Happy Dance!  We’re launching Dishcrawl in the next few days and I get to do one of my favorite things~ redesigning our landing page!

Here’s what we currently look like (above the blue line= above the fold):

CURRENT AFFAIR OF THE LANDING PAGE

Pretty simple and boring, eh?

Here are the three landing pages I’m basing the redesign on.  The observations made on these landing pages are my own. 

The first is Performable.  Performable is all about landing pages so you’ve got to think they’ve spent some time on their own.  The second is 37 Signals.  I hear they’ve done a lot of work on optimizing their front page.  The third is Wufoo, another landing page that has been optimized for conversion.  Again, everything above the blue line is considered above the fold on my browser.

Comparing these landing pages side by side is pretty awesome.  You see a lot of similarities.  Here are the few I notice.  Can you find more?

SIMILARITIES IN LANDING PAGE DESIGN

• Value proposition is about a sentence and placed on the top left hand corner.
• All have logo on top left quadrant.
• Top right hand corner explains the product in further detail via screen shot or product breakdown.
• Further information about the product below the fold.  I like that. 
• Big clicky clicky “call to action” buttons

DIFFERENCES IN LANDING PAGE DESIGN

The differences are small, but noted nonetheless.

Performable

• 3 ”click me” links.  One under the value prop on the top left, and another one below the fold that says “get started now”.  Both link to the same page of signup.  The third being the image of a landing page on the top right.  Clicking expands the image to show you how a landing page is edited in Performable.
• Below the fold, Performable uses the space to show the viewer what other exciting reasons there are to use the product.

37 Signals

• 37 Signals has a couple products.  Each product listed on the top right.  Each product links directly to another landing page (shown below), where you can see the same principles of similarity as mentioned above repeated.
• Below the fold, 37 Signals uses the space to establish credibility to their customers.  Kind of a “we are awesome because these people use our product and this is why”.

Below is an example of another 37 Signals landing page for their product, Basecamp.  You can see it has similar qualities to the first three pages we just reviewed.

 Wufoo

• Wufoo has two main calls to action.  The first is the “sign up for free”, and the second is the “tour”. 
• The links below assume that the person on the page is looking for more of a reason to signup.  There are two “why us, see how awesome we are” links, one “gallery” link that gets you started creating right away, and one “sign up and get x free!” link that brings you to pricing and purchase.

The similarities in the differences:  Each company is basing the content on the landing pages on what a person they assume will be viewing the page will want to see. 

• Performable assumes persons looking at this landing page are decision makers with ability to spend budget.  They focus on the primary reasons to use the product as a single user and how it can help benefit their business. 
• 37 Signals’ landing page assumes this is either someone who needs to get buy-in for purchase from an executive, or an executive trying to manage a business.  Therefore the content on the landing page screams “all the big players or interesting folk are using it.” 
• Wufoo has a much more playful appeal.  It wants you to have fun doing something boring- like creating a survey.

THE WILD CARD

I decided to look at a fourth site.  OkCupid!  Totally random.  

OkCupid is interesting.  They want you to sign up and have you get started right away.  Nice how they make the site more personal with a female “welcoming” you into her lair of dating.  As you’ll notice, the left bar is all about signing in and giving you little sound bytes on why OkCupid is the best dating site to use.  I love the headline.  The first thing I saw when I came to this page was the headline, “Join the best dating site on Earth”.  Hells yes I want to be a part of that!

The difference between OkCupid and these other landing pages is the decreased emphasis on “what” the product was.  They assume the viewers are here because they want to be here.  They only want you to get started with that matchmaking!  Nothing else.  Similar concept as the rest of the pages- below the fold: they remind you on the bottom left corner “Join now”.

 HOW CAN WE APPLY THESE DESIGN PRINCIPLES TO OUR LANDING PAGE?

