Please help me give back to other founders by reviewing my home page
I need your help please. Design has never been my strength (hacking code: yes, UI: not so much), so I would absolutely love some feedback on my site.
After 25 years as a startup founder, I'm giving back to other founders with a free platform that I truly hope can make the whole founder/investor dating game less like pulling teeth, less time & energy zapping and much more friendly and ultimately more successful.
Everybody I talk to loves the concept and I have 100 startups already onboarded. However, I currently see from Google Analytics that conversion from home page to founder-signup page and then to actually signup is not as high as I want.
Please provide some feedback on my home page at https://www.venture.cards.
All thoughts very very welcome 😊
Hi Steve.
You already probably know that you don't need feedback from designers, but
rather feedback from Investors & Start-up founders. From designers, you need help to process that feedback =)
I'm your target audience - a start-up founder looking for potential investment opportunities. From my perspective, your landing page is OK but makes a horrible combination with your sign-up form.
LP delivers on the HALF its main purpose: I understood which problem you are solving. Good job with all the copies.
What I missed is the details of the how. How exactly will the platform match me with investors? Will they have to search for me? Will I have to do it? Is there some algorithm that will suggest us to each other? How many people are there on the platform? Are there investors targeting my particular niche? Am I a good fit?
Those more or less are the questions I would want to see answered. Also maybe to see the screenshots of the platform to get a feel of how it works. I clicked on the register button to quickly check it out, but when I saw the form with 10+ fields I simply closed it. It's not worth it spending time without knowing what for am I filling it in.
Would be interesting to hear investors' perspectives as well.
Good luck!
Hi @sergeyk, thank you, this is very valuable feedback 😊
Please refresh the LP as I've now made the links within the blurb to the further details pages more prominant. I guess you missed them before, and I agree they are important
Oh, I've also made some "WhatsApp me" buttons on the further-info pages. I am happy for people to reach out and chat if they have questions.
I appreciate that a form of 20 questions seems big. So I've now played around with the signup page and added wording which I hope makes it clear that the form and overall process is really quick. Frankly, compared to the current pulling teeth of founder/investor dating, this will be the fastest and easiest way you have of getting seen by investors 😊I have been a founder for 25 years and so know the pains only too well!
And the 4 minutes signup is true - Google Analytics shows the 100 founders already signed up spent an average of 3 mins 48 secs signing up.
Before Christmas I had an alternative signup version, with a simple form of just name & email. But a very small number then went to the dashboard to add the rest. So I truly believe putting these 20 questions upfront is the right way. I will keep monitoring it though and always welcome thoughts on this. Onboarding is tough and there isn't really an easy answer.
FYI, the leadgen and signup process for investors is very different. They can see the info on the site but it leads to a discovery Zoom call with me. And most investor leadgen is done directly by me reaching out to them and inviting them to a call. This process is working very well. They are the ones paying so I guess it is more of a hand-holding model.
Again, thanks for your help and any further thoughts on my tweaks.
Designer here.
There's a lot going on here Steven.
With the risk of giving tough love I will recommend redesigning it completely.
You can use a template from any popular landing building tools, even free ones and it will be miles better as it will help you hierarchy and content exposure guidance. Split the content more.
My favorite are: Typedream, Carrd and Webflow
Hi, I appreciate your time, but I probably need a bit more. because it is already on Carrd, and I did use one of their templates 😊
Hi Steve,
I think the issue is that you have too many buttons/CTA on home page. I don't know what to click to signup. You should divide the page into different looking sections for both the startups and investors. Also "Tell My Startup Story + Get Followed By Investors" shouldn't be a button - I'd rather make this as a typical link.
Speaking about the sign up form - I'll also divide it into sections. It is simply too long to read, and may be overwhelming.
If you have any traffic on the webpage try installing Hotjar or Smartlook and see what happens when user is on your page. I think that could help.
Hey @TomekWe, thank you, this is great stuff!!
I've added Hotjar and look forward to playing with this and seeing what it tells me
I've been pretty bold and tweaked the home page 😊
I've added a line on the signup page saying how on average it takes less than 4 mins to signup (according to google analytics). Other than this, I appreciate what you said, but these 20 questions truly are quick ones and are the minimum needed to setup your venture card and start getting seen by investors. I believe to split this process up would actually add more time and complications. Honestly, after these 4 mins, there is nothing else needed. I want this platform to make life easier, so not really sure how I could divide it into sections in a way that would be less overwhelming?
Now the page is ten times better :) Keep improving with information from Hotjar.
About the form. Start with only one question - user email. And then redirect to the questionarre. Even if they decide not to fill up the whole form you still got the email! So you can contact directly, ask some questions through email, and - the most important - ask what went wrong that they skipped the process...
😊 thank you, that means a lot. Please quickly refresh again now if you have a moment as I made a few changes to the front page in the last few minutes - possibly since you looked. But yeah, it's soooo much better. Super excited that I asked today and got your help - it gave me the spur to tweak it.
regarding the form, your way is how I originally had it, and if I am honest, very few people went on to fill in the rest of the form after signup. The effort in chasing them wasn't worth it. But it is a process I will definitely keep monitoring closely and the Hotjar recommendation will help towards this!!
Yes it is getting better :) Hopefully you will be able to share some results after upgrade!
will do!
You an also roast my product :) https://www.indiehackers.com/post/cluee-app-looking-for-feedback-from-all-the-freelancers-e1b90a1be9
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Hi Simon. As you can see above I’ve really enjoyed and appreciated feedback from others and made some positive changes based on their thoughts. I even then went and provided feedback on their site too.
But by leading with “I run a creative branding agency*”, you’ve lost me. Your opinion isn’t one I can trust because you simply feel like you are chasing business.
I fully accept my design isn’t right yet. But just looking at the site you recommended (the colours offended me) proves that design and style is subjective and we all have opinions. I can point to a lot of very successful businesses who have disgusting websites 😊
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If you had missed out the opening line about running a design agency I would have had a completely different response.
And telling me to hire a designer or agency was patronising and pointless that, combined with line 1, added to my feeling that this was a sales pitch.
I do not doubt you meant well, but we all need to think carefully about how our messages come across. I definitely don’t get it right either!
I wish you well too.