Seeking feedback for Indie Lessons: My new directory
Indie Lessons V1: Bootstrapper Directory
In 2021, I created a directory that curated the journeys of over 100 Indie Hackers. I went through every article, newsletter, social media posts and forum posts to show how different people built their businesses and brands.
The content I curated was awesome. But the website flopped.
I still have some of articles up on a previous domain.
Some people enjoyed the listings themselves, but they didn't know what to do with it. It was information overwhelm.
I created 25 Indie Makers To Watch in 2022 as my final attempt at generating interest for the site. It gained some traction, but showed that not enough people were interested in what I'm creating. I shelved that version.
Enter: Indie Lessons V2
I've decided to pivot and create a directory that focuses on the strategies that lead to peoples success.
I’ve spent the past 10 days going through old database entries to create specific case studies. I have about 85, but they are spread across a lot of categories. I’ve also been creating the basic pages I know I’ll need.
The problem? I’m so overwhelmed that I don’t know if what I’m creating is actually useful. I’d love feedback on what type of content to share and the best way to share it.
What content am I sharing?
I'm organizing the Indie Lessons directory into three parts.
Strategies
One trend I noticed was that people were asking for information about specific types of strategies. They would want to experiment with AppSumo launches, but wouldn’t now where to start. Or they were interested in Twitter Ads.
I used a WordPress them called Toolset that has allowed me to turn the site into a directory. It means I can add a strategy as a specific post, and the listing will be added to multiple sections of the site.
Currently most of the strategies are organized into:
- marketing
- Pricing
- Making money
These sections are then broken up into the specific strategies I’ve researched.
The section that has the most entries is the Product Hunt one. I'd previously launched a directory telling the journeys of different product hunt launches. This had moderate traction, and got 100 newsletter signups in about 2 weeks. I didn't do anything with it - but I have over 200 case studies. This shows the potential of what I’m trying to do.
People
This section is going to be a searchable directory of Indie Hackers. The idea is that I was different search options to help find the indie hackers, and products, that are most relevant to you.
Currently, you can filter people according to:
- Gender
- Their Niche
- What they are creating
This section is very much still being developed. I need to add a lot more people. The filters are also a bit wonky, as I’m figuring out the backend.
You’ll be able to click a link with each person that takes you to a similar page to what I had with the previous directory. Only this time, the information is more relevant.
You can see an example with Marie Ng. The page is basic, but lists the products and strategies she has been using.
Products
This part of the directory allows you to research products by type. So you can see examples of NFT, SaaS, directories, etc.
I’ve only got a couple of these sections done.
Eventually, you’ll be able to click on a link to learn more about the product. The listing will focus on the various strategies used to market that product.
Look at the entry for Llama Life. It shares marketing strategies, build in public techniques and product hunt launches.
Check out the products section
What type of feedback do I want?
I’m still in the midst of creating. Both my head, and the website, are a mess. Friends encouraged me to seek feedback anyway 🙂
I’m interested in feedback on the main homepage.
Do you like how the information is structured? Is it too messy?
Are the categories too niche - or too comprehensive? I wasn’t sure if AppSumo and billboards needed their own page, but I thought that would be more helpful. That then made me wonder if I should create more pages for different types of advertising instead of lumping them all together.
I’d love feedback on the product pages
I don’t like the way the Llama Life page looks. Should I have all the information on one page? Or, should I be encouraging people to click links so they can read each individual case study.
I also want to include more information about how the product was curated and the sales stats. I can’t figure out how to share that on the page. Do I list it before, or after, the strategy section?
Thank you
I’m very appreciative of any help. Even if you can’t help, I’m always after new case studies to include.
This is really great in-depth research. In what ways have you tried to validate what users need?
I spend a lot of time in the Indie Hacker community on Twitter and see what type of case studies people are looking for. I later tweeted them the links to the relevant pages.
This worked well with my page on side project marketing. It was featured in a newsletter and linked to in a recommended resource page.
A lot of it is based on my gut, though. Or on trends I see when going through lots of case studies.
That's awesome, Jade!!
Hi Jade,
'Hope you're having a good week.
Firstly, great work with the curation! You have some great content, we just need to structure and design it properly to make the kind of impact you expect.
Here are a few suggestions you can review at your convenience and incorporate if it makes sense.
For the home page, I'm not sure just the links will evoke interest. You might need to add a bit more context. Perhaps a revolving featured story section to provide some info on what to expect from the site.
For People, use a timeline to break down the series of events. See here for a visual example -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hAzeytpuXeRdleJ36M5pJpt8EPaOGOjN/view?usp=sharing. This way, a reader can quickly scroll down the page and get a great gist of the journey that the person went through.
