Project URL: http://www.makeitfree.co
Idea: A website where you ask if there’s a free alternative available for a product or service you’re using.
Problem I think it solves: People are stuck in the mindset that paying for something gives them peace of mind and they’re not really thinking of changing it. But they could achieve similar results, without paying.
Status: 8 days left on the free trial from pop.co
Emails: 0
Revenue: 0
Total Traffic (stats after about 2 days):
Traffic Sources:
Coming soon
Locations:
Coming soon
Devices used:
Coming soon
Tactics for marketing:
- Posted on facebook and twitter.
Lessons learned:
1. Some things are better searched for.
You can’t just ask people to give you their email address for anything. This website probably could’ve been better if it was easily scanable a la AlternativeTo. There was probably too much friction between the user and the results he was looking for/the benefits the service offered.
2. Promises can work, but text only?
I was saying how the service was 100% Personalized and 100% Confidential. But was there anyway I could prove that? Did I have one of those TRUSTe badges? Text can only go so far.
3. FREE doesn’t equal quality.
Some people are comfortable paying for services. So just adding a FREE element doesn’t guarantee traffic or users.
4. Don’t insult the user.
In retrospect, using the tagline “Are you really paying for that?” doesn’t really sound that clever. You wouldn’t want someone knocking at your door telling you how much gas your new Porsche uses.
5. Use examples.
I managed to fix this issue in Tiny Project #12, but I wish I would’ve figured it earlier: visual aids help people understand what your service is about. Pictures/videos would’ve been great.
Technical details:
As some of you might have additional questions, I decided to add this section for those of you courageous enough to try something similar.
The website is hosted using the Startup Bundle package from pop.co. You don’t to pay anything upfront and you get a .co domain, a starter page and an email account @yourdomain.co. All that for 2 weeks. After that the whole package is just $2.50/month.
The logo was generated by one of these tools in this list from Product Hunt. This time it was Squarespace.com/Logo, cleaned up a bit in Photoshop afterwards.
Thanks for reading this far. Now you can:
A. Read about my other projects – still 24 to go!
B. Email me about questions and/or projects you’d like help on.
C. All of the above.
30 Tiny Projects In 30 Days 