I got a phone call and email from someone with a @google.com email, which I believe means they are a Google employee. They wanted to do a consultation on my AdWords account. Has anyone done this? Was it useful?Here's the email: Hi there,I hope you are well.I just wanted to email you to remind you about the personalized consultation offer I sent for your AdWords account xxx-xxx-xxxx a few...
- I can reserve online and they'll get it from any library in the network.
- Generally get new release DVDs much faster then Netflix
- Get entire seasons of TV shows at once instead of a disc at a time.
- Free
The big negative is I have to actually go and get them, but I generally pass the library daily, so it isn't that big of a deal.
Barely anything since Feb. Before then there were 4-5 items per day.
I think taking 5 minutes to find someone at the company and emailing them a personal email will be way more successful for a candidate.
Plus I'd worry that you will sound like just another recruiter when presenting me to the company, so it may end up hurting my chances.
Imagine being at a baseball game and in between innings you can pull up pics from all over the stadium.
Or you're a high schooler in a suburban town bored on a friday night and you can see pics of what your class mates are doing all over town.
The 150 ft range is stupid...it should automatically adjust to cover an area of interest whether that's a sporting event, party, apartment building or small town.
I've spent the last few weeks trying to brainstorm the story for my biz and just keep drawing a blank.
1) You can sell to schools, but not by "selling" to schools. Instead sell to the teachers and they'll sell to the school for you. There are lots of ways for teachers to get schools to pay for stuff they want (grants, discretionary funds...). If you create a great product one teacher will tell another and before you know it a group of them want it and they'll pitch their principal.
I sold to 15 or so schools last year (big, small, public, private) and every one of them started with the school contacting me. I realize 15 is not a lot, but total time I spent on those sales was maybe 10 minutes and $0 each. I replied to emails, setup accounts and generated invoices.
2) As a developer you're going to want to solve the scale problem by coding. You need to fight this.
Take the money you make and buy adwords - they work (http://pseudocoder.com/blog/my-adwords-spending-for-2010)
Talk to your customers constantly - make incremental improvements based on their feedback. Only when there is overwhelming demand add a new feature or in your case expand to a new area.
Do more SEO. You're top 5? Not good enough. The difference between #1 and #5 is huge. Figure out what keywords make you the most money (might not be what you think they are) and attack those.
A final note (this one is tough and I'll try to be tactful). In the end your wife (however awesome she was in getting the site started) is just a user. If she's not interested in the business side then you need to take ownership. That means you may make changes without consulting her and that are unpopular with her that are better for the rest of the community.
Email me if you want to discuss anything offline.
HeyAmigo sounds like exactly what you are talking about. It was built by Carsonified a few years ago and sold (I think). The Bare Naked App blog was a chronicle of them building it.
- I'd get rid of the Magic, eh? link. Doesn't really relate to the rest of the product and some people probably won't "get it".
- As for promoting the most obvious thing would be to email a bunch of high profile blogs (that would have use for this) and give it to them. If they use it others will notice. Maybe add a little "powered by loudly" link over the pic.
- Why the subdomain if the main domain just redirects?
However, I think the landing page still needs a lot of work. I was suspicious when you were asking about monitor resolutions and had a separate mobile version. It really needs to be simplified greatly. There are a million articles out there that can help (clear/short desc of value, clear call to action...).
I realize it probably took you a lot of time to do the animation, but I would scrap all of that. Sorry :(
Also design wise there is nothing "music" about the landing page.
A 9 minute video seems excessive for a landing page. Cut it to 60 seconds to get the customer interested. Save the 9 minute version for after they sign up.
I actually emailed you in the beginning of '09 after reading about your site in Bob Walsh's MicroISV book. You took the time to send a lengthy and detailed response which was very appreciated.
As far as features I added sharing which allows teachers to generate links that they can send to other teachers and embedding which allows teachers to put their planbook right in their website.
Nothing revolutionary, but both helped w/ SEO and increased visibility with target customers.