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27 Comments

Is your idea even good? Get feedback

I am a newish member of the IH community, and have learnt a lot from the community in such a short time. In an effort to give back, I am offering to share very pointed and targeted feedback on your business idea and website (if applicable)

Please drop a URL to your business without describing it. I will try to cover at least the following points in my feedback:

  1. Messaging - What is the value prop I think you business has to offer
  2. Product / Market fit - are you solving a real problem for the right audience
  3. Landing page - Does the website / landing page do a good job in communicating the real value of your product

A little about myself -I am a computer engineer and MBA by education. Product Manager by profession. Have never coded outside of school.

on August 26, 2020
    1. 2

      Really like your landing page, especially the header/hero section. Also, the navigation is really clear.

      The first line of the hero copy is super clear. The second line might not be needed?

      Also, "to rocket your brand" is vague, and also not the right usage of words. Keep it simple. Maybe say something like "to grow your brand"

      The one thing I would love to know is where are these tags trending? Are these Twitter hashtags? Insta? All?

      The visualization cards on the home page are a little hard to read. Few suggestions

      • Maybe use a different color or bigger font for the hashtag. That is the main identifier, but it does not stand out
      • Did you try other visualizations like a line graph? Looking at all the cards together makes me feel these are just static images than actual graphs. Maybe have some animation as they load up?
      • I would also experiment with 2 cards per row. It will give some breathing space and make reading and consuming a little easier.
      1. 1

        Love the feedback!
        I think you are right on so many of these and will be working on these.

        It is Instagram, but I was nervous about mentioning Instagram. I think I have moved past that.

        I did try to animate the charts but it significant slows down some older computers when there are so many charts.
        I did try 2 charts and they just feel so big, maybe I can play with the padding.
        You have a point on the breathing room. I’ll play with that.

        What did you think of the data and would you find it helpful?

        1. 1

          I think the data is useful, but for a very niche set of users - Instagram marketers

          I am not sure if your goal is only to reach Instagram marketers? What would make it interesting for me is if there was a way to

          1. Find what is trending on different channels i.e. hashtags trending on twitter vs. insta vs. other sources
          2. That would also allow me to look at hashtags / topics that are trending overall.
          1. 2

            Thank you! I took your feedback and am looking into gathering from different channels. In an attempt to make it much more actionable data I just launched my hashtag recommender page. Hopefully that will help me to reach this audience better.

    1. 1

      Messaging - 2/5: It took me a few seconds to get the value prop. The subtitle of your "Follow on us twitter" is the only copy on the landing page that talks about what melbado does. Without that, the user is only guessing what they're looking at.

      I think having a header/hero section with a few lines of copy would help.

      I also don't know why you're offering the hottest startups. Is there a reason for me to be looking at this list? Are these undiscovered startups, freshly funded, great team? Question is - what is so great about this list?

      Product Market Fit - 1/5: I am not sure who your audience is
      Landing page - 3/5: I like the simplistic design. Adding a header section will help.

      1. 1

        Cool, thank you! I thinks this helps me to go in the right direction!

  1. 2

    Hi, this is a good idea 👍
    https://cloudbuddies.io
    Still some glitches to fix though.

    1. 1

      Messaging -

      • it takes a while to get to the point and understand what the value prop is.
      • This is what I understood - you help simplify managing cloud infrastructure. Is that right?
      • Even this message has some ambiguity. I do not know what simplification your tool offers. This only gets clear when i reach the third fold

      Product / market fit - I am unable to deduce who the target audience is. You jump into trying to describe and the problem, but not the audience. I would have loved to see something like - "Helping small businesses setup and maintain their cloud infrastructure"

      Landing page
      Excuse me for being blunt, but I did not like the header section and the copy. There is too much happening. And the copy is really vague - Word and phrases like "Don't reach for the Stars to settle in the Cloud", "demystify", etc are taking up real estate without adding too much value.
      I feel this sentence - "Archie is a Self-Service Tool that removes Complexity of Cloud Adoption and Infrastructure Deployments." is relatively clear (nonambiguous) and does a better job at clearly communicating the product. Maybe use this (or something similar) on the header. You can also reconsider having a slider on the top. Focus on creating one value prop and nail the copy.
      Any reason one of the "learn more" button is blinking?

      1. 2

        Hey, thanks for the feedback.
        Had a read trough it, I agree those points and reviewed the copy.

        • It should get to the point sooner now.
        • Yes, we provide an online tool that simplifies a cloud adoption, specially the deployment steps, the tool doesn’t offer cloud management, it should also be more clear now.
        • Indeed we didn't mention who we target, Archie can be used by every IT, it helps business with an IT team to start and expand in the cloud the recommended way, it can help cloud users to deploy things faster and cloud consultancies to free up their resources from standard deployments.
        • Removed the slider

        It's still WIP, there are typos, bad wordings and design considerations (currently updating), but this is to test if the message that the site gives is more clear and see how it looks on the graphical side.

