

The Startup Story – From an Idea to Our First Customer in 7 Days - martinadamek
http://www.martinadamek.com/2010/02/02/the-startup-story-from-an-idea-to-our-first-customer-in-7-days/

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vaksel
I see one huge problem on your site....pricing.

Having it in listed in pounds instead of dollars would lead me to close the
page right away, thinking it was a british only site. And I dunno but prices
seem to be a little high.

Problem #2:...you need to convince people that your editors actually know what
they are doing. You need to show that you have your editors take a certain
test(ie proofread a 5 page essay to find all errors). That way people know the
guy reading actually knows his stuff, and is not just a 12 year old kid who
wants to make a few bucks.

Problem #3: Your editors need to be local. Native english speaker means
different things in England, in United States and in India. You need to make
sure the person proof reading the stuff is in the same country as the person
paying the bill.

Problem #4: Domain sucks. Sure korect.me is quirky. But as you just saw I
completely misspelled it on the first try. You need a domain that is misspell
proof...or at least own the misspelled domains too.

Problem #5: Getting a .me domain is a great way to get penalized in search
results. If you want even a tiny bit of people to find you via search engines,
you need to change that to a .com

Problem #6: Your landing page sucks. You need to let a person know right away
how much they'll be paying.

Problem #7: I want a discount should send a person to a new page, where you
tell them about how they can get a discount. Right now you just send them to a
blank page, with the discount code below the fold.

Problem #8: You need to add some guarantee...I dunno something like "if we
don't catch all errors, you get half off". Make sure there is an incentive for
proofreaders to get it right...and for the customer to trust you.

Problem #9: Your page is missing meta descriptions and meta keywords. Not only
do those help with SEO but description is how your stuff appears in Google.

Problem #10: You need a word counter on the text box, and you should display a
running total of how much the proofreading will cost the person.

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paraschopra
I completely agree with Vaskel on all the points. All through my visit I was
searching for _examples_ of previously proof-read material so that I can judge
the quality but I couldn't find any.

~~~
martinadamek
Sample diffs are going live this week, too.

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Mc_Big_G
It's quite amazing to me that people are willing to pay ~$11 for proofreading
~100 words and won't pay 1 cent for far more technologically advanced
services. This is why you have to figure out what people will pay for before
you build it. Best of luck to you on this project.

~~~
patio11
People do not pay for technical advancement. They pay for solving their
problems. If you need 500 well written words to nail a job, a promotion, a
contract, or a term paper, you will darn well pay to make sure they are
perfect. People would pay for _Twitter_ if it credibly promised jobs,
promotions, contracts, and term papers.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
_People do not pay for technical advancement. They pay for solving their
problems._

Yeah, I get it. My point was that it isn't easy to find something people are
willing to pay you for, no matter how simple that sounds. Also, technical
advancement typically involves making something difficult and costly, easy and
cheap, so I thought it was reasonable to assume that people would pay for it.
I was either wrong, timed the market wrong or failed in my marketing efforts,
which is admittedly not my strong point.

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martinadamek
@vaksel Thank you for the feedback. This is what we need so much! Some of the
points (2, 6, 8) we are solving and those should be live this week. #10 there
is a counter - '...get an estimate' link (we can do better I am sure). I
really appreciate your time spent on this and will try to get better!

~~~
vaksel
no problem.

btw, you need to hit "reply" since HN supports threaded conversations

~~~
martinadamek
oops, I see, thanks again :)

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jsankey
_The deciding point was that I had a chance to team up with great editor,
Mira._

You might want to correct that (with _a_ great editor). A tiny thing, but as
your post is meant to be verified by your own service...

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martinadamek
Ouch, and you just won a discount...

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trusko
I think it is pretty cool service. Not sure about pricing. With english being
my second language, I would definitely appreciate some corrections here and
there. Good idea, keep working on it.

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ilamont
Interesting story. I wonder, though, about the company's dependence on
Adwords. What if costs go up, and/or the site is unable to get good search
engine ranking for proofing services?

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martinadamek
it is our concern too, and we are trying to become independent. The costs are
quite stable so far, though.

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martinadamek
@Mc_Big_G for ~100 words it would be ~$2.8 and the 'industry' itself is quite
big, but it depends on needs, of course.

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Mc_Big_G
The estimate I received was 8 pounds. I mistook the pound symbol for euros. In
any case, the conversion is nearly the same. Please don't take my post as
criticism. I was merely reflecting on the fact that I spent a few years of my
life building what I thought was amazing and then found out that no one wanted
to pay for it. Even if this doesn't work out for you, you only spent one week.
Bravo.

p.s. - It's better if you use the reply link.

~~~
martinadamek
I know exactly what you're talking about. I am happy about any non-positive
feedback, because I want to keep contact with reality.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
My bad...it was 402 words.

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jayliew
+1 for execution! may this be a motivation for others to execute like you.

