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Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

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Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#11

Post by brudgers »

anges244 wrote: post #10
brudgers wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0. It's the 'a small price' plus a free tier that concerns me in terms of sustainability for a business. It makes sense of Walmart to provide and maintain and support free software because the free software: a. does not cannibalize sales transactions. b. does not have design incentives to be delibrately bad/frustrating/incomplete c. does not allow the creation of bad business metrics like "Look how many free users it…

I think you are right but since it's an immature product, we had to decrease the price significantly. The goal is somewhere between passive income and becoming something more so maybe that's why the mixed signals. Have to take a look at that, I guess. I know and we did the math on how free users impact our finances but had to somehow launch it and get attention. What would you suggest? Trials and increased pricing? B…

I'm all for 'shipping' by which I mean making something and getting it in front of people and getting feedback. https://blog.ycombinator.com/minimum-viable-product-process/

Launching, not so much because often the idea of launching creates a PR driven process optimized around getting attention rather than the hard work of talking to people at the risk of rejection. It's not that PageRocket is not a fine piece of work. It's more than GoDaddy and Wix run advertisements on TV for free websites and WordPress has a free tier and that's what PageRocket is competing against (plus its own free tier).

but since it's an immature product, we had to decrease the price significantly

There are many people, including myself, who feel reluctant to charge people a lot of money and find reasons to lower their prices. One way of validating a business idea is whether or not people will pay a substantial amount of money for something that has not yet been built. Patio11 (Patrick Mackenzie) tells the story about validating Appointment Reminder here: https://www.conversionaid.com/podcast/patrick-mckenzie-kalzu...

I recommend his advice (since much of what I have written here is stolen from him, much of the rest was stolen from YC) regarding bootstrapping a business.

The third source of my advice is my own business experience. I've learned that getting to "No" quickly is better than a slow death of maybe and starvation revenues that only allow writing the rent check.

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#12

Post by anges244 »

brudgers wrote: post #11
anges244 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right but since it's an immature product, we had to decrease the price significantly. The goal is somewhere between passive income and becoming something more so maybe that's why the mixed signals. Have to take a look at that, I guess. I know and we did the math on how free users impact our finances but had to somehow launch it and get attention. What would you suggest? Trials and increased pricing? B…

I'm all for 'shipping' by which I mean making something and getting it in front of people and getting feedback. https://blog.ycombinator.com/minimum-viable-product-process/ Launching, not so much because often the idea of launching creates a PR driven process optimized around getting attention rather than the hard work of talking to people at the risk of rejection. It's not that PageRocket is not a fine piece of work…

To be honest you got me! In my mind shipping is the way to go and in the last few days launching is a weird option I almost get dragged into pursuing! Haha... You got the reluctant to charge part completely right and I know you make a great case. Will try to do it the hard way since this is more disappointing and you easily get caught up in a momentary launch fantasy that does not exist! Thank you again for everything!

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#13

Post by brudgers »

anges244 wrote: post #12
brudgers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for 'shipping' by which I mean making something and getting it in front of people and getting feedback. https://blog.ycombinator.com/minimum-viable-product-process/ Launching, not so much because often the idea of launching creates a PR driven process optimized around getting attention rather than the hard work of talking to people at the risk of rejection. It's not that PageRocket is not a fine piece of work…

To be honest you got me! In my mind shipping is the way to go and in the last few days launching is a weird option I almost get dragged into pursuing! Haha... You got the reluctant to charge part completely right and I know you make a great case. Will try to do it the hard way since this is more disappointing and you easily get caught up in a momentary launch fantasy that does not exist! Thank you again for everythin…

I'm not saying it is impossible. I am suggesting that it is hard and the hard part is talking to people about something that they might not want.

PageRocket is a really nice piece of work and could be the basis for a profitable business I think. But that profitable business probably means going out and selling to one customer at a time...there are a lot of small businesses in the world for which PageRocket could be a very very good solution.

Currently, I see a possible business that is closer to the design agency end of the spectrum than the Wordpress end. Design agencies ship and don't really launch.

37 Signals is that sort of model. It was a design agency that eventually built a product, Basecamp. StackOverflow is sort of similar...Fog Creek Software was both a consultancy and built FogBugz. Slack was a game company before it hit on a product.

I want to reiterate that the process for PageRocket is well designed and the aesthetic results tasteful. I suppose one way of putting it is that the quality of what I see suggests that the team is capable of building something businesses might pay 'real' money for and I hate the idea that the bar would be set at a place where doing so becomes unlikely. So in the end, I guess I am encouraging you to aim higher or at least at higher fees.

Another HN classic: https://jacquesmattheij.com/double-your-price-and-no-im-not-...

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#15

Post by Nadya »

hitsurume wrote: post #14

Tried to use a generic password / no password and got this: Βάλε ένα έγκυρο κωδικό με τουλάχιστον 8 χαρακτήρες... No idea what that says since I read only english, but i'm guessing it's a bug.

Greek. Password must be at least 8 characters.

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#16

Post by anges244 »

Nadya wrote: post #15
hitsurume wrote: post #14

Tried to use a generic password / no password and got this: Βάλε ένα έγκυρο κωδικό με τουλάχιστον 8 χαρακτήρες... No idea what that says since I read only english, but i'm guessing it's a bug.

Greek. Password must be at least 8 characters.

Well done Nadya! I must have forgot that! Embarrassing.. Will fix immediately! Thx!

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#17

Post by anges244 »

hitsurume wrote: post #14

Tried to use a generic password / no password and got this: Βάλε ένα έγκυρο κωδικό με τουλάχιστον 8 χαρακτήρες... No idea what that says since I read only english, but i'm guessing it's a bug.

Sorry about that! Will fix immediately! Thx!

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#19

Post by anges244 »

sauronlord wrote: post #18

Says build a website instantly. But when I click the link it requires me to fill in 2 fields and verify my email. Maybe we have different definitions of "instantly"

Haha! I think we do! As instantly as a website can be created wouldn't fit there! But seriously now, instantly refers to the publishing process and not the account creation one. You just fill out your account details, a few important settings and two-three fields and you create a fully functional website that can receive emails, subscribers and can have multiple pages. Sorry if I mislead you!

Re: Show HN: PageRocket – A website builder that your grandfather can use

#20

Post by wingerlang »

anges244 wrote: post #19
sauronlord wrote: post #18

Says build a website instantly. But when I click the link it requires me to fill in 2 fields and verify my email. Maybe we have different definitions of "instantly"

Haha! I think we do! As instantly as a website can be created wouldn't fit there! But seriously now, instantly refers to the publishing process and not the account creation one. You just fill out your account details, a few important settings and two-three fields and you create a fully functional website that can receive emails, subscribers and can have multiple pages. Sorry if I mislead you!

You should really just ask for the email when they press save or something. I am sure it will give you a better sign up rate.
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