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So we launched our website almost exactly one and a half months ago. We have about 900 unique visitors in that time. Not nearly as many as we all would have hoped, but hey, it's still early, and we really haven't done a lot in terms of marketing it yet. Also, we're continuing to add more features and get up to the point of completeness that we had in mind when launching it.

We kind of set this time line up right now, and I wanted to know if you guys though it had any holes, or if there were any other things we should be doing or be aware of.

From Today

  • Add as many of the planned features we have noted down to our site. Our site really needs a re-design as well, but we want to get as much onto it as possible so when a designer does take a look at it, he knows not to leave certain things out, and can create a more inclusive design. (1-2 months)
  • Get a re-design. Once all the features are added and we feel like we have as feature-rich of a site as possible, hire someone to start putting together a much better and fluid looking design that incorporates all of our features in a truly unique and clean way. (about a month)
  • Once the site is re-designed, we really want to then get an iPhone and Android app created that match the newly renovated and feature rich site. (1-2 months)
  • Market the hell out of everything. The apps & the site at this point will both we complete and as close to perfect as we feel they need to be, so it makes sense to market everything like crazy. Obviously we will still be adding stuff and fixing bugs, but nothing major enough to change the way people use and interact with it. (as long as we need to - to get users)

Questions

  1. Does this list/timeframe look like a good plan?
  2. Is there anything that looks like it's missing from it, or anything we shouldn't focus on that is there?
  3. Waiting another 6+ months until we get to really get into marketing seems like a while, and we're nervous about someone copying our idea and putting a lot more money behind it than we have available from our angel investor. Should we worry about this? How should we approach this issue?
  4. What are good ways we can make sure we maintain and grow our (small) user base in the meantime, even though we are going through much change and re-design, to make sure we don't completely fall off the map before all of this starts to really happen? We've tried putting an ad up on Facebook and posting some things on Hacker News. We've also send a bunch of pitches into blogs with no luck yet.
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closed as not a real question by Ross, Zuly Gonzalez♦ Nov 18 '12 at 14:00

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

You have your priorities backwards. The numbers indicate that no one has seen your site (900 people in 6 weeks). Therefore, any more features you add will not make the least of a difference, since you have a marketing problem.

Learn on how to get traffic for your target customers, see if you can get them to even visit your site. Once you have that nailed, then improve the product. Not the other way around.

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This is exactly what the investor said, but we seem to think (as well as other users here), that a better design will attract more users. I guess we're wrong? – slandau Aug 17 '11 at 13:18
1  
I'll repeat myself: your design can't possibly matter until a lot of people go to your home page and leave in disgust. Right now, virtually no one goes to your home page anyway, so your design could be anything, it would not matter. – Alain Raynaud Aug 17 '11 at 16:52
Thanks Alain. :) – slandau Aug 17 '11 at 17:08
up vote 2 down vote

Just a note, your question might get closed, because it's so open ended.

I would suggest a couple things:

  • When I first logged into the site, I wanted to close it. That means you need to do a redesign. After looking at it for a minute, and clicking the "What is" link, I figured it out. But you have very little call to action - what do you want me to do?
  • Your concern about someone else stealing your idea could be valid, but no sense in marketing a product that isn't ready for the market. You'll just be wasting your effort.
  • I would either quickly redesign the UX and UI, and start marketing it, or if you don't have the resources to quickly redo it, take it offline until you have something really marketable.

Great idea though - keep with it!

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We've been trying to convince our investor for quite some time now that we need a re-design, but after paying a bunch of money for the current one, he's really not budging and seems like he doesn't want to do it. Do you have any pointers there? – slandau Aug 16 '11 at 20:36
up vote 1 down vote

Just my opinion, but I think you are pretty much guaranteed to blow any timelines you set at some point when you're a startup. There's just so many hats you have to wear that the more detailed that timeline gets, the more likely it's going to get screwed up at some point. My startup certainly has, with changing customers, products, and home lives. But don't be discouraged by that; you just have to be ready to adjust. Take it one step at a time, keeping your end goal in sight, and realizing you're probably going to screw something up at some point and that's just part of the journey. The fact you have thought out the next steps so far is great - I would just say that getting too caught up in a particular time frame could come back to bite you in the end.

The other thing I'd say is that you shouldn't bother being worried about someone stealing your idea - read around on this site and a lot of people will tell you that there IS no really original ideas left, especially around the short message/twitter arena that your site seems to follow. It's guaranteed that there's several other companies and startups of different sizes doing something similar. All you can do is aim to create the product you believe will be successful, market the hell out of it, and pray it all works out. It's almost never the ideas, its the execution that determines winners.

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up vote 1 down vote

that thing could be interesting, I see some potential it it. That being said:

  • you need a redesign - ASAP. Usability of that website is pretty low - as is the overall look & feel of the website

But this idea cries for a someone to really throw money at it. You want to get big, and you want to get big very fast. If you fail to get big really fast, someone else may steal that idea and push you out of market.

Article governing this situation

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