Before and after…

IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR LANDING PAGE

• Followed the model of logo on the top left.  Purely for entertainment purposes
• Added a strong value proposition on the top left quadrant of the page
• Maximized the space below the fold by adding reasons people should use the site
• A below the fold clicky clicky to get people into the site
• Added a big call to action button
• The dark brown color in the middle of the page should flow all the way down rather than being a box… makes the site seem like flowing chocolate
• I divided the page into four quadrants- they are so prominent on Performable, 37 Signals, and Wufoo
• Defined dishcrawl
• Added more images and depth to the previously flat page
• Added the “sign in” or “get started” links on the top right

I’m happy with the results.  By looking at the different landing pages, the improved one definitely seems more lively and full of energy.  Hopefully this will increase the clarity of the product to viewers as well as increase our conversion rates on the site.

*****UPDATE 6.25.10******

So here is the landing page we actually rolled out… you’ll see I didn’t use the bevel on the pictures, and we changed the buttons not to look so horrible, changed the logo to to have less shadow, and changed the color of the background to be a little deeper brown.  After looking at our front page on different screens, I realize that my laptop screen is teensy!   On many larger screens, the view below is the view you see.  That kind of messes with designing with creating content “above the fold”, and is something to take into consideration, however this page, whether displayed in full or not, still looks awesome and gets the point across in a simple fashion.

  compared to

Voila!  Hope my experience helps yours.

~LadyLeet

The purpose of this blog was to share a greater wealth of knowledge to people, particularly in the startup community.  I’ve decided to start http://scrappystartupforum.com instead where we can ALL contribute and discuss our issues related to startup.  If you want to talk leanstartup, the lean startup circle is great for you.  If you want to talk startup and scrappy/boostrappedness, come play.  #scrappystartup

- LadyLeet

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the LiveUmbrella Lounge with SlideShare and Flowtown.

In the spirit of lean startups and the current economic situation, it was refreshing for Jon and Dan to tell us stories about scrappy startups and the mentality behind scrappy.

What stuck the most to me was the differentiation betweetn lean startup and scrappy startup. 

Lean Startup is a methodology, Scrappy Startup is a mentality.

(Thank you, Dan and Jon for enlightening us on this distinction.)

More scrappy stories were shared on how SlideShare scrappified their way to success, how Dan Martell trained his employees in the back of a car while driving to and from meetings, and suggestions on how to be scrappy in your own startup.

Be in the know- and join us for another #scrappystartup conversation very soon.  Sign up for our email list.

Thank you again, AntiCupcakeCo, Brentium, and ZatPhoto for sponsoring this event.

If you would like to sponsor the Scrappy Startup movement, please email me tracy@liveumbrella.com. 

Event Highlights:

How many people here consider themselves scrappy?

Join the #scrappystartup conversation

Tracy @ladyleet (@battledish), Thomas @thomasknoll, Dan @danmartell (@flowtown), John @jpramey (@isocket)

Sumit @sumitguha, Tracy @limedaring, Tracy @ladyleet, Karen @mediakare

More pictures of the event here.

Until we meet again, farewell,

LadyLeet

Are you bored with your life, not feeling like you’re getting ahead?

Are you still saying “if only” and “what if”?

Stop. Take a breath.

Take control. Understand yourself- your strengths and weaknesses. Explore the opportunities around you.

Find what motivates and inspires you in this life. Then, take a deep breath out.

What did you see?

Continue this exercise until you see the beauty around you- the answer.

Take charge. Be yourself. Obtain the goal.

A Year of Lessons Learned

When I did this exercise awhile back, I saw the opportunity- it started off as a mere thought. My friend’s son had just graduated from college and needed some guidance on coding. I wanted to help, so I began to brainstorm. Here’s my story.

I searched the resources out from around me and found 15 eager participants, waiting to create something.

From hardware engineer to software engineer, to accountant, to marketer, to friend that said yes, I asked for their ideas and opinions of what to do.

One of my best friends, Gerald, suggested we work on a web application, but asked that it be only him and me. I agreed, and we began.

1. Create a site built for “family tree” social network. The idea was for families to be able to link everyone together (from 1st cousin to 30th cousin).

