips that out. Maybe you don't get the "1st iteration" idea, but to me it should look like shit. I just want feedback ASAP. And guess what, it worked. Thanks for yours.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  Not just a template - but I think the page doesn't make this clear enough yet as I've had similar feedback. Thanks.
Raphael 13y ago
> Hey, you're a little early. We haven't launched yet but if you leave your email address we'll let you know when we do. So meta.
- dolphenstein 13y ago
  Kind of like "Stanley, Start-up Founder".
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  That's what it's all about, see if the concept works for me first!
DanBlake 13y ago
Isn't this just a launch rock clone that offers less and charges more?
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  It will offer more, maybe the page wasn't very clear. Primarily, the landing pages will have that much content on, as oppose to the minimal launchrock page. I don't think there's enough information on the launchrock version. I was planning on helping with the content, as well as guiding them through it with the UI.
bsirkia 13y ago
What differentiates this service from either a) just throwing up a Wordpress or SquareSpace site or b) using a service like Launch Rock? Having to pay $99/month just to have your logo displayed seems pretty steep.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  It's the same, but only takes 5 minutes to setup. It provides more space than launchrock for content and explanations of your product/service. And it only costs what most people charge per hour/2 hours. I figured they would only need it for 1 month, hence the larger price - but I'm beginning to see that gets people's backs up. Based on your feedback I think I need to expand and include these differences as part of the landing page. This would also be a useful exercise for people using it - to compare themselves to the competition. Thanks.
bdclimber14 13y ago
> We charge the equivalent of 2 hours from a professional developer. I would say 1 hour, i.e. $99/hr, is a more accurate statement. This would also help make the product appear more affordable, and as a better investment.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  Really? okay, thanks. I figured 1 or 2 hours of time as a cost would be fair, but it doesn't seem to go down well. I had also planned on them not using it for more than 1 month. So I guess I'll half it until people stop considering it a joke :)
bapi 13y ago
Way too expensive compared to laucnhrock and lauchnrock-likes. For 99$ per month, I have a full featured BaaS... not a homepage only.
kumarski 13y ago
$100/month haha. Here's a few useful landing pages tools. http://populr.me http://populr.me - has free domain mapping etc... at first glance, it seems to do everything this page site does. http://strikingly.com http://strikingly.com -pretty sweet. http://jetstrap.com http://jetstrap.com http://smore.com http://smore.com Cool tool though.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  Yeah I noticed there's a lot of free versions, I just don't like their business model. Although trying to buck the trend when there's already free versions out there might be impossible, we'll see.
aroman 13y ago
I don't want to be "that guy", but I was immediately turned off by the grammatically incorrect comma in the call-to-action. There should be no comma after "Say hello".
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  I over-use commas, all the bloody, time. Thanks!
flipcoder 13y ago
LOL. Okay I have to admit that was pretty damn funny. 10 sign-ups for free and then $99/mo? LOL.
- coherentpony 13y ago
  I'd down-vote this if I could.
csmattryder 13y ago
I can't help but feel that this is an idea, that while probably worthwhile, is similarly built as a weekend project for a bored programmer. If that's the case, I'd assume one of your biggest threats is an open source, or free, version of the paid product. So I ask, why the high price, especially for something that may only be visible for ~1 month?
- michaelbuckbee 13y ago
  I met the founder of a successful service that builds landing pages for people and he said that startups aren't actually very good for them as they fairly quickly either go under or get a real site. Most of their business is for things like real estate, people running seminars, more small scale types of business than the kinds of sites you typically associated with landing pages.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  The high price is really just a test - that failed. I'll try again with a much lower price or maybe just a free version (although I don't like that idea at all, it's still worth testing).
alexgrande 13y ago
Hilarious, I made a similar website in 2 hours yesterday - http://confirmidea.com http://confirmidea.com. I'm experimenting with this idea.. running a google experiment with two different screenshots. Why not? 2 hours for fun. If enough people said yes, create a basic service and charge $5 an A/B Test. Free for one page was my idea. $99 is ridiculous.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  This took me maybe 4 hours, but over a weekend. Yes the price is pretty high, did you A/B test yours?
coherentpony 13y ago
I don't understand. I spent over 5 minutes on that site. I read everything on the page, and I still have no idea what it's supposed to do. It generates a page for me? I have to put in my email address to do that? Why? Oh well.
- mitchellbryson 13y ago
  The page is the product, kind of. I think I have a lot more work to do on making it clear. Thanks and sorry for the confusion!
mitchellbryson 13y ago
I have some excellent feedback on the site, thanks everyone who signed up and left it. One idea is to charge $99 for unlimited ideas/landing pages per month, which I really like. Then maybe $15 for one page. Also, thanks to "ifthesourceofthispageisanexampleoftheshityouwillpush_nothanks@lame.com" who simply says, "Lame". :)

