Made my first $1 (and had a baby!)
Hi everyone! Just wanted to share a couple wins.
I've been working on a side project for the last 18 months: Guidable.org. Guidable is an app (web/iOS/Android) that lets experts easily create/sell online courses to their followers.
This past weekend, I made my first $1. Coincidentally, my wife and I had a baby (our first)!
While I attribute the baby 100% to my wife, I want to thank the Indie Hackers community for helping me persevere (and give me marketing tips!).
Here's to the next $1! Feel free to leave suggestions for how I could improve Guidable (or parenting advice).
-Ryan
P.S. If you know any experts who might use Guidable, send them my way!
👶 + 🚀=> 💪
Congrats! This is a good way to start a Monday :)
One of the better Mondays!
Nice work. How does your service compare to Pluralsight?
I think I have a few key differences from
Pluralsight:
No monthly fee for the students nor the experts (course creators). Pluralsight is $30/month to be a learner.
General topics: Guidable is for all types of experts, whereas Pluralsight seems to be focused more on IT career advancement.
Mobile first: I really want course creators to think about creating content that is easily digestible for students who are “on the go” (maybe they have a few minutes between appointments and want to do the next lesson).
Do you think I have enough differentiation?
Thanks for the help/thoughts!
Interesting. I definitely think it's smart that you're focusing on a different market than IT professionals (very crowded space). Sounds like if you can drive that message home to your market, you should be in good shape. I think the competition is getting stiff, however, so I'd definitely push hard and fast!
Awesome! Thanks @yroc92
Congrats on making your first dollar!
I'm curious - why did you decide to make Guidable a mobile app instead of a web app?
Admittedly, I've never created / sold an online course before (so I'm not your target user), but I've always imagined if I did, I would want to do it from my laptop.
Good luck!
Jonathan
To be 100% honest, probably should have built it “web-first” for my Experts; but when I started the app, I had recently bought a couple online courses from experts, and they were all delivered via web — and I hated that I (as a learner) had to consume the material while sitting at my computer.
I would prefer to have the material easily accessible for the times when I had a few quick minutes (like riding the train or waiting for an appointment).
So, I built mobile-first; and now I’m going back to build desktop-features for my experts/creators. I do have a semi-desktop-version available on the main site (I should make it more prominent!)
Thanks for the questions!
Well done and congratulations!
For Guidable.org => It's not clear how much teacher/learner should pay, like other said, you should add a plan section or clarify this ?
That's a great idea! Thanks for the feedback.
Congratulation on your baby!
congrats on the baby and the sale! Definitely a milestone in life :) Out of interest what did you use to build the landing page?
Thanks! I used this Bootstrap theme for the landing page: https://startbootstrap.com/template-overviews/new-age/
Hey. Congratulations to you both. I have downloaded the app and signed up. I am a pro photographer/videographer so I will follow some of the programmes in that field. The team here are also making an app which is instant messaging for the repair/service industry and one of us is due a baby this week. Good luck with app and bub. Cheers
Craig S
https://fix.live/
Congrats for your baby and for your early success! I think you were really clever to do mobile first. Some people prefer the computer and some prefer mobile. The former is saturated and the latter was waiting for Guidable! I also just learned that .org is no longer intended to be for non-profit organizations per Wikipedia.
One minor comment, the "GET STARTED ..." button is hard to read. I'd suggest bigger and heavier fonts.
Nice job!
That's great feedback! I appreciate it. Will change it up!
Congratulations and God Bless!
Big congratulations @ryantinker for the happy moments in life. I suggest encash them and with the baby try to record as much as you can, every single moment. It will delight you whole life. Couple of questions -
How do you differentiate it from Udemy?
Which payment system are you using - Stripe?
Couple of Suggestions as I said in another comment
Please bring HTTPs. The site looks much better with https and looks trustable
Please add OAuth support.
Thank you for the help, @sachinjain024! Answers:
Udemy is definitely similar to Guidable. I want to make Guidable mobile-first and simpler than Udemy. Udemy courses tend to be in the $30-300 range and have longer lessons. I'm trying to orient Guidable to have simpler, shorter, mobile-friendly lessons (so students can consume the lessons "on the go") in the $1-30 range.
I use Stripe for the web payments (in browser). For example, see this page: https://guidable.org/program.html?id=-LKZN3bCuVq2avH0_y3_
And I use in-app payments in the mobile apps (iOS and Android).
Congrats for both.
Congrats man! Did you make $1 off of someone paying for a course, or something else?
Yes! It was from a course. This one: http://guidable.org/program.html?id=-LKZN3bCuVq2avH0_y3_
Guidable makes 99 cents from the sale, the rest goes on to the creator.
Hi Ryan. Site looks great and I love the concept. Congrats on baby #1. I am also in the e-learning space, so I am on your side and interested to see how Guidable goes.
congratulations, I think it is a great idea. However there is a red flag for me that makes me suspicious. I was going to sign up (MacOS Sierra + Chrome Version 69.0.3497.81), but I got prompted for "guidalble.org wants to store files on this device" (either Block or Allow). Guess which one I clicked? If this can get fixed I will sign up right away. IH will not let me post screen shot, so maybe direct message if you need details.
Emailed hey@guidable.org with screen shot
@GilePile I faced this problem too. A simple solution would be to provide an OAuth based login (using Google, Facebook, Twitter etc) This can save some time to implement login feature and I'd also not fear to provide a password which is not HTTPs and a site which I do not trust. cc @ryantinker
Its funny. There really IS a big red flag on the top page of the site.
Now I see it....
It's true! Thanks for the inspecting/troubleshooting, all!
Congrats on both!
Congratulations on your first sale and the baby... Definitely, it will be a memorable weekend for you and your family ;)
Congrats on your first sale! Good luck with the rest of the adventure 📈
Yo! I'm in the teaching/online course world too. Congrats on making your own platform. Looks great!
Hey Nick! What are you working on?!
ZappyCode.com a fun place to learn how to code :)
That looks really cool! I’m going to try it out!
Thanks
Congrats! Way to go.
Congrats on both! My advice with the baby, buy "experiences" not "things", the first month is the hardest, it's the terrible three's not the terrible two's :)
This is fantastic advice! Thanks @Krazier — I’m going to look at using your influencers service!
Congratulations @ryantinker 🙌
Congrats!
Congrats!
Congrats! Hopefully the dollars keep rolling in so you can keep buying endless amounts of diapers. 😜
Hahaha! That’s right!
Congrats and congrats!!!
Congrats for your baby and your first dollar!
This is really awesome, how do you differentiate from udemy?