Can you provide more info? What makes you think it would stay at the top? By default elements scroll with the page.
For sure, but keep in mind that the customers you reach pre-launch are probably people that you you have an existing relationship with or are otherwise more likely to hear you out. Once you launch the product and have "drive by" visitors, I think those are more difficult to convince. They might kid themselves they will just send a regular postcard and you don't get a chance to convince them otherwise because they've already left the site by that point. (These are all assumptions of course, but this is the potential issue I was getting at).
Good point about something being better than nothing at all. That said, I do think it's hard to convince people of that. I imagine many people will feel the same way as I do and don't give the app a chance.
With regards to the real life example, I mean showing actual photos of the printed postcards.
I think some people are much easier to convince than others. Otherwise I wouldn't explain the 30 customers I already got for a product that hasn't been launched yet :)
For sure, but keep in mind that the customers you reach pre-launch are probably people that you you have an existing relationship with or are otherwise more likely to hear you out. Once you launch the product and have "drive by" visitors, I think those are more difficult to convince. They might kid themselves they will just send a regular postcard and you don't get a chance to convince them otherwise because they've already left the site by that point. (These are all assumptions of course, but this is the potential issue I was getting at).
I only have recent experience with Ruby on Rails, so it's impossible to fairly compare them all. That said, I do believe Ruby on Rails is (still) a great way to quickly develop a web-based product. It's not the right tool for every job (e.g. single-page apps and real-time apps), but for a relatively straight forward CRUD app (Creating, Reading, Updating, and Deleting records) it's extremely fast to get something up and running.
Plus, there are a hundreds if not thousands of high-quality Rubygems for common functionality such as authentication, commenting, and most other common site features.
"send it anywhere in the world in 30 seconds"
This makes it sound the postcard is delivered in 30 seconds, suggesting it's digital opposed to analog.
- All the examples are not real-life examples. I'd like to see some photos of the physical postcards. That's your USP (versus e.g. a text message or email), but you aren't showing it.
- The texts in 3 steps in the "How it's done" section are too small.
- Most people won't care about Stripe / don't know it.
- I think the 3 steps could be more visual. Rather than describing it takes 30 seconds and then one week for delivery, etc can you show that visually? Some kind of infographic incorporating all the steps.
- The overall typography feels a bit bland. I'd play more with contrasting sizes
- Being able to open the editor without signup is cool. Perhaps you can bring this editor to the homepage? Removing one click.
- You might want to disallow animated GIFs, or make them static
- I couldn't find a way to go back to the homepage after opening the editor. Even the back-button is disabled.
As for the concept, I think the beauty of postcards (opposed to digital media) is that it was personally written by the sender and traveled from them to the recipient. Having it printed and sent from a warehouse somewhere removes the magic for me personally and adds little value to a digital message.
Hey Marc, thanks for taking the time to write this :)
Couple of questions:
- You say "All the examples are not real-life examples. I'd like to see some photos of the physical postcards. That's your USP (versus e.g. a text message or email), but you aren't showing it." Can you elaborate on this please? The photo in the hero section is real-life as well as the others on the page.
- "Being able to open the editor without signup is cool. Perhaps you can bring this editor to the homepage? Removing one click." You're right. I brought the editor to the home. What do you think?
As for your last point. I totally get it but that's often an excuse for not doing at all.
I can assure you that receiving a postcard with a personal photo (instead of a stock-photo one) is still a magical moment. My granny literally cried the other day. Most people will overlook the fact that it's not hand-written but will look at the fact that you actually took the time to do it
Good point about something being better than nothing at all. That said, I do think it's hard to convince people of that. I imagine many people will feel the same way as I do and don't give the app a chance.
With regards to the real life example, I mean showing actual photos of the printed postcards.
I think some people are much easier to convince than others. Otherwise I wouldn't explain the 30 customers I already got for a product that hasn't been launched yet :)
For sure, but keep in mind that the customers you reach pre-launch are probably people that you you have an existing relationship with or are otherwise more likely to hear you out. Once you launch the product and have "drive by" visitors, I think those are more difficult to convince. They might kid themselves they will just send a regular postcard and you don't get a chance to convince them otherwise because they've already left the site by that point. (These are all assumptions of course, but this is the potential issue I was getting at).
I missed the follow-up question when it was originally asked, but answering for future reference:
You can absolutely buy valuable domains for below $1,800. I've bought domains for hundreds of dollars and sold them for thousands. It comes down to patience, observing trends ( namebio.com is helpful to determine sale prices of different categories of domains), and a bit of luck.
If I had $1,800 to spend on domains I'd focus on .co's as they are still relatively affordable, but also popular with startups. You can also spend some money on backordering domains, but that requires a lot of patience and you wouldn't spend the money until the backorder actually goes through.
Accidental Tech Podcast (aka APT) – A weekly podcast about Apple and tech, by three developers. Besides being interested in the topics they discuss, I enjoy the hosts' personalities. It might take a while to get into because of the in-jokes, but eventually that just makes it all the more fun.
The Art of Product – A weekly catch up call of two experienced developers building their bootstrapped products. It doesn't feel like they are putting on a show, but rather you get to listen in on two people going through the ups and downs of building their companies.
The Catch Up Call – Similar to The Art of Product, this podcast is really just a catch-up call (as the name implies) of of two friends talking about what's going on in their (work) lives. What I like about this particular podcast is the hosts have quite diverse interests and experiences. They have build physical products (e.g. the Peel iPhone case), been in real state, and are always experimenting with new things.
Back to Work – I've always been a fan of Merlin Man's work. I think he has a very healthy perspective on productivity that goes further than some quick tips and hacks. Over the years they started talking more about other stuff that doesn't interest me as much such as comics, Marvel movies so I haven't been listening as consistently as I used to.
Planet Money – Another podcast I don't necessarily listen to all-the-time, but when I have 20-40 minutes to spare (often before I go to sleep) I might listen to this one. They do a great job at unpacking a money-related topic and turning it into a captivating story.
The Random Show – A mostly-video podcast by Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose. They publish it very infrequently, but when they do it's always a lot of fun. They talk about all sorts of crazy things.
I'm subscribed to dozens more I occasionally listen to, but these are the ones I tend to listen to the moment Overcast notifies me of a new episode.
You can now find an official, automatically updated list of our members: twitter.com/wip/lists/makers
It only includes people who have filled out their Twitter username, which at the time of writing is about 150 people.
Try replacing the absolute positioning with fixed positioning: