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Less than a year ago I bootstrapped Legendsverse. Last week it reached 2K in revenue and passed 100 paid users.

I released Legendsverse in December of last year. A website for Marvel Legends collectors to track the value of their collection and keep a list of the action figures they own and are looking for.

I've spent a long time trying to figure out what makes people pay for Legendsverse. Legendsverse is currently available for a one-time fee of $17. I'm thinking about making it a monthly/yearly subscription model, but first I'd like to have a few hundred collectors on the site.

I made a few changes to the website last week. The landing page has been updated, PayPal has been added as a payment method, and a statistics page has been added (action figures in the site DB, number of collectors, average action figures in collection, etc). With just these changes, I gained nearly 40 new users in a matter of days, the majority of whom paid with PayPal.

SEO Screenshot
Almost all of my traffic comes from SEO and posting in the reddit Marvel Legends sub.

So, this is what I learned:

Reddit post screenshot

  • You must use FOMO to your advantage.
    After I announced on Reddit that Legendsverse had reached 100 members, I received a lot of positive feedback and gained an additional 20 users.

Reddit post screenshot

  • You must fine-tune your message until it connects with your target audience.
    My old landing page's content had not been updated. I wrote it before Legendsverse was released, so I updated the page with details I think people will find useful, as well as a few screenshots of the app's UI. It appears to have been successful.

  • You must make it as simple as possible for your clients.
    I didn't want to integrate PayPal before, not only because it's expensive, but also because I don't like how the integration and payouts work. But it's because the creators I admire don't like it. I was attempting to imitate them and had no idea how much money I was leaving on the table, and last week it just clicked. My customers are eBay collectors who are accustomed to paying with PayPal.

I'm still learning a lot, and there are a lot of things I don't understand, but if there's anything you think I can help you with, or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

  1. 1

    Awesome! Really cool idea and I really like the niche topic.

    How did you become so good in the SEO ranking? Do you think it is because there is not too much competition or any other good tip you have? :)

    Congrats!

    1. 1

      There are a few sites that already do this. And I think they've been there for a couple of years. When I started the site it was a closed app, if you wanted to see a figure of wave of figures you needed to be a member, so there was 0 SEO there.

      When I realized that, I added a completely open /checklist endpoint with a lot of meta tags (title, description, keywords), all related to the given figure/wave. I'm not a SEO expert, I don't event know anything about SEO beyond using meta tags.

      Also Legendsverse was added to the r/MarvelLegends sub links. So I think a lot of people click it and navigate in the checklist site. I guess that since there are more than a thousand of pages on the site that could help SEO (+1000 figures, +80 waves)? Honestly, I'm not sure.

      Another thing I've tried is to encourage members to share links of their collections, but there aren't a lot of people doing that.

  2. 1

    Hey Alejandro, this is cool 😎. I had no idea something like this would even exist let alone succeed. Great work! 👍
    I imagine this would work well for a whole range of things that people like to collect. Do you know if this type of site is common for other types of collectables?

    My only suggestion would be to check out https://marketingexamples.com/ for some inspiration about ways to improve your landing page conversion rate. Not suggesting there is anything wrong with your page as it is, just that marketingexamples is an awesome and helpful resource.

    1. 1

      Hey Shaunau, a lot of collectors has asked to do similar sites for Star Wars figures, Transformers figures, GI Joe figures, but since I don't collect them I'm not interested. There are already other ones about ML, Star Wars figures and funkos.

      Thanks a lot, will take a look at marketingexamples!

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