Starting a business to quit my job - A thread inspired by lemons884

M

Makavelimob

New member
Aug 20, 2008
513
2
0
Hello all,

A little background on me -Last year a graduated from college, held a job at a small start up company (which I got canned from), now I currently sell insurance and I am pretty damn good at it.

The problem: I hate insurance and I want to do be doing better things with my life. It didn't take me long to realize that I will never been satisfied until I am my own boss or at least got more time to do what I want to do. I'm done with people telling me that this is the way I should live my life for the next 35 years until I retire. I want to prove them wrong.

The solution: Create a few web applications - Make money off of it. I spent a lot of time talking about it and not acting. Then I read "The Four Hour Work Week" -- sifted through the 95% bullshit and took the 5% that actually applied to me and ran with it. Great read though. Since then I have created the first set of web applications @ Twetto - Tools to Increase your Twitter Potential! (feel free to check it out - Shameless I know) It started as a far more elaborate idea, then boiled down to some simple yet effective Twitter marketing tools.

The Goal: Make enough money by the Summer to work part time with the insurance (So i can keep the benefits) and use the 20 hours a week to work on my dream projects also live life to the fullest.


Currently: Development is done, The app still needs to be whitelisted by twitter which will happen in a week or so after a few more tests.

Have done some light marketing. about 30 visits yesterday from dropping bit.ly links through out twitter (using my product of course). Decent volume, but not the quality I was hoping for. The links were not targetted at all (using already established twitter accts for different niche)

Marketing in the near future:

1) Press Release (PR Web $200)
2) Dropping targetted twitter links (Free)
3) Sending emails to some of the better twitter app sites (twi5.com)


I would appreciate some ideas from you guys




I plan on updating this thread as much as I can, I look forward to seeing what you guys think:banana_sml:
 


If the tool that you are talking about is the same one in your signature, then it is a pretty cool idea. However, I'm going to be blunt about this. Before you start marketing the product, make it a bit more marketable. Something about the look of your site and logo is bland, no offense. Many people overlook the image part of the business and go right into marketing. Remember, the more legitimate and trust worthy your brand looks, the better off you'll be, IMO.

Edit: Make it look more Web 2.0.
 
thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I agree site is alittle plain. I was going for a cleaner look, alot of my other web sites I tried too much and it became a mess. So with this, I tried function over looks.

I will think of ways to spice it up for the next release
 
what suggestions would you have to make it look more web 2.0..


New logo would be needed ( even though I do like the one I whipped up in 5 minutes)

What other features would you like to see on there?
 
Tuesday: 27 Visitors, Bounce Rate was 20% lower and time on site was about 20 seconds higher. Mostly US traffic.

Got a few visits off this thread -- nice.

Got a few more users as well -- Should be more.. I mean its free.


Currently: brainstorming some ideas to make the site look more web 2.0
Mostly the logo right now... I will probably hire someone here to do it

Goals for the next 2 weeks: Crack 50-60 visits a day + Steady user increase + 1st Sale
 
im unaware of issues with sign up, could you please pm me the bug? Also keyword is working just with a few errors.. you have to wait roughly 40 secs in between follows and red errors occur for various things. currently thats numero uno on things to fix. Thanks for letting me know
 
Thanks dave i agree.

For wednesday = 43 Visits resulting in a few more members and some emails about the service. Still no bites. Avg time on site should be a lot higher. About 9 visits or so from my wickedfire redirect. Except all 9 of those visits were bounces. Bummer.

Bounce rate is back up to where it was before, it should be a lot lower, it is currently hovering 70%. Getting more targetted traffic will help this Im sure.

Perhaps ill post some screenshots on here tomorrow to add a little life to this thread.
 
Hi there.

The reason you might not get anyone to buy anything is because THEY CAN'T!!

Sorry, but I clicked around on your site and there is NOWHERE that I can buy anything?
Not on the start page (BAD), not on any other page.

And no, making people register so they can see you are offering a premium package for money is not a good idea.

I did not register and did not see any BUY ME NOW link. Nor a link explaining that there IS a premium package, if there is one.

Guess what I did not do?
::emp::
 
Agree with all of the other suggestions. If you have even the slightest ppc budget, start pushing paid traffic for a bit and then optimize for conversion keywords.
 
Emp- Thanks for the feedback , I agree .. I didn't even realize that. Thats something i will definently be adding soon, probably another button next to the Register button. Im a noob to this, thanks for setting my ass straight.

Phil- Got one of those $75 adwords coupons, will probably exhaust that pretty fast. I'm using it to test my keywords and campaigns out. Hopefully try to optimize them as much as I can with that before I spend some real monies.


These suggestions are great keep them coming.
 
You could always have either John Chow or ShoeMoney talk about it in their blog, paid of course. As much as this forum likes to make fun of them, these guys know how to sell a product to their readers. It all depends on how much money you're willing to invest as well. You can always send ShoeMoney a t-shirt for free shirt Friday (or whatever it's called) and you'll get plenty of exposure through there. Remember, the audience you're selling to are other internet marketers promoting their own products/services, that's their audience. I can definitely see them making good use of Twetto.
 
Maybe ill try to make a funny shirt. Something that says "What the fuck is twetto.com" Either way, i am going to be taking peoples advice to spruce up the site and adding a sales page before login. Hopefully this will work out well
 
After weekend update: Currently in the process of Web 2.0 'ing my site. New Logo, new buttons, and a chart explain the free and paid plans. Hopefully this will increase sales.

-Im hoping this will decrease the bounce rate (Still rounding 70%) -- Alot of twitter traffic im pulling sucks balls. Trying to get it in the 30-40% range in the future.

-Traffic has been kicking ass and have gotten some new users - I know it doesn't mean shit but my alexa rank is now around 600k, which is nice. Out of all my sites, that is the best i've ever had it. Setting up PPC w/ adwords this week.

Sales - Still goose egg... hoping this will change soon with the changes


Content addition would be key to lowering bounce rate, increase traffic and sales... do you have any suggestions of what way I could utilize that? I already have a blog and I plan to add articles. I dont know if I should have a long ass sales page or what. Suggestions would be great. Thanks!
 
What kind of audience have you been marketing your product to? IMO, it's mostly businesses with a Twitter that would most probably utilize this product, not your average Joe Schmo with a Twitter account. I could be wrong though.
 
The most important thing is you need a convincing video (as that is the first thing the user will click when he lands on your site), get some professional help on the video.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back