Roast my landing page — booking tool for day-rate freelancers
I'm a freelancer. I built Hardbook because I kept losing jobs in the gap between "sounds good, let's do it" and an actual signed contract. Client agrees on dates, drags on the paperwork, books someone else in the meantime.
I redesigned the landing page last week and I've looked at it too long to see it anymore.
Two things I can't judge for myself:
First screen: is it obvious what this does and who it's for within a few seconds? (I'm aiming at motion / video / photo freelancers who charge a day rate.)
Trust: is there a line that makes you trust it less? I'd rather hear that than a compliment.
If you bounced in three seconds, tell me where. That's the useful part.
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First screen was clear to me. The problem is specific, and the subhead made the mechanism easy to understand.
The section explaining the difference between pencilled and hard booked does a lot of work. That felt like the core idea behind the product, and it was easy to follow.
The one thing I wondered about was trust around the contract side. I found the answer later on the page, but it was still an open question in my mind when I reached the first CTA.
Nothing jumped out as a bounce trigger. The page knows what it's trying to say.
Thanks — this is the useful kind.
The contract-timing thing is the one I'm acting on. You're right that the answer sits below where the decision actually happens.
One question so I fix it right: when you say trust around the contract side, what was the actual open question in your head? Was it —
"is this a real / binding contract,"
"will my client find this annoying to deal with," or
"what happens if they agree but never sign"?
I want to pull the right reassurance up to the CTA, not just any reassurance.
For me it was the first one: is this a real, binding contract or more of an acknowledgment?
That's the question I had before I found the explanation further down the page.
The other two didn't really come up for me as a visitor. I was mostly trying to understand what role the contract was playing in the booking process. Once that became clear, the hesitation went away.
Appreciated. Good info
The value prop is immediately clear - nice work. The day-rate booking angle is fresh and the clean design definitely builds trust. One small thing: I'd add a quick mention of what freelancer types typically use this (video/photo/motion folks) in the hero or CTA. Right now you're targeting a niche but not explicitly stating it upfront, which might hurt conversion if someone bounces too fast. Consider something like "Booking tool for motion & video freelancers" right in the headline?
Appreciate it. Quick one: did you notice the scrolling row of crafts right under the hero — Motion designers, Video editors, Photographers…? That section is meant to answer exactly the "who's it for" question.
If you saw it and still wanted the niche higher up, that tells me it needs to be in the headline itself. If you didn't clock it at all, that tells me the row isn't reading as a statement — which is more useful to know. Either answer helps.
I'm not an expert, but I'll just leave you my first impression for what it's worth :)
I like the clean black and white style, the design feels original and professional.
Overall though I feel there is too much going on, too many fonts, animations, the demo hovering up and down... For me it detracted from the product.
The hero demo didn't function correctly (couldn't click on dates properly) and it seemed to update on its own? Also the submit button is fighting with your CTA, same styling.
Hope it's not too harsh, that's the type of feedback I would always want ;)
[Tested in Chrome 149.0.7827.115]
Not harsh at all — this is exactly the kind I want, and the browser version helps.
You found a real one: that hero demo is a looping illustration, not a live picker. It looks clickable and it advances on its own, so of course it reads as broken. That's on me, not your browser.
One thing back: when you say too many fonts — was it actually different typefaces, or the headline words that shift weight as they animate? Trying to work out whether to cut a font or kill an effect.
What got me on the demo was that the bottom buttons are clickable, which made me think the whole thing should just work.
It feels like different typefaces (might just be weights) and mixing serif and sans-serif together with many different colors (grays, accent). All together was a bit much, but could be just my taste.
GL
mmm... interesting— the working bottom buttons promise a live UI the date grid doesn't deliver. I'll make the demo read as one thing, not half-interactive. Appreciate you coming back on it, and the font note too — serif/sans plus the weight animation stacking up is fair. GL back.
