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How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

copyhackers.com

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Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#81

Post by todsul »

dshah wrote: post #72

Immediately went to go buy the bundle of 4 books (good copywriting!) But, some friendly startup advice: 1. There should be no reason to ask for my address and phone number and such for a digital purchase with PayPal as the purchase option. Your close rate would go up if you just let people go straight to PayPal -- and ask for those details after the purchase is done (eCommerce companies learned this a while ago). 2.…

Asking for the address for digital downloads is about your only defence against PayPal's chargeback frenzy. Anyone who has sold digital downloads knows how PayPal randomly returns money to customers (and let's them keep the product) because "something triggered a response" in their system.

With physical goods, the seller is paid by default (when the seller responds). With intangible goods, nothing the seller says can get the chargeback reversed. You only get the money if the buyer responds, which they rarely do because they are about to get a full refund and free product. PayPal's only recommendation is to capture the address (and send a free CD). I found that just capturing the address made the problem mostly go away. And with the couple of chargebacks, when I responded with the address, I was paid.

Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#83

Post by Tobu »

armandososa wrote: post #77
dshah wrote: post #72

Immediately went to go buy the bundle of 4 books (good copywriting!) But, some friendly startup advice: 1. There should be no reason to ask for my address and phone number and such for a digital purchase with PayPal as the purchase option. Your close rate would go up if you just let people go straight to PayPal -- and ask for those details after the purchase is done (eCommerce companies learned this a while ago). 2.…

Except Paypal is the only viable option if you're from outside the us. If she has used Amazon Payments or Google Checkout, I could not have purchased his books.

I can use google checkout in Europe, when did you last try?

Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#84

Post by WA »

todsul wrote: post #81
dshah wrote: post #72

Immediately went to go buy the bundle of 4 books (good copywriting!) But, some friendly startup advice: 1. There should be no reason to ask for my address and phone number and such for a digital purchase with PayPal as the purchase option. Your close rate would go up if you just let people go straight to PayPal -- and ask for those details after the purchase is done (eCommerce companies learned this a while ago). 2.…

Asking for the address for digital downloads is about your only defence against PayPal's chargeback frenzy. Anyone who has sold digital downloads knows how PayPal randomly returns money to customers (and let's them keep the product) because "something triggered a response" in their system. With physical goods, the seller is paid by default (when the seller responds). With intangible goods, nothing the seller says can…

1. I never experienced the described problem.

2. Nothing prevents me from putting a fake address into the form. I just did.

3. The web page does not use SSL-encryption. It doesn't process credit card information, but it surely does process personal information such as my address, which is enough to be a violation of privacy terms in Europe.

So, while I found the copy of this web page extremely interesting and it just "worked" on me, the technical aspects were almost a deal-breaker for me and I only circumvented the problem by providing a fake address.

Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#85

Post by richardw »

I suggest (um...plead?) spitting them out as Kindle books, or at least making the pdf less Kindle-hostile. I bought the bundle (great offer, thank you :) and dragged it onto my Kindle. Font tiny, most prominent thing is the bottom bar.

Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#87

Post by lostMyPasswd »

bloggergirl wrote: post #10
0x12 wrote: post #8

What's very cool about this is that the page itself is actually a sample that will sell you on the book. Best marketing of the year award. Really awesome.

:) I'll take that award with a great big smile. Thanks!

I may start a single-product(fruit) online store next year. I'm not a webdev though do have programming bkground. Does your copy books have examples or help to write copy for such websites or is it targetted more towards SaaS products?

Maybe my Qn itself is unreasonable and maybe same principles apply everywhere, in which case do let me know.

Secondly, since my potential usage of this will be sometime in future; when I come down to it, will you be available offline for some clarifications help needed with the material? If my help reqd becomes too much we can even discuss some kind of compensation/consulting for you.

HN Mods/PG: Someone pls tell me how to recover my passwd of a very old account!

Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#88

Post by ddehghan »

I bought a copy. Very happy to support a fellow HN reader.

A couple of humble suggestion for you:

$$$: You may want to sell this as lifetime subscription to each mini-book/magazine. Have each buyer opt-in to receive a life-time update once every quarter. People lose digital assets all the time so it is nice to get an updated one regularly. Also every 4 months you get change to nudge people to read it or re-read it to see what is new. If someone forwards it along you will end up capturing a percentage of people that got the pirated version because people don’t want to read stale content. By a putting an issue/version number on it you make people feel left out and upgrade to the latest version. ( ☺ hehe. I have worked for Microsoft for too long.)

Every time I get a new email from you I would not thing it spam if you attach a updated version of the book to it. ☺

Then you can sell additional book chapters to your subscriber base over time. Or bundle in other services that people would find interesting.

Branding: Copy is a very specific term. To increase your audience I would suggest re-branding your content and call it text or something to that effect.

Domain name: You have a great domain name. You can rebrand your content as “copy from the best hackers” meaning copy ideas from the best hackers.

Looking forward to reading your book.

Re: How 1 HN post compelled me to leave Intuit and create a new startup for startups

#89

Post by treo »

richardw wrote: post #85

I suggest (um...plead?) spitting them out as Kindle books, or at least making the pdf less Kindle-hostile. I bought the bundle (great offer, thank you :) and dragged it onto my Kindle. Font tiny, most prominent thing is the bottom bar.

I would also love a more ebook reader friendly format like Mobi or ePub. I still bought it, because I might be able to convert it to something usable for myself, but a version that is actually made for ebook readers (like the sony prs-650 that I have myself :)) would be even better.
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