bdunn 13y ago

This could serve as a really nice method of securing consulting engagements without the typical formalities of prospecting consulting engagements. I think $99/mo and especially free fall way short of things like "copywriter help" (there are many better ways of phrasing this), and you could essentially sell a retainer-until-you-launch product where you do nothing but help startups launch and setup experiments to net more email opt-ins/presales (all the while charging significantly more.)

mitchellbryson 13y ago
Yes this is really what sparked the idea, I still get asked all the time to help setup a little one-pager (launchrock just isn't enough information) but I can't justify the time to do, hence a hosted option. Expanding that to just helping them get off the ground is a nice idea. Thanks.

jdiez17 13y ago

Haha, you're charging 99$ a month for a template. That was a good joke.

prezjordan 13y ago
No need to criticize their price so harshly. If it's too high, they won't make money, and they'll learn. They obviously think it's worth $99 - your sarcasm doesn't help anybody.
- jdiez17 13y ago
  I'm not only criticising their price. I'm writing off this whole thing as a 'joke', because honestly, that is what it looks like. Have you looked at the source code? You should take a look at this[1]. If you say "well, that's not so bad - they don't know how to make two classes with different background colours, but who cares about that? Bootstrap is totally justified", you'll love this little gem[2]. That's right, they're including 265 kilobytes of javascript (and violating jQuery's MIT license in the process, but I'll let that slide) for a form validator. If you want my honest advice: do not go near this thing. It was built by developers who are either playing a very dark joke on HN or do not have a clue about web development. The 99$/month price tag is what makes me think it is a joke. I have asked a friend of mine who does freelance web development from time to time and "about a hundred bucks" is what he'd charge for developing a single page built with Bootstrap. [1] http://launchable.io/assets/application-f12be0d179f7589b0d588fa0c333f15d.css http://launchable.io/assets/application-f12be0d179f7589b0d58... [2] http://launchable.io/assets/application-99f549a279e10ccc7e069b5f497b07be.js http://launchable.io/assets/application-99f549a279e10ccc7e06...
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    Violating the MIT license by stripping the license text, right?
    - jdiez17 13y ago
      Yes.
  - prezjordan 13y ago
    Point taken :)
  - lfuller 13y ago
    Really not sure what you're on about here. First off, trying to use their inclusion of Bootstrap as a negative comes off as elitist nonsense. Second, the file you are discussing is actually 131KB uncompressed and 43KB when gzipped. No issues there. This sounds to me like a serious case of "I hate this because someone else is making money off of it instead of me".
    - jdiez17 13y ago
      That's strange - I took another look at the JavaScript and it is indeed 131KB when uncompressed. I could have sworn it was 265KB last night. Anyway, including Bootstrap to use two containers with different background colours is a lack of professionalism. Why can't you make it yourself? I'd argue that it would take an experienced web developer approximately the same time to do it without Bootstrap. I don't really hate it because he's making money off of it, it's just that it feels like a ripoff to me. For $99/month [1] you can get a new website, specifically designed for you by a web developer, every month. [1] it looks like he has realised $99/month is a joke.
  - mitchellbryson 13y ago
    I'm deadly serious. The 2 points you consider evidence of me "not having a clue" are including Bootstrap and jQuery? Are you serious? It's the first iteration - I've included the entire bootstrap lib for speed and ease whilst developing a UI and the entire jquery lib because it just ships with rails. As for the MIT license stripping, that is a weird one, because I'm simply using the jquery-rails gem, no tampering on my part. I'll look into why it strips that out. Maybe you don't get the "1st iteration" idea, but to me it should look like shit. I just want feedback ASAP. And guess what, it worked. Thanks for yours.
mitchellbryson 13y ago
Not just a template - but I think the page doesn't make this clear enough yet as I've had similar feedback. Thanks.

Raphael 13y ago

> Hey, you're a little early. We haven't launched yet but if you leave your email address we'll let you know when we do. So meta.

dolphenstein 13y ago
Kind of like "Stanley, Start-up Founder".
mitchellbryson 13y ago
That's what it's all about, see if the concept works for me first!