This is one of the sharper landing pages I've seen on IH. Answering your two questions directly:
First screen clarity: yes, it's obvious. "The gap between agreed dates and a signed contract is where freelance jobs die" names the exact pain in one line. The interactive demo below it proves the flow faster than copy would. You pass the five-second test.
Trust: nothing made me trust it less. "Built by a freelancer" in the footer, real-feeling demo, no inflated social proof, no "10,000 users" claim you can't back up. The skeptic FAQ section is strong. If anything, the trust is higher than expected for an early product because you didn't oversell.
What I'd actually push on is different from what you asked:
The page is excellent for someone who already knows they have this problem. It's weak for the freelancer who loses jobs this way and doesn't realize the gap between "sounds good" and signed contract is the reason. Most of your ICP is in that second bucket. They blame the client ("they ghosted") not the process ("I had no mechanism to lock it"). Your hero names the pain for people who've already diagnosed it. Worth testing a version that names the symptom instead: "Clients say yes, then book someone else. Here's why."
The 27 creative roles carousel is showing breadth when you should be showing depth. "Motion designers, video editors, colorists" listed side by side says "for everyone in production." Picking one and showing their exact day looks more like "built for me" to that person. Breadth reassures you, depth converts them.
The CTA "try it on a real client" is genuinely good. Low-commitment but high-signal. Keep that.
If you want a deeper positioning pressure-test on the hero framing, that's what we built HiveMind for: https://hivemind.myosin.xyz
This is the sharpest note I've gotten — thank you.
The awareness-level point lands. You're right the hero rewards someone who's already named their problem, and a lot of the people I'm after just think "the client flaked." The tension I'd want to test: the current line converts partly because it's the diagnosis — "clients say yes then book someone else" is truer to how they'd actually describe it, but it's also a line a dozen tools could run. Might be symptom in the H1, diagnosis in the subhead — say the symptom, then name the gap as the reason.
And the depth-over-breadth call is the second time that section's come up today from a different angle, so I'm taking it seriously. Appreciate the pointer to HiveMind — I'll look.
The "symptom in H1, diagnosis in subhead" structure is exactly right. Symptom earns the nod ("that happens to me"), diagnosis earns the trust ("they understand why"). Two layers, two jobs. And you're right that the symptom line alone isn't defensible as positioning, but it doesn't need to be. The H1's job is to stop the scroll, not differentiate. The subhead and the demo do the differentiation work.
Worth testing one thing on the depth point: swap the carousel for a single "a day in the life of a motion designer using Hardbook" mini-story. One person, one real scenario, one booking that would have slipped. If that converts better, you have your answer on depth vs breadth, and you can rotate which role gets featured.
Good instinct on all of it. You're further along than most founders at this stage.
What caught my attention wasn't the landing page.
It was the story behind it.
The way you describe it, the lost jobs seem to happen in the gap between agreement and paperwork. That feels plausible.
What I'd be careful about is that the point where a deal falls apart and the reason it falls apart aren't always the same thing.
Those can end up leading to very different products, which is probably the part I'd be most curious about.
This is the most interesting pushback yet, because it's about the premise, not the page.
You're right that where a deal breaks and why it breaks aren't the same. My actual thesis is about the why: when someone says "sounds good," they're warm — but warmth decays, and the only thing that locks it is paperwork, which is slow and feels heavy to send. So the gap isn't just where it dies, it's the cause — friction during the one window the client was ready to commit.
The case you're pointing at — the client was never really committed — is real too. There, a faster contract doesn't save the job. But it still does something: it tells you which yeses were real and stops you holding dates for people who were always going to flake. That's a different product, you're right — less "save the job," more "stop bleeding time on ghosts."
So the honest question is which one dominates. My bet, from my own freelancing, is the first — warm deals lost to friction. I'd genuinely want to know if yours is different.
That's actually the part I'd be hesitant to answer confidently in a thread.
I've got a few thoughts on it, but it's probably more than I'd try to unpack properly here.
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