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Launching soon, your feedback will help, please?

Hey guys, this is regarding a private community for Indie product makers and founders that I'm building and we're launching soon. (If you signed up you'll hear from me soon 😊)

I researched on the subject and planned things day and night, gave attention to details like chose this design this way as it gave out the premium feel I intended and a shade of purple as purple is luxury, and so on.

Here's the current landing page: join.coulf.com

I shared my plans for this landing page here before, but that one didn't get any responses so I went out and built this one anyway. Here's the redesign plan...

Coulf private community launch landing page

(sorry if you find the quality low, I had to stitch this one on Photoshop as other export means were not possible)

I'd feel awesome to review your landing page as well, doesn't matter if you provide feedback to mine or not. Thanks :)

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    No one on the web is going to read long blocks of text as the average web user has the attention span of 3 seconds.

    Rewrite your web copy and follow the WWH pattern:

    1. Who: who are your target customers?
    2. What: what problem are you trying to solve?
    3. How: how do you intend solving the problem in (2)?

    Also, break up your text with images.

    Reading the book Refactoring UI should help you with your UI design or better still, just outsource it to someone.

    Kind regards

    1. 1

      I thought of this, still thinking.

      I'm having issues with my website builder to do this. I mean I tried, it looked good on desktop but when I come to mobile it goes wild. Few sections overlap each other and few sections go out of the screen (they move to the right).

      But yes, I'll consider your points and thanks for recommending the book.

  2. 1

    I'm looking at the current version linked. I like the "catchiness" of the tag line and it seems to resonate and stick w/ me throughout the day. The copy still does not seem to convey the pitch as well, though. I am not 100% sold. But those are my amateur opinions.

  3. 1

    The page you are showing here is pretty different from what I can see on your website. It's only one page of very vague text.

    I totally understand you want to make money, that's what everyone wants. But I wouldn't put this desire before the product itself. To charge people you need to give them something, pretty important, something they are willing to pay for and will bring them value. Currently, I don't see anything what I would pay for.

    Let's see:

    You'll get access to private community,

    Does it really matter if community is private or public? The privacy doesn't guarantee anything by default.

    accountability sessions

    Hmm am I ready to pay for it? Do I really need it?

    tools to grow - including management, task, CRM, etc., softwares (free)

    Should I pay for your service to get tools? Seriously?

    Well, it's all about value. Give me more proof I need it.

    1. 1

      Yes, it is different. The website is previously built just to get a waitlist. The image is how I'm going to redesign it. You have added your feedback for the website but I asked for the image. But no worries at all. You have mentioned some valid points I need to look at.

      Tbh, I'm not trying to make money, getting paid for the work I put in is the end goal and not core to what I'm doing. Another ih member also said the same, so can you point what made you feel like that?

      Regarding the tools, again being honest, if someone sees the tools are not clear or giving a second thought "can I pay for this tool?", then I'm sure we're not for them. As mentioned on the page, I don't want anyone to join for the tools at all. There are other places one can get that for free as well, Hubspot CRM is free, asana task management has a free plan and so on. So yeah, if someone doesn't find that fit for them that's ok.

      So this naturally brings us to why they should pay then. It's the private nature, the paywall itself, being accountable, feedback and discussions.

      Free communities mean mostly spam, high noise and huge platforms are suffering a quality crisis along with reverse network effects. I know what you're thinking now, we're at ih after all, yet I can only think of how much spam they're dealing with on a daily basis. Only the community managers here know how hard it is to ensure quality. Regular users browsing the first few pages of the home don't see that part. Introducing a paywall ensures a high signal-to-noise ratio and cuts the noise. With a paywall, you'll also value the conversations more and take the discussions more seriously.

      And private nature and privacy is something I would pay for. Knowing that conversations are not being watched by the public opens doors to discuss secret projects with the ones I have built connections with. Knowing that my actions (data) are not being watched is a plus.

      I understand the proof part. Nothing exists now except for the landing page you gave feedback on. Even this redesign is sitting on my laptop only. On the landing page, I'm trying to bring out my vision and what I have said is based on my research. Once everything is launched, the paywall will be introduced after enough value is given to the members. (old members will be free, new members will be paid I mean)

      I'm thanking you again for bringing these points :)

      1. 1

        You have added your feedback for the website but I asked for the image.

        You have to be more specific. I didn't see from your post you want only feedback on design.

        Tbh, I'm not trying to make money, getting paid for the work I put in is the end goal and not core to what I'm doing. Another ih member also said the same, so can you point what made you feel like that?

        Because in your post you said, "I'm going to charge from the beginning" or so - currently, you removed this part.

        With a paywall, you'll also value the conversations more and take the discussions more seriously.

        Not necessarily.

        Free communities mean mostly spam, high noise and huge platforms are suffering a quality crisis along with reverse network effects.

