

Show HN: chessable - chess built with HTML5 Canvas. Any feedback? - austinbirch
https://www.chessable.co.uk

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jdietrich
You're going up against Chess.com. They've got some serious network effects on
their side, so yours is an uphill struggle. If you're going to make a decent
go of it without a massive marketing budget, you'll need to work very hard on
converting visitors to active users.

Job one is to implement good tracking and A/B testing. Job two is to get rid
of the signup. View every mouseclick and form field as a machine-gun nest
that's mowing down your potential users and be absolutely ruthless about
removing them. Do the work for the users. You need a huge "PLAY NOW!!!!"
button that takes me straight to a game, with me playing as black against a
weak engine. I respond to white's opening, then you grey-out the screen and
prompt me for my e-mail address (and only my e-mail address) to receive
white's reply.

I'm now committed, so I'm far more likely to give you my e-mail address. Use
the response e-mail as an opt-in to a mailing list. Remind me daily that I've
got a game on the go, whether I'm actually playing or not. If I'm not playing,
send me tutorial messages, ask me what's stopping me from playing. If I am
playing, invite me to start another game after a couple of moves. Tell me
about other new users, drive me to engage with them. Match me by location,
match me by rank, just get me playing. Push, push, push. If you want to see
how the experts do these sorts of e-mails, sign up at OKCupid or Vistaprint
and wait.

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austinbirch
Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

I should have probably made it clear that this is really only a little side
project, with the aim being to make back the small amount it costs me to run.
Sorry for the confusion.

I wanted to differentiate it from Chess.com by making it simple, which is what
I didn’t like about Chess.com. With that in mind, it is designed primarily for
casual players.

I strongly agree with your thoughts on the signing up process, and I’ll
definitely work on that.

Thanks again for your feedback, it's given me a lot to think about.

Austin

