We Built a Sticky Bar That Tells Jokes — and Somehow, It Works.

Hey Indie Hackers 👋
Just wanted to share a fun side project we launched recently, it’s called Jokr.bar, and yes, it literally tells jokes when people try to leave your website.

😅 The Idea Hit Me After a Comedy Talk

A few months ago, I attended the TNW conference in Amsterdam. One talk stuck with me — it was about the “Rule of 3” in comedy. The speaker explained how humor builds rhythm: setup, setup, twist. The punchline surprises you, and that surprise earns your attention.

That got me thinking:
We spend so much money and effort getting traffic to our sites…
But when people try to leave, most tools just scream “WAIT!” with a discount popup.
It feels desperate — and it rarely works.

So I wondered, what if we just made them laugh instead?

🎭 From Joke to Jokr.bar

That was the seed. From there, we built Jokr.bar — a tiny tool that shows a sticky bar with a well-timed joke when a visitor shows exit intent. Instead of begging them to stay, we give them a reason to smile. That moment of surprise is often enough to win 3–5 extra seconds, which is everything in web attention spans.

It started as a side experiment… and then it took off.

🚀 Real Results So Far

We launched on Product Hunt, and to our surprise:

• 🥉 3rd Product of the Day

• 🥈 2nd Product of the Week in Marketing

• 💬 Over 60 users in the first few days

And the best part? It actually works.

On our own websites (like Adsby), session duration after Jokr.bar triggers jumped to 1m 20s (Extra).
Think about that — someone was ready to leave, saw a joke, and stayed over a minute longer.
In a world where every second counts, that’s massive.

😄 Why Humor Works

• 90% of people remember brands that made them laugh

• 72% prefer brands with a sense of humor

• Humor disarms people. It’s human. And it makes you likable in a moment when they were about to walk away.

In short: humor sells. And humor makes people stay.

Thanks & What’s Next

We built this in 8 days to see if humor could make digital experiences more human — and it’s been amazing to see the early response.

We’ll keep shipping new features, funnier jokes, and smarter targeting.
And if you want to try it out — there’s a freemium plan, no credit card needed:
👉 Jokr.bar

💬 A Question for You

Here’s where I’d love your input:

What would you say to a visitor who’s about to leave your site without doing anything?
Funny, serious, sarcastic — drop your best “last line” in the comments. We might even add it to the next version of Jokr.bar (with credit, of course).

Thanks for reading, and shoutout to the Indie Hackers community — so much of the motivation to actually ship this came from this space.

Stay funny, stay scrappy,