Because this site idea was so huge, we decided to work on one area of the site- video messaging. This idea led us to make the decision to develop another product. We began idea #2.

2. Create a facebook application that allows multiple people to record individual video messages and send it in one package to an end user (kinda like a group video card). You can actually see the app here: Giftomi.

While Giftomi was being developed, I decided we create an “umbrella” corporation that would encompass the web apps we were anticipating developing.

3. LiveUmbrella was formed. The mission to bring people together “one app at a time”.

I became immersed in understanding the new marketing tools I had out there and researching what we were going to do once the product was ready.

I was also attending a bunch of startup events like Startup2Startup, MashupCamp, CloudConnect, and Web 2.0.

The main theme of these events were based around speakers and networking, but I found more value in the networking. I wanted to bring people together in the startup community and have a more “networking-focused” event. Why not do this under our company’s name as well?

4. LiveUmbrella began throwing the Entrepreneurs Lounge. Our mission then changed to wanting to bring people together online and offline- online through web apps, and offline via the Entrepreneurs Lounge.

Giftomi was ready to release. So we did. And no one came. The app was not viral, and required too much work for the user or users friends to want to use it. It’s a great app, but nobody cared. We decided to instead focus on what both Gerald and I loved- food.

5. The idea: a food site where there was a database of menus and people could rate/review the dishes in restaurants- kind of like Yelp but for dishes.

After doing research, we found similar sites in this arena, and other sites that didn’t have menus, but had simply pictures of dishes at different areas. It seems everyone was trying to solve the same problem: help people find dishes in restaurants. But everyone was missing one component or the other.

For the databases of menus, they were missing the virality and compulsion aspect of user generated content. The content also seemed out of date/could never be trusted.

For the sites that let you take pictures of what you were eating, the completeness of being able to view all the dishes in a restaurant/know what was good was missing.

We decided to change our direction.

6. Battledish was formed. The first adventure game for foodies! Simply a place where foodies can eat the best dishes in restaurants (all dishes listed are foodie-approved) and where restaurants can feature the best dish they have for the public to discover. Fun, eh?

Battledish is now our main focus and we stopped development with the other web applications we were working on.

LiveUmbrella then has become an event company.

7. LiveUmbrella now focuses on bringing people together offline at the Entrepreneurs Lounge. We encourage quality networking with other startup founders as well as invite lean-minded leaders to have a conversation with us.

So in the past year, we’ve changed things 7 times, and then some. 

The changes and ability to go with the flow have allowed us to focus and refine our goals. It’s been the best ride ever.

One of the keys to my success is tenacity and the ability to see ahead.

In any startup, there are a multitude of things that can and will go wrong- over and over again. Do you let things like this discourage you? Have the determination to pull forward. If you understand your surroundings, you can then instinctually prepare for them and recover fast when the pebbles come your way.

• Have the courage, the determination, and the will to survive.
• Know when you need to drop an idea and focus on another.
• Make sure your vision is clear.
• Always measure the value of what you do to the ROI.
• Give back to the community and it will give back to you.
• Have fun, remember to laugh.
• Be human.
• Be resolved.

Take charge of your life in 2010 and make a difference in the world. Make a difference in yourself.

If you’re a woman, join the #fempire.

Checkout the video from the last Entrepreneurs Lounge (brought to you by LiveUmbrella and KISSmetrics).  We had the privilege of catching Sean Power (@seanpower), Hiten Shah (@hnshah) and Josh Porter (@bokardo) talk about startup acceleration and metrics on video.

Our next LiveUmbrella Entrepreneurs Lounge is Friday, January 22 at the BBC in Menlo Park with Jon Boutelle (CTO of SlideShare) and Dan Martell (Angel investor and Co-Founder of FlowTown).  Limited Tickets go on sale today. Purchase HERE!

Sean, Hiten, and Josh all practice the spirit of lean startup, giving you practical, measurable advice on the most reasonable way to accelerate your startup via metrics and more.

Enjoy the video, and join us for the next event.

