Love reading stories like this about what it's like in the early days of a new business. Those early decisions about what to do when you're struggling to get traction are so critical, but no one talks about them. Thanks for writing this.
Agreed, and I think those fall flat because they are trying to hide the fact that they're automated. There's nothing wrong with automation—just don't try to lie about it! Personally, I favor direct conversations over automated research. Even at smaller scale, it's just way more useful.
Like many here building our own businesses, I had to learn the hard way how to do customer research—on my own. I wrote this as a short summary of what I've learned. Thanks for submitting it!
Thanks! The chrome extension will let you create new "mods" for specific pages. When making a mod, it listens for any edits you make: CSS, HTML, text, etc. When you publish, it takes before & after screenshots and puts everything on a page you can share with other people.
I love that you are proving to others that it's possible to build a great business and still be healthy and happy. So often the message from startups is to sacrifice everything—even health and family.
I'm excited to see your business grow using this model, and hopefully others follow your example.
From my perspective, this article is not suggesting people try to be someone else.
It reminds me of the popular book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking"
In that book, the author suggest that introverts fake extroversion in short bursts.
As an introvert myself, this is something I've done for a decade. It's tiring but pays off. Sometimes we introverts miss out on great opportunities because we don't stretch our comfort zone.
I think this article is good advice on small ways for introverts to put themselves out there and "fake extroversion".
Love that this gem does things the right way, like including background jobs. As a Rails newbie trying to build billing, all the code/tutorials/gems I could find weren't nearly this high quality or robust.
Resonates so much. So, so many people never launch because of that fear. Good advice to reduce all the pressure on the single launch event. You can launch as many times as you want.
Heh, good point. Fixed. The explanation is obviously intended for non-technical folks, so the distinction is probably lost there, but I do want to be correct.
Thanks for this—very insightful. I do include copywriting. For the case study, Justin already had copy that was in great shape. Other clients might not, so I'll provide writing from scratch in those cases.
As for the conversion rates, totally agree that the metric I shared is somewhat vague. Every project has different goals, and sometimes even a fraction of a percent is a major win, such as with major display advertisers.
Also, your point about showing the increase in conversions for my projects is way more powerful. Unfortunately, since this is brand new, I don't have better data to share. Hope to have some soon.
Design for Hackers by David Kadavy is also well written. He explores the more traditional way to learn design, with the history of fonts, color theory, etc.
A different approach might be reading about creativity. My friend Paul Jarvis has some great books about creativity, especially his new one, The Good Creative, if you’re looking to get inspired:
Great place for topic-specific books. Some of these are more advanced and intended for designers. I'd suggest these for after you read up on the basics.
My book focuses on design fundamentals instead of advanced theory. It's intended as a starting point for things you can do right now. Actionable, focused on building skill instead of knowledge.
I think a lot of cultures (including much of startup culture) place too much emphasis on ideas. So many creative ideas really are stupid ideas.
However, that doesn't mean creativity should be criticized--it just means we need to teach people to do more than have ideas. Creativity comes into play when problem solving, and determining whether ideas are worthwhile, too.
Knowing the value of an idea is difficult until we see it in hindsight, already fulfilled. I think that pretending to know the value of a creative idea when it's merely an idea is presumptuous.
The article describes how the reception of creativity is all about risk--that we don't know its value immediately. I think this is a more logical way of looking at it.