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There’s a lot to like here. It reminds me of this great article I read about someone learning French by reading Harry Potter many years ago. I can’t find the fi

by kevin 11y ago

There’s a lot to like here. It reminds me of this great article I read about someone learning French by reading Harry Potter many years ago. I can’t find the first reference to it, but it seems a lot of people take this approach now and numerous articles have been written about this method. https://www.google.com/search?q=harry+potter+language+learning https://www.google.com/search?q=harry+potter+language+learni... I was delighted to see that you even wrote about it yourselves on your blog. http://blog.readlang.com/2014/03/08/learn-languages-with-harry-potter.html http://blog.readlang.com/2014/03/08/learn-languages-with-har... Your content marketing is great, but you don’t do it enough. Good startups ship both code and marketing efforts on a regular basis…ideally, you should shoot for something going out weekly. It’s great that you shared your numbers, but snapshots are less helpful than data or information that shows momentum. When I’m trying to figure out if a company is doing well, numbers at a fixed point in time usually isn’t enough data to help me determine what the company looks like in the future. Early stage startups should try for at least 10%/weekly growth on your core metric. If you’re not hitting that, make sure you’re only spending time/energy on tasks to hit those numbers. Onboarding experience can use some work. There’s not enough guidance in the app to make me feel confident that I can use your site to learn a language on my own. For instance, when I first login, I had no idea what I was supposed to do first. http://cl.ly/image/253K373i1M2Y http://cl.ly/image/253K373i1M2Y Even though I saw Upload Text button and the Web Reader link/button…I naturally clicked on the first story…which lead me to a page with even less guidance. I’ve never learned a language by reading and I couldn't find any help for best practices to using your site or how I’m supposed to turn this exposure into language proficiency. Highly recommend reading Kathy Sierra’s article about how learning isn’t a push model. Might give you some ideas: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2004/12/learning_isnt_a.html http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2004/1... The highlight to translate UX feels promising, but I found myself wanting a way to see the full english text side by side with the translated portion. Why make me click twice to learn words through the flashcard interface? (tab then button) Also, if you want me to do it everyday, offer me a daily email or sms to practice. Each one of those emails is an opportunity to upgrade them down the road. http://cl.ly/image/343r002E071K http://cl.ly/image/343r002E071K Speaking of upgrade triggers, it sure feels like you make it hard to upgrade or pay right away right from the get go. I think it’s because you’re shooting to upgrade people who are using it the most. That seems way too nice. :) As far as your feature list is concerned on the marketing side…they feel very YOU centric rather than USER centric. http://readlang.com/features http://readlang.com/features I have to do all this work to figure out why the feature is better for me. If the copy is one step removed from me selling myself, it’ll be two steps removed from me being able to sell it to a friend. Here’s a link to another Kathy Sierra article talking about focusing on helping users kick ass over showing off how you kick ass (she’s the best). http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/05/users_dont_care.html http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/0... I see on this page that you do have daily reminder email for flashcards…funny, I never found it when I was playing with it. Anyway, hope this helps. Keep up the good work!

melling 11y ago
I read a couple Harry Potter books in Spanish a decade ago. It's always helpful to read. Those books are a little hard for a beginner. I made words list for each chapter, which I lost. I think it's helpful to study the words then read chapter. I don't suppose there are digital copies that can be parsed floating around?
- steveridout 11y ago
  Harry Potter is one of the very few bestselling fiction eBooks that can be purchased DRM free: https://www.pottermore.com https://www.pottermore.com If only more publishers would do this, it would be far easier for me to recommend novels for users to buy to read on my site!
steveridout 11y ago
Thanks very much, this is great advice! (It's 4am here now and my brain is fried so will go through this in detail tomorrow.)
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Any plans for Bitcoin integration? My preferred methods of payment are, in order of preference, Bitcoin, PayPal and credit card as a distant last.
  - steveridout 11y ago
    Sorry, no plans at the moment. It still seems too niche to be worth adding. Would love to hear if anyone has achieved significant increase in payments after adding bitcoin in addition to paypal & credit card.
steveridout 11y ago
Apart from that one Harry Potter article, I haven't found content marketing to be that effective in attracting new users, mainly because I haven't invested enough time in it. The low hanging fruit I'm going after first is to add more landing pages and product information about Readlang. Later I might try getting language teachers and bloggers to help out with the content marketing, I can't see myself doing it frequently since it takes too much time from working on the product. Definitely need more content for SEO, almost all my search engine traffic queries at the moment contain the term "readlang". Being bootstrapped, my core metric for the moment is revenue and the graph is looking pretty bumpy at the moment, I may follow up with a blog post digging into the details. Onboarding - I completely agree, I started playing around with more walkthough hints, using a rabbit character (a la Clippy) that guides you though the process, but abandoned it since adding more complexity felt wrong when the underlying UI should probably be clearer. Still plan to add a nice checklist of items that new users are encouraged to complete. Love that Kathy Sierra article about learning - remember reading "Head First Design Patterns" about 10 years ago, first impression was how tacky all the clip-art looked, but I ended up really impressed with how engaging it was. At the moment, Readlang is still best for people who already know they want to practice by reading and just want a better, more convenient method. Long term, I want to make make it a slightly more guided and engaging experience. This could include personal recommendations of articles, gamification around both reading and flashcard practice, and social features e.g. write a summary of the previous chapter in Spanish, discuss the text with other users. I agree a full English translation would be nice for beginner learners, ideally a real human translation, similar to a parallel text. For now the product is targeted at intermediate and advanced learners but definitely something to consider as it broadens to appeal to beginners. Opt in to the daily flashcard email is currently presented once you finish a flashcard session - pretty hidden - I'll make it more visible! (note: currently all users who've translated a bunch of words get a lifecycle email 2 weeks after signing up with a plain text version of a flashcard) I'll experiment with adding a way to upgrade from the get go. I was concerned that upselling before users had a chance to play with the product could scare them off, but will try it out! I'm gradually learning and will work on making my marketing more user focussed. This image really sums it up and sticks in your head: http://www.useronboard.com/features-vs-benefits/ http://www.useronboard.com/features-vs-benefits/ Thanks again, really awesome feedback! EDIT: slight readability tweaks

by kevin 11y ago

melling 11y ago

I read a couple Harry Potter books in Spanish a decade ago. It's always helpful to read. Those books are a little hard for a beginner. I made words list for each chapter, which I lost. I think it's helpful to study the words then read chapter. I don't suppose there are digital copies that can be parsed floating around?

steveridout 11y ago
Harry Potter is one of the very few bestselling fiction eBooks that can be purchased DRM free: https://www.pottermore.com https://www.pottermore.com If only more publishers would do this, it would be far easier for me to recommend novels for users to buy to read on my site!

steveridout 11y ago

Thanks very much, this is great advice! (It's 4am here now and my brain is fried so will go through this in detail tomorrow.)

StavrosK 11y ago
Any plans for Bitcoin integration? My preferred methods of payment are, in order of preference, Bitcoin, PayPal and credit card as a distant last.
- steveridout 11y ago
  Sorry, no plans at the moment. It still seems too niche to be worth adding. Would love to hear if anyone has achieved significant increase in payments after adding bitcoin in addition to paypal & credit card.

steveridout 11y ago

Apart from that one Harry Potter article, I haven't found content marketing to be that effective in attracting new users, mainly because I haven't invested enough time in it. The low hanging fruit I'm going after first is to add more landing pages and product information about Readlang. Later I might try getting language teachers and bloggers to help out with the content marketing, I can't see myself doing it frequently since it takes too much time from working on the product. Definitely need more content for SEO, almost all my search engine traffic queries at the moment contain the term "readlang". Being bootstrapped, my core metric for the moment is revenue and the graph is looking pretty bumpy at the moment, I may follow up with a blog post digging into the details. Onboarding - I completely agree, I started playing around with more walkthough hints, using a rabbit character (a la Clippy) that guides you though the process, but abandoned it since adding more complexity felt wrong when the underlying UI should probably be clearer. Still plan to add a nice checklist of items that new users are encouraged to complete. Love that Kathy Sierra article about learning - remember reading "Head First Design Patterns" about 10 years ago, first impression was how tacky all the clip-art looked, but I ended up really impressed with how engaging it was. At the moment, Readlang is still best for people who already know they want to practice by reading and just want a better, more convenient method. Long term, I want to make make it a slightly more guided and engaging experience. This could include personal recommendations of articles, gamification around both reading and flashcard practice, and social features e.g. write a summary of the previous chapter in Spanish, discuss the text with other users. I agree a full English translation would be nice for beginner learners, ideally a real human translation, similar to a parallel text. For now the product is targeted at intermediate and advanced learners but definitely something to consider as it broadens to appeal to beginners. Opt in to the daily flashcard email is currently presented once you finish a flashcard session - pretty hidden - I'll make it more visible! (note: currently all users who've translated a bunch of words get a lifecycle email 2 weeks after signing up with a plain text version of a flashcard) I'll experiment with adding a way to upgrade from the get go. I was concerned that upselling before users had a chance to play with the product could scare them off, but will try it out! I'm gradually learning and will work on making my marketing more user focussed. This image really sums it up and sticks in your head: http://www.useronboard.com/features-vs-benefits/ http://www.useronboard.com/features-vs-benefits/ Thanks again, really awesome feedback! EDIT: slight readability tweaks