
Show HN: My low-tech, 1997-style site helped me adopt thousands of subscribers - ccantana
I run a weekly humorous newsletter about the tech industry&#x2F;tech jobs called TechLoaf (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techloaf.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techloaf.io&#x2F;</a>).<p>After experimenting, A&#x2F;B&#x2F;C&#x2F;D&#x2F;E testing, etc I found that using the lowest, simplest landing page possible actually led me to gain thousands more followers and a much higher conversion. I don&#x27;t even post content on the site - the content is only accessible through the newsletter itself (or links or search, but nobody does that).<p>Part of me wonders how much of modern UI&#x2F;UX is oversell, especially when explaining value proposition to an educated, skeptical audience. I mean look at any dime-a-dozen SaaS company - there  is so much unnecessary information going on on every landing page when ultimately the goal is typically just to get someone to &quot;Request a Demo&quot; on the page.<p>Also, shameless plug to sign up yourself if you&#x27;d like.<p>Management tips to fire anyone who doesn&#x27;t &quot;spark joy&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techloaf.io&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;tips-from-a-titan-tidy-your-company-and-fire-anyone-who-doesnt-spark-joy&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techloaf.io&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;tips-from-a-titan-tidy-yo...</a>)<p>PIP&#x27;d employee claims sanctuary in lactation room (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techloaf.io&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;pipd-employee-claims-sanctuary-in-lactation-room&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.techloaf.io&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;pipd-employee-claims-sanc...</a>)<p>Here&#x27;s a snippet of the final product, hidden behind the landing page. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;us17.campaign-archive.com&#x2F;home&#x2F;?u=14538d8f8591165977d9a9d93&amp;id=e21336ec0c" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;us17.campaign-archive.com&#x2F;home&#x2F;?u=14538d8f8591165977...</a>)
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taphangum
There's a certain charm from the early 90's that's been lost with all these
new design trends.

I personally think that it has something to do with simplicity indicating that
you are dealing with an individual. Not a 'faceless' company. Hence the charm.

In the 90's, you were almost always interacting with a site designed by an
individual. Think GeoCities/AngelFire - so this was always a given. Now much
less so.

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madamelic
Yep.

Last year, I was trying lots of projects to see what worked. I made a
minimalist version of YouTube but didn't want to buy a domain for a "dumb"
project. I put it as a subdomain on another site then tossed it on HN. My
other projects would get 2 - 5 upvotes, this got 200+ and went viral across
other sites.

The site was black text on white, with a button and a textbox. People really
seemed to like it.

Simple and effective websites are much better than clutter in confusion. I
think lots of websites put lots of colors + graphics because they
misunderstand other site's designs.

tl;dr: Users generally dgaf about your pretty colors, design and domain as
long as your site works, has good grammar and doesn't look like a virus.

