Stuck for ideas? Check out legit businesses with terrible usability

Some businesses that have been moderately successful have terrible usability. This means that their products or services are difficult to use, which can lead to a lot of customer support requests, poor customer retention rates, and negative reviews.

An example of such a business is Sign Up Genius, which provides free online signups for non-profits, schools, churches, and potlucks. Although the site is popular due to its free option, a large percentage of its negative reviews are due to usability issues.

Here are some of the issues that users have faced with Sign Up Genius:

1. The site is cluttered with too many ads, which can lead to confusion and unwanted signups and charges. Some of these ads are also not appropriate for the site's user base, which includes schools.
2. The default notification settings can be spammy and lead to too many reminders and extra emails.
3. The invitations created using the site templates look less professional due to the design being amateurish.

In addition to these issues, Sign Up Genius also has problems with usability, such as:

1. The signup user flow is clunky and difficult to navigate, which is surprising given the site's name.
2. The site struggles with usability for scheduling more complex tasks.
3. It's difficult to gather the emails of people signing up, and the calendar integration is not intuitive.
4. The site is not mobile-friendly, and the background color and text sizes can make it challenging to read. Additionally, it's not easy to get in touch with customer support.

To put it simply, Sign Up Genius is like your great-grand-aunt's homemade cake at an office party – well-meaning, but not quite hitting the mark.

Here are some recommendations to improve the site's usability:

1. Simplify the user flow to make it easier for users to do basic tasks like setting up signups and scheduling time.
2. Use standard UI components and follow accessibility standards to improve readability and user experience.
3. Remove the ads and think of another strategy to monetize the site.
4. Make it easy to get in touch with customer support, and collect emails for users who are signing up.
5. Allow for easy integrations with calendars and other tools.
6. Use minimal default notification settings to avoid overwhelming users.
7. Start with no templates and move on to simple templates based on user feedback.

If these recommendations are implemented into a new business, this Signup Genius disruptor could become a business that's similar to what Paperless Post was to Evite, or what Typeform is to numerous form-building software out there.

Sign Up Genius currently has revenue between $5M to $6M and gets 4.5M in organic traffic every month. A competitive product with better usability design could take away some of that market share and audience. Better usability means less customer support, more retention, positive reviews, and as a result higher growth rates.

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I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.