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Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

projectorpm.com

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Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#21

Post by bdunn »

Zikes wrote: post #19
dsrguru wrote: post #13

Nice post! Just a UI suggestion, you want to make it as easy as possible for readers of your blog to learn what your product is about. Currently, clicking on the big blue "Projector" text only brings you to the blog's home page, not the site's home page. There is a small link at the very top of the screen that says "Learn more about Projector," which does take you back to the home page, but you might want a more prom…

This is a big pet peeve of mine. I can't count the number of times I've been to http://blog.companyname.com and no matter where on the page I looked or clicked, I couldn't find a link to http://companyname.com , and so I'm forced to manually edit the URL in the address bar. I really can't understand why a company would do such a thing.

I think the disconnect is the top left logo usually returns to a "root", which in the case of a blog is the blog index. Frankly, it might be better to have that go to the home page.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#22

Post by dsrguru »

Zikes wrote: post #19
dsrguru wrote: post #13

Nice post! Just a UI suggestion, you want to make it as easy as possible for readers of your blog to learn what your product is about. Currently, clicking on the big blue "Projector" text only brings you to the blog's home page, not the site's home page. There is a small link at the very top of the screen that says "Learn more about Projector," which does take you back to the home page, but you might want a more prom…

This is a big pet peeve of mine. I can't count the number of times I've been to http://blog.companyname.com and no matter where on the page I looked or clicked, I couldn't find a link to http://companyname.com , and so I'm forced to manually edit the URL in the address bar. I really can't understand why a company would do such a thing.

Here at least there was a link to return to the home page, but it was titled as an about page, and the link that was titled as a home page was actually the blog home page. But yeah, I've definitely seen sites like that where they give you literally no way to get back without manually editing the URL.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#23

Post by dsrguru »

bdunn wrote: post #21
Zikes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big pet peeve of mine. I can't count the number of times I've been to http://blog.companyname.com and no matter where on the page I looked or clicked, I couldn't find a link to http://companyname.com , and so I'm forced to manually edit the URL in the address bar. I really can't understand why a company would do such a thing.

I think the disconnect is the top left logo usually returns to a "root", which in the case of a blog is the blog index. Frankly, it might be better to have that go to the home page.

Yeah, it's almost always the home page unless the blog is styled to look like a completely separate part of the site. Here, it would be less confusing to go right to your home/about page. I do like that your about page is located at the root and that no clicks from there are required to learn about your product. As it happened, I just didn't get to your site from the root...

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#24

Post by jasonkester »

bdunn wrote: post #21
Zikes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big pet peeve of mine. I can't count the number of times I've been to http://blog.companyname.com and no matter where on the page I looked or clicked, I couldn't find a link to http://companyname.com , and so I'm forced to manually edit the URL in the address bar. I really can't understand why a company would do such a thing.

I think the disconnect is the top left logo usually returns to a "root", which in the case of a blog is the blog index. Frankly, it might be better to have that go to the home page.

Ah, but the only person who considers the "root" of your product blog to be the blog home is you.

Everybody else thinks they're reading a blog on your product site, and that clicking the logo will take you to the root of that. In other words, the homepage for your product. When it doesn't, they tend to simply hit the back button enough times to leave.

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#25

Post by bdunn »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-...

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#27

Post by bdunn »

oinksoft wrote: post #26

Just a small note, your website breaks the back button. It would be nice if it did not break the back button though.

Marketing site or the app itself? The app is a Backbone app and uses pushState, which might be what you're experiencing. The marketing site... is just a normal site :-)

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#28

Post by bdunn »

jasonkester wrote: post #24
bdunn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the disconnect is the top left logo usually returns to a "root", which in the case of a blog is the blog index. Frankly, it might be better to have that go to the home page.

Ah, but the only person who considers the "root" of your product blog to be the blog home is you. Everybody else thinks they're reading a blog on your product site, and that clicking the logo will take you to the root of that. In other words, the homepage for your product. When it doesn't, they tend to simply hit the back button enough times to leave.

Agreed. BTW, I just changed this. Clicking the logo while at the blog now returns you to /

Re: Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank

#29

Post by euroclydon »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month. The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely! Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this: http://new…

Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this:

  March	          0.02
  April	         38.85
  May	         64.75
  June	         76.75
  July	        122.60
  August	 99.80
  September	129.75
  October	109.75
  November	199.60
  December	119.75
  January	149.70
  February      249.45
  March	        369.25
So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from their suggestions, and traffic doubled for last Feb.

So now it's a little more interesting. I can make $369 in a month with 150 uniques per day. What can I do with 300-500 uniques per day? And I think I can get there easy because just one blog comment I made is responsible for 20 uniques per day and I know I can outrank that blog page with a little work.

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