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Beta platform moved over to the main domain

Since launching the Frontend Mentor platform in April, it's been kept at the beta subdomain to keep traffic steady while it was in its infancy.

On the main domain was the site that I launched last October, which was using a Wordpress API and had no sign-ups possible on the site. That site was there to do the job of validating the idea that people would want to practice building to a design.

Combined with a Slack community and themed channels it was also a great tool to start talking with early users and seeing what they needed.

As the platform became less buggy, I put a banner at the top of the main site notifying people of the platform at the beta subdomain. This helped funnel a steady stream of new users to the platform.

Finally, after building some new features, like automated code reporting, I knew the Beta platform was ready to go onto the main domain.

When the switch was made, there were 1,850 registered users on the platform. Over 3 days since the switch, there have been over 250 new sign-ups.

This means the user base has grown nearly 15% in just over 3 days!.

Taking this more measured approach has felt like a nice way to roll out the platform. In my opinion, there's no point going for growth if your underlying offering is sub-par or buggy.

There are a few more changes I would like to make to the platform before taking it out of Beta status and starting to promote it. But moving it over to the main domain is a huge milestone that I've been looking forward to for a long time!

  1. 1

    Saw your interview on No CS Degree. This is such a cool idea...you’ve got a really nice site. Well done!

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