        Feel free to check it :
        http://testcbwebsite.s3-website.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/

    1. 2

      Messaging - Like it but do not love it
      I got the main message - you offer short courses to help me grow my business.
      Growing a business is not a simple task, and typically people go to business school, do extensive research and study to make it happen. Reading this headline makes me a little skeptical.
      Also not sure what to make of "short courses". Does it mean the courses are short, or is the content bite-sized?
      Also, "favorite messaging apps" is very ambiguous. I am not sure if you mean whatsapp, FB, insta?

      Product Market Fit - I am a great fan of bite-sized content. It helps me keep up with reading during my busy days. But for the reasons stated above, at this point, I am not sure if an important milestone like business growth can be achieved by what you are offering.

      Landing page - I feel this needs a bit more work:

      1. Hero copy can be shorter. The last sentence is redundant. I am no copy writer, but something like this: "We create meaningful bite-sized courses on entrepreneurship and deliver it to you, every day."
      2. Topics that matter - the selection of courses displayed seems a little randomly ordered. I would've liked for it to be categorized into - early stage growth, mature growth. Or categories like marketing, strategy, etc.
      3. Until i reached the last fold, I thought the platform is only for learning and buying courses. But the last fold also talks about hosting courses. I am sure this is imp to your business, but it dilutes the message a little. I am not convinced of the main idea yet, and already there is a new value prop being thrown out there.

      I hope this was helpful and happy to answer any specific questions you might have on the above.

      1. 2

        Hi,
        Thank you for sharing your feedback - I appreciate time taken to review and write it.
        The aim of bytecourse is to send byte size content on the topics that matter to small online business owners. The ones that are not taught in business school and also the ones for which the material is not easily available on the internet. e.g. Launching a product on product hunt, how to talk to customers, pricing 101 etc. It is a marketplace of courses and the content would be bytesize but thorough and can be subscribed by any messaging app such as fb messenger, Telegram, whatsapp, etc.
        I see I need to revamp some stuff - some very valid points which needed to be told :)

        1. 1

          The ones that are not taught in business school and also the ones for which the material is not easily available on the internet.

          Just this value prop alone would make interested to see what you have to offer. Maybe use this front and center on the site?

          Launching a product on product hunt, how to talk to customers, pricing 101 etc.

          Again, this value prop is stronger than all the other ones you have on your landing page. Maybe blow this up a little and ensure the user reads this in the first few seconds on your page

          I assume you are in an early stage, and current focus is getting more users (i.e. students)? If yes, maybe not talk about the marketplace model yet. That dilutes the main messaging a little. Maybe have another section on the site that is for potential teachers. But keep the landing page focused only on user acquisition.

          1. 2

            That's right -I have been reconsidering the marketplace for some time now, I think I am keep that on hold for now.
            Thank you for doing this - very valid points.

  2. 1

    Hi all. I am traveling this weekend. Haven't been able to get to the remaining requests so far. Please bear with me for another 2 days. I will share feedback for each of the requests.

  3. 1

    Hi @NoobieHacker, would appreciate your brutal honesty for https://zipity.store :)

    1. 1

      The copy on the hero section is a little vague. I am not sure what "validation" you are referring to at this stage.
      The three bullets on this section, are also not doing a good job in explaining what the product is.

      First bullet has repetition in the title and subtitle - "add your product details"
      Second bullet - still vague what validation means.

      Overall, I am still unsure of what you are offering. Is this like a product-market fit validation? Is it a price point validation? something else? You need to clarify this

      Secondly, I am not sure who this website/product is for? Who is the audience? Who is target user of your product?

      1. 1

        Thanks for the detailed feedback, appreciate it!

    1. 1

      I am a little confused about your theme. Are you saying that you will share a startup idea every week?
      By reading your newsletters, it seems that is what you are doing. But the name "requeststartup" does not match your offering. Unless I am missing something.

      I would also say update the "about" section so users can understand the offering.

      Also, maybe write a full post explaining what your idea is, how you think of these ideas, why are these ideas unique. Basically - help me understand why should I subscribe to your newsletter. What do you do special

    1. 2

      It took me a few seconds to understand the idea.

      I think your "About" section is very clear and well written, and that is how I understood the idea. you also clearly call out your target audience, and I really like that.

      The home page is a little vague. There is no way for me to know what you are offering. As I scroll, I can only guess - this has something to do with work/desk setups. I recommend having some (or all ) of the content from the about section represented on the home page. Maybe on the header/ hero section

      Also, having the "check us out" section in the second fold seems a little odd. Is your primary goal to redirect users to your social channels? If not, then have this lower on your page somewhere.

      I am not a very big fan of the layout you are using for the posts. Are you optimizing for mobile?
      On a desktop, the layout feels a little odd. All the cards are centered but do not utilize the space well.

      1. 1

        Thanks so much for the feedback!!
        Will be addressing many of these comments.

  4. 2

    This comment was deleted 5 years ago

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      Messaging - This is how I feel after reading the first two folds - I think I get it, but maybe not.
      Also, you are using the word 'holistic' The header copy contains 'holistic' twice. The 4 lines on the second fold contain the word four times.

      As I scroll down and read more copy, I am still not sure what the offering is. Maybe it is just me, but I do not know what 'holistic journey' you are referring to. Is this for me when I have a cold, or something more serious, or both?

      1. 2

        Thanks for the feedback!