-Tracy @ladyleet

I had an epiphany last night at 2am about my jewelry startup. 

Let me paint a background:

1.5 years ago, I decided to take down my jewelry site, rebrand, and let a business partner of mine code the site from scratch (he wanted to code something, anything), so we decided to have a go at it.

The initial vision:

A beautiful jewelry site with flash on the landing page, as elegant as Tiffany&Co, and able to empower women and inspire them to buy with just one look at this gorgeously designed, unique site.

… prod prod prod…

During the first year, life hit.  We both decided to start our own startups (his being semiconductor test software, and mine being LiveUmbrella).  Distractions?  That’d be an understatement.  I had no more time to manage, and he had no time to code.

1.5 years later, and it’s not done yet.  Ridiculous, isn’t it? 

I’m sure this is a similar story that many startups go through- you want to create something *perfect*, something that differentiates you from the rest of your competition.  You tell yourself you can’t release because your brand might be compromised, or people might not think your product is *professional* enough.  Here’s an eye-opener: no one cares.  And crossing all your T’s ain’t gonna help the cause.

1.5 years later and I am rolling my eyes because it’s taken this long for me to come to this.

Epiphany?

In the web startup world, I believe in MVPs (minimum viable products) and follow the lean startup concept, so why haven’t I been doing it with what I deem “traditional” business?

Beats the hell outta me.  This year, I’ve lost so much revenue due to the lack of a website.  Traditional businesses should take this lean startup concept and apply it to their own.  Ignite that fire!

Action!

Back to yesterday (rather, this morning). 

2am, I decide I’ve had enough.  I hop out of bed, pull out my laptop, Google “Yahoo Stores” (as funny as that sounds), and find Shopify. 

Shopify is kick ass!  Literally had my site looking awesome and sleek in less than an hour.  Voila.  $25bux a month for the cheapest plan, 30 day free trial, 2% commission taken on each sale, but bada-boom-bada-bing, she’s up.

So… what did I waste 1.5 years for? 

Ask yourself the same question, shake your head, then go and build that MVP.  Who gives a rat’s ass about “brand”, “perfection”, and all that other stuff?  If your customers love you, they will come.  And if they don’t come, you’ll figure it out soon enough rather than wasting years of “what if” time.

So this is a lesson learned.  A lesson learned the hard way.  So go… DO IT. DO IT NOW. 

Oh… and you can visit my newly found jewelry site (still being populated with product) at practicallySEXY.com (it’s practical, it’s sexy… it’s practicallySEXY!).

Writing to you with a sigh of relief,

Tracy aka @LadyLeet

Domain Names for Startups and Potential A/B Testing

This is a collaborative-wave post written by Tracy Lee and Omar Ead.

This post was inspired by a question posted on LSC this weekend in regards to four different catchphrases Omar was torn between for his startup.

This blog post will take you through:

• Product abstract
• Problem encountered
• Problem-solution analysis
• Conclusion

PRODUCT ABSTRACT

Omar’s product is a collaborative site where entrepreneurs can post anecdotes, quotes, and stories about their daily experiences.

PROBLEM ENCOUNTERED

What catchphrase to use? (Catchphrase would be used as the URL of the website, the tagline, and as the theme of the website.)

Initially, Omar listed 20 different catchphrases on Aardvarks and Mechanical Turk.

The top 4 results were:

• Make it Happyn (happen)
• No Risk No Reward
• This is Sparta!
• It is what it is

PROBLEM-SOLUTION ANALYSIS

Since Omar’s goal for his product is to have heavy adoption within the startup community (similar to what fmylife.com* has done with its user base), it is vastly important for him to launch the site with an awesome catchphrase.

*fmylife.com was used as an example here because the catchphrase is the domain name. It defines the product to an extent and mirror’s Omar’s goal.

The battle with choosing the proper catchphrase aligns with the first step in Dave McClure’s AARRR concept . It’s acquisition. Everyone wants it, and in this case it’s also Omar’s UVP (unique value proposition).