DanBlake 13y ago

Isn't this just a launch rock clone that offers less and charges more?

mitchellbryson 13y ago
It will offer more, maybe the page wasn't very clear. Primarily, the landing pages will have that much content on, as oppose to the minimal launchrock page. I don't think there's enough information on the launchrock version. I was planning on helping with the content, as well as guiding them through it with the UI.

bsirkia 13y ago

What differentiates this service from either a) just throwing up a Wordpress or SquareSpace site or b) using a service like Launch Rock? Having to pay $99/month just to have your logo displayed seems pretty steep.

mitchellbryson 13y ago
It's the same, but only takes 5 minutes to setup. It provides more space than launchrock for content and explanations of your product/service. And it only costs what most people charge per hour/2 hours. I figured they would only need it for 1 month, hence the larger price - but I'm beginning to see that gets people's backs up. Based on your feedback I think I need to expand and include these differences as part of the landing page. This would also be a useful exercise for people using it - to compare themselves to the competition. Thanks.

bdclimber14 13y ago

> We charge the equivalent of 2 hours from a professional developer. I would say 1 hour, i.e. $99/hr, is a more accurate statement. This would also help make the product appear more affordable, and as a better investment.

mitchellbryson 13y ago
Really? okay, thanks. I figured 1 or 2 hours of time as a cost would be fair, but it doesn't seem to go down well. I had also planned on them not using it for more than 1 month. So I guess I'll half it until people stop considering it a joke :)

bapi 13y ago

Way too expensive compared to laucnhrock and lauchnrock-likes. For 99$ per month, I have a full featured BaaS... not a homepage only.

kumarski 13y ago

$100/month haha. Here's a few useful landing pages tools. http://populr.me http://populr.me - has free domain mapping etc... at first glance, it seems to do everything this page site does. http://strikingly.com http://strikingly.com -pretty sweet. http://jetstrap.com http://jetstrap.com http://smore.com http://smore.com Cool tool though.

mitchellbryson 13y ago
Yeah I noticed there's a lot of free versions, I just don't like their business model. Although trying to buck the trend when there's already free versions out there might be impossible, we'll see.

aroman 13y ago

I don't want to be "that guy", but I was immediately turned off by the grammatically incorrect comma in the call-to-action. There should be no comma after "Say hello".

mitchellbryson 13y ago
I over-use commas, all the bloody, time. Thanks!

flipcoder 13y ago

LOL. Okay I have to admit that was pretty damn funny. 10 sign-ups for free and then $99/mo? LOL.

coherentpony 13y ago
I'd down-vote this if I could.

csmattryder 13y ago

I can't help but feel that this is an idea, that while probably worthwhile, is similarly built as a weekend project for a bored programmer. If that's the case, I'd assume one of your biggest threats is an open source, or free, version of the paid product. So I ask, why the high price, especially for something that may only be visible for ~1 month?

michaelbuckbee 13y ago
I met the founder of a successful service that builds landing pages for people and he said that startups aren't actually very good for them as they fairly quickly either go under or get a real site. Most of their business is for things like real estate, people running seminars, more small scale types of business than the kinds of sites you typically associated with landing pages.
mitchellbryson 13y ago
The high price is really just a test - that failed. I'll try again with a much lower price or maybe just a free version (although I don't like that idea at all, it's still worth testing).

alexgrande 13y ago

Hilarious, I made a similar website in 2 hours yesterday - http://confirmidea.com http://confirmidea.com. I'm experimenting with this idea.. running a google experiment with two different screenshots. Why not? 2 hours for fun. If enough people said yes, create a basic service and charge $5 an A/B Test. Free for one page was my idea. $99 is ridiculous.

mitchellbryson 13y ago
This took me maybe 4 hours, but over a weekend. Yes the price is pretty high, did you A/B test yours?

coherentpony 13y ago

I don't understand. I spent over 5 minutes on that site. I read everything on the page, and I still have no idea what it's supposed to do. It generates a page for me? I have to put in my email address to do that? Why? Oh well.

mitchellbryson 13y ago
The page is the product, kind of. I think I have a lot more work to do on making it clear. Thanks and sorry for the confusion!

mitchellbryson 13y ago

I have some excellent feedback on the site, thanks everyone who signed up and left it. One idea is to charge $99 for unlimited ideas/landing pages per month, which I really like. Then maybe $15 for one page. Also, thanks to "ifthesourceofthispageisanexampleoftheshityouwillpush_nothanks@lame.com" who simply says, "Lame". :)