        Stackoverflow is free and there is NO piece of spam.

        And private nature and privacy is something I would pay for.

        You can make a free community and provide this feature - for free, yes, or for an additional payment.

        1. 1

          Do you hate this idea on the whole?

          I wanted to ask this when you were like "You want me to pay for tools" but anyway here we are. You hate it right?

          1. 1

            I have the absence of choice. I love the idea of the community.

  4. 1

    Hi, Dinakar! Post this in our FB group for founders who help each other nail their startup pitches and landing pages.

    You may check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pitchback/

    1. 1

      Thanks! I have seen your group mentioned more than 4 times this day alone. And this time it's the group's creator itself. I'll soon join there.

  5. 0

    Your landing page looks great, I'd suggest adding some graphics to it to make it more attractive. You can check out Lottiefiles' web player, which allows you to embed lottie animations on your site with just 2 lines of code.

    That's what I did with One Word Domains' landing page as well - those animations gives the site an extra bit of flavor and personality, if you know what I mean :)

    1. 1

      If it looks great there wouldn't be any reason to make it more attractive.

      I think the topic started would prefer to know the truth whatever bitter it is.

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        I would prefer the bitter part. But hey, he can share his opinion though. I also find adding these animations by embedding them is helpful.

    2. 1

      Just my thoughts on this. oneword.domains is a great site as well. It is clean in its own way (mobile), but on pc, I find there's so much going on. Slides moving, typewriter text typing and animations as I scroll, I find it distracting in pc.

      So I think the layout can be improved in pc or in pc and mobile, both.

      1. 2

        That's a great point, Dinakar, thank you so much for bringing that up! I'll definitely take that into consideration when redesigning the homepage (which I'm planning to do soon)!

    3. 1

      Thank you so much. I wanted something like this but couldn't get my edited videos compressed as small file sized gifs for this. So I left it.

      This is a great alternative. But how do we pay for this? Do we have to credit them? Or is it like they show ads on our site or anything.

      1. 1

        All the animations on Lottiefiles are free to use, apparently, so it's a good placeholder for the early-stages until you find time to properly design your own graphics from scratch :)

  6. 1

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 2

      I agree with what @anilkilic is saying as well. And to add to it -- Although you say that you gave attention to detail, there are a few grammatical errors on the current landing page.

      "In the future, we'll stop talking about the free tools and softwares you get by joining because we don't really want members to join for the soft or for the exposure one had get from our space but for the relationship and support we offer."

      From a designer's perspective, I would consider trying to find a designer/copywriter (not me though). You're approaching design very subjectively, which will likely prove very inefficient.

      @anilkilic had some very solid points. Especially with the "Resources" section. You will want to maximize the value that the user receives, and communicate that as clearly and efficiently as possible.

      I think the best advice I can give here, is to always provide more value than what you're asking for in return. And to be authentic. Users/customers can see straight through the false sense of scarcity that you are trying to create by saying the free tier is temporary.

      1. 1

        Thank you for your feedback and thanks @anilkilic (read yours in email).

        I have a vision and designed it to mean that, it sounded really nice in my notes and in my head so I went on with it. Now I guess I have to put more time into it though.

        Regarding pricing, I don't want to offer it for free at all. I want to charge for it from the beginning, significant time commitment (unpaid) has been given from my end alone but charging for something that doesn't exist yet is what I find unfair, so the free. I'm not trying to create urgency at all, sticking with the timeline (I'll make those open in roadmap along the way). I even wanted to write this wording near that but tried to keep it simple.

        Can you point the errors? I ran this tool before publishing the current one and didn't find one. (except for the name, it said "Coulf" is an error)

        I'm closely looking at anilkilic's feedback from the beginning, right now nothing exists, the community included - doesn't exist, I only tried to bring out my vision on this landing page (which I partially failed).

        P.S @anilkilic why did you delete your comment? It was helpful feedback.

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          This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

          1. 2

            First thing, you weren't negative. You simply shared what you saw on this page and I really appreciate it.

            I found niching down a problem, I'm trying to solve consumption (a problem). Many resources, like articles, interviews, tools, discounts and so on around one topic quickly become another consumption medium. Plus, the community starts to hive itself. Found this as a problem in existing communities and I'm trying to solve this by being more inclusive and more towards the indie community itself. (that's one solution I can think of when trying to solve this)

            Platform. I have decided to go with Circle.so, soon discussing more with the founder to get the best experience. And this nicely integrates with Discord as well. So I thought of to-do and some automation. Here, a problem is it's chat-based. When more stuff is put into it, more people come and stay here leaving the actual community empty. While instant conversations are great it may not be the best for all.

            But I get your point, as I look more deep more problem/sub-problem/micro problems appear, so they need quite some extra thought and more research from my end.

            Thanks, most of your feedback/doubts you have (from the email) and most of mine will be solved after a few days of launching the community I guess.

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