Summarize all the main stats (e.g. costs, time-frames, milestones, etc.) in a dashboard. See here for a visual example -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hFGObEfCchjrqDszPUYgnv9st-bl1990/view?usp=sharing. There's also a dashboard on one of the links you posted on the site -> https://www.project.co/appsumo-experience/.
You might want to come up with a standard template for the home page and each of the sections. It might make sense to wireframe this first and then build out progressively as you're able.
I'll post more suggestions as I find them.
All the best :)
EDIT: I'm also curious to know how you plan to monetize this?
Thank you very much. I especially appreciate the visual examples.
Is there another word of visual examples? I try using different keywords to look up different ways to display information, but the results don't really help.
Templates
I agree with this. It is what I had been working to create. I've realized that I was trying to have the data automatically come from different sections of the directory, which didn't make for a great reader experience.
I'm brain storming more user friendly templates. I'll also look at ways of summarizing the main stats. I freelance for a business that has done this at They Got Acquired. I'll do some plotting behind the scenes to make it more useful.
I had thought about using timelines. Will do some googling to find ways to incorporate these.
Finally, I know the homepage sucks. It annoys me to look at it. I didn't know the terms to look up to find different way to share the links. I've looked into some Genesis block templates/sections that may work in the short term until I can figure things out better.
Re: monetizing.
The plan was:
Thank you again. I definitely have a lot to google :)
Hi Jade,
I really hope I didn't add to what already looks like a large pile of work?! Rome wasn't built in a day, so I trust you will pace yourself until it's just perfect.
Templates can sometimes take a while to complete [since it's both style and substance you need to work on], so don't feel the need to rush.
Regarding monetization, there might be some opportunity to build a course for startups from learnings sourced from the journeys you've curated, but that's probably down the road after you get the site up to your spec.
Cheers.
Thank you for curating this information!
Maybe you could add information like Twitter handle, website, etc. to the people?
To your questions:
Do you like how the information is structured? Is it too messy?
Are the categories too niche - or too comprehensive? [...]"
I would add tags to the individual pieces of content and not spend too much valuable time with the navigation. This way you can always change this in the future with little effort or even A/B-test it.
Most of the content will probably be discovered by deep links anyway (from Google search or shared on social media).
I don’t like the way the Llama Life page looks. Should I have all the information on one page? [...]"
I think it's fine to keep all the information on a single page, but I would love to see a table of contents with links to the individual sections right at the top. This way the user can quickly jump to the information most interesting.
Great work, Jade!
Thank you a lot for your feedback. It is very much appreciated.
I agree with the statement that most of the information would be found via deep links. The front page still looked yuck and not useful. I have found ways to improve the visual design so will be implementing those shortly.
Regarding the people profiles:
I actually do have the website and Twitter information included with the profiles. I just didn't have it showing on the main page. Fortunately it is an easy fix.
Will also look at ways to add table to contents. I'll have to brainstorm ways to organize the information though so that it has a coherent structure.
Thank you for responding. It is really helpful :)
Hey Jade - great to see you're getting feedback before moving forward.
You have a TON of good content/resources here. At first glance, it reminds me of things like Trends.vc. You're educating people about trends and techniques and giving them a ton of examples to follow.
One thing you can think about is the delivery of information. A website alone is overwhelming. People need to dig through to find what they want (most people bounce after 1 or 2 clicks).
So the key is: how do you give the right information to the right people searching the right thing?
If you can hit on the right keywords and gain organic traffic via SEO, this site can grow.
If you can start a mini newsletter and gradually share snippets of content so it is easier to inspire and educate people, it is good for them.
So I think there's a lot you can play with here! Your biz model:
Hope this helps!!!
Thank you so, so much for your feedback :)
One of the key parts of this site was going to be a newsletter. People would get a list of 5-10 interesting case studies each fortnight. I was going to set it up last night, but MailChimp requires me to use my physical address in each email. I've been looking into ways to get around that.
Digesting the information is one of the main problems, and has been something I've been looking into. I think the pages alone have a lot of viral potential after they have been discovered. For instance, the side project marketing page was featured in a newsletter and on your website.
I am looking into ways to make discovery easier, but am struggling with ways to visually present it. I'll keep the page like this in the short term until I can figure it out.
I do have plans for monetization down the track. It will be a mixture of affiliate marketing and products based on the information I have curated. I figured that even if this flops, the research alone will be enough for me to write guides.
Again, thank you for your response. It is very helpful. It has been a busy week of family birthdays (3 in 8 days), so haven't been able to have a good strategy sessions.
This is the most in-depth resource i've seen on the topic. So helpful. Instant bookmark.
Thank you for your support as always, Dago. :)