Roast my API's landing page

The landing page looks great but I have no clue what your API actually is or does. I run a website that links out to streaming services, so I think I might be in your target market since you mention a Netflix API... but you provide no details other than very simple examples.

Feedback only about landing page UI.

• It looks beautiful.

• Dropdowns broken in Firefox Browser
• Animated slideshow(which is showing code) is too fast, not readable.

Agree with some of the sentiment above. Whilst the product sounds cool, I'm still not exactly sure what it does or how I'd use it.

Let me just look and comprehend the curl request, please.

It's the first thing which catches my focus, my best guess for what you have to offer, but you do not even give me the time to get past that point :(

Other than that; looks good!

Hi @tjcx! Even though you asked for a roast, I'll start with a compliment: your landing page is visually pleasing. It's simple, straight to the point, and has no fluff. I easily scrolled down, knowing where my eyes should go next, which is a problem with overly busy looking pages.

Now for the roast🔥 🍗:

Qualitative feedback

I have no idea what your product does. I'm a developer, so I seem to be your audience, but the first thing I saw when I landed on your site was:

Gangway (header)
An API for (nothing)

Your "typing" animation shouldn't start with 5 seconds of nothing showing - this may have been because it was my first page load... but that's the typical scenario for potential customers on a landing page. I was sitting there waiting for something to be typed... if you believe in the "5 seconds landing page test", then you absolutely failed it. 🔥

Second, your headline text "An API for Netflix/Kindle/OpenTable" is way too generic. I have no idea what I can do with those APIs... and if I was supposed to be able to tell from the CURL code samples on the right, they're moving way too fast for me to grep them. Then, your tagline "Simple, intuitive APIs for all the services your customers use." doesn't mean anything to me either. OK, but I assume those services already have an API? What is your product offering? Is it a simpler API? An API that exposes hidden functionality of those services? So far, I haven't been convinced of using your product, mostly because you haven't told me anything useful about it. 😒🔥

Your first feature is "Get started quickly". That's good... but I still don't know what your product is or what benefit my business would have by using it. Also, the explainer text

Gangway handles complex user authentication flows for you

made me pause and think: "...user authentication flows? Where did that come from? I thought we were talking about an API?"

Don't stress about security

I'm not stressed about security, because so far I don't know what the product does... should I be worried about security? I don't know 🤷🏾‍♂️🔥

Join the beta

If somehow I was convinced by the rest of the page to join... how do I do it? It took me a good 30 seconds of scrolling up and down, looking for how to join, only realize that where the rest of the page's "feature rows" had a static image, you put an actual form. So basically you're hiding the main CTA (and the point of your whole page) and making me waste my time looking for it. 🤦🏾‍♂️🔥

Overall, I think you need to do a better job making clear and then selling your value proposition. Does your product reduce errors, improve my onboarding flow, or enable me to do something that I previously thought was impossible or too difficult? Most importantly, you should either directly or indirectly answer: Does this save the customer money or make the customer money?

Quantitative feedback

According to my site, LandLifter.com (which uses Google's Lighthouse tool), your landing page is doing pretty well. For each category, your page was ranked out of 100:

Performance: 77
Accessibility: 79
Best Practices: 100
SEO: 80

The biggest issue for SEO purposes is that you're completely missing a meta description.

Let me know if you're interested in becoming a beta tester for my site, which is 100% free while in beta.

---
Sorry for the harsh tone, but you asked for a roast! 😂

• It does not seem like your page is full-width on a 4k monitor, it only stretches about 2/3s.

• Do you only integrate with those three API's?

The page looks great!

There's a small bug in firefox though. where the "menu" for the example terminal is squashed. It looks fine in chrome.

It's a single API that lets you connect with multiple services. So your value prop for developers is that they don't have to look into the documentation of different apps. I hope my understanding is correct. But your landing page has a number of flaws and here are my suggestions.

1. From the intro, it looks like you integrate with just Netflix, Kindly & Open Table. Do you just connect with 3 services at the moment or do you have more? Be clear about it. In the beta signup form at the bottom, you have listed a number of services in a dropdown. Instead, you can showcase the logos of all the services that your API connects with, right beneath the intro. Put a coming soon badge if they are work in progress.

2. Overall the page does not have enough information about the problem you are solving. Explain the problem, then talk about your solution and the value your target audience gets from using your API. The problem makes the solution attractive. Some of the values are "Save Time", "Don't have to worry about the constant changes to API's", "Simplicity". Its unlikely a developer would use the API of Netflix and Open Table in the same app. So they may not see immediate value in your solution unless you explain how adopting your API can help them in the long run. You know your product better. So put more thought into this.

3. I initially thought your signup form at the bottom was a screenshot. It just went with the same flow as the content blocks prior to it. You have to disrupt the flow to capture attention. Center the whole thing CTA, probably have a colored background and increase the font size of "Join the Beta".

4. Break barriers, even though you are just in beta. I wouldn't use it in production unless I can trust your service. Why should I trust your solution, my app will break if you decide to shut down. A bit about yourself and your credentials can help allay fears. An FAQ section would help as well. You may not have any reviews at the moment, just be inventive and use whatever you can to build trust.

5. Aesthetically you can do better. Visual hierarchy can be improved. For example, the button is too small, whereas its font is bold. You can increase the font size of titles and their spacing from the paragraph. In mobile, there is just too much space between the intro text and the rotating images.

Good Luck.

Visually, it's a great landing page! I'm a developer but I've never had to use netflix/kindle api, so I'm not familiar with the pain there. I left your page a bit confused as to why I wouldn't just go use those apis, but it seems like I'm not your target market.