In a recent article, Ash Maurya discusses the idea of the UVP (unique value proposition) in relation to Omar’s problem.

He articulates the idea of a UVP as: “… a headline, image, or tagline that needs to engage the visitor in the first 5 seconds. The “experts” agree that a great UVP can more than compensate for getting everything else wrong on the page.”

In Omar’s situation, he determined the catchphrase needs to include the following elements:

• Useful as a domain name (URL)
• Define the product
• Encourages culture (this is a user generated site).
• Account for the power of distribution

USEFUL AS A DOMAIN

The phrase has to be simple, quick and serve as a URL. This limits Omar to choosing short, quick catchphrases that are easy to remember.

Omar also takes into consideration the SEO friendliness of the catchphrase/domain name. He notes a relevant name as your URL address is always a plus for SEO.

DEFINE THE PRODUCT

Omar wants the catchphrase to capture the essence of his target market and engage them.

Defining your product can be difficult, and it may take awhile before you can capture its essence.  Sometimes it’s an evolution that comes with product growth. In this case, the name and catchphrase are one in the same therefore the problem is of importance before the product launch.

Omar needs to be confident that the catchphrase chosen will engage the customer within a matter of seconds of landing on his site.

ENCOURAGES CULTURE

Creating a catchphrase that defines your product and engages your target market is important, but it’s also important to take into consideration future culture development with the phrase.

This contributes to market stickiness (the “retention” factor of Dave McClure’s AARRR concept).

Questions to ask:

Does the catchphrase provide layers of abstraction to the customer visiting your site (where people might drop off)?

Will it be a self-serving catchphrase, or will a customer have to struggle to “connect the dots” when they hear the name?

(From Peter, a member of the LSC) When they try to remember the name later, if they knew what the offering is, will it help them remember the name? (e.g., if they remember it’s about entrepreneurship, will that help them remember the name?) The flip is if they remember the name, will they remember what the offering is? (e.g., if they remember it’s called “No Risk No Reward”, will that help them remember that it’s about entrepreneurship?)

ACCOUNT FOR THE POWER OF DISTRIBUTION

Accounting for the power of distribution is important to keep in mind when choosing a catchphrase.

Distribution serves many ends, including marketing (i.e. viral marketing, is it tweetable, etc…)

WHAT ABOUT A/B TESTING DOMAIN NAMES?

After the back and forth between Omar and myself this weekend, I suggested he simply A/B test the two top catchphrases to determine the best one.

How might this affect brand recognition and how do you handle customer confusion before and after the testing? As an entrepreneur, we often forget that in the early stages of your startup, no one really cares about your product.

Before you gain traction, why not A/B test catchphrases to test bounce rate and conversion rates? After a decision has been made, simply forward the less optimal domain to the other.

Omar response to this was: I wouldn’t go this far. Is it really necessary to pour in effort for this sort of problem?

And he’s right. If it’s not worth it to test, don’t. But if you’re going to days going back and forth, testing may help you move forward quickly without wasting any more time and can also assist in partner disagreements (don’t argue, test theories and let the data speak for itself).

CONCLUSION

What slogan, catchphrase, or domain name do you ultimately go with? It’s been a battle of mine many a time, and in the end, it’s not about the catchphrase or domain name- it’s about the product.

Let’s take Twitter for example. What’s a twitter? When people hear “twitter”, is it catchy? Or is it catchy because the product is awesome? Did Twitter spend hours, even days, thinking about what to name their product?

You must find a balance between deciding how much time to actually spend on this problem versus just “going with it”.

Omar did a great job at following the lean startup mantra for choosing a catchphrase, and in conversing with him we came to the consensus that it was important due to the nature of his product to make sure the catchphrase was:

• Useful as a domain
• Defined the product
• Encouraged culture
• Accounted for the power of distribution

A/B testing domain names was a fun suggestion and is again, a way to minimize time spent on something that may be trivial in your personal startup journey. If you really can’t decide, test out your theories and see what sticks.

Again, when in doubt, let the data do the talking.