
Show HN: LonelyPage – One page is all you need - bigge
http://www.lonelypage.io
======
peterpan31
I don't want this to be intended as harsh criticism of your idea, but let me
share my experience with website builders:

\- The market is extremely tough. Maybe you noticed how much advertisment
squarespace and Wix do. The reason being that these pages typically have small
businesses as customers. The issue with these type of businesses is that they
go away quickly. Most don't survive 6 months. So you need new customers all
the time to keep up with the high churn.

\- You do not have price dominance. The price is very competitive and
companies with huge backing (like Squarespace / Wix) will dominate you.

\- The intended target audience is actually not that keen on doing everything
themselves. They don't know about online marketing, SEO, or other "special
skills". Actually, they just need someone they can call when they have an
issue.

\- Developers and agencies prefer open systems like Wordpress, Gatsby, or
others. They also value a vivid ecosystem of plugins and themes. They
typically don't commit to proprietary software, because you never know how
long it will be around.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck with the product. It looks nice! I
hope you can use my experiences to advance your business.

~~~
afarrell
> Maybe you noticed how much advertisment squarespace...do

I would intuitively estimate that about 15% of educational youtube videos are
sponsored by Squarespace.

~~~
samwillis
I think google has just profiled you (and me, and everyone else on HN)...

We go on web-dev related and business start up websites, and google is
watching us.

~~~
afarrell
Sadly no. The ads I get are largely for things I don't want. Occasionally they
are good or interesting, but usually no.

I wish more ad providers had a way to say "please show me more ads like this."
Better yet, I wish there was one that had a box where I could just type random
complaints about my life and over time it would show me ads for products that
might be relevant.

~~~
derefr
Google says they explicitly don’t use web-browsing data for ad targeting. They
_don’t_ say that they don’t use web-browsing data to improve your experience
with their various recommendation/prediction/autocomplete APIs. So there’s no
guarantee that bad ad targeting implies YouTube doesn’t have a better profile
on you.

~~~
polyomino
I’m order to square these requirements, they would just have to use your
browsing data to target you with the version of the instructional video which
always plays relevant ads to you

~~~
derefr
From what I understand (someone correct me if I'm wrong), the selection of ads
that play on an individual YouTube video aren't actually affected at all by
_which_ video you're watching—only YouTube's understanding of you built up
over all the videos you've watched so far.

~~~
beojan
The sponsorships are part of the video. They are targeted only by video.

------
awill
I get that this is easy, but there are 2 main cons:

1\. It is $4 a month (that's a lot for a really a simple static page)

2\. Vendor lock-in. These sites come and go and might not be around in a
couple of years.

This is why I recommend Hugo hosted on netlify. Sure, it has a learning curve
(but plenty of open source themes make it fairly easy). Hugo spits out plain
HTML so there is no lock-in, and netlify hosts for free. If Netlify goes away,
I can host somewhere else.

~~~
sandGorgon
if the page builder is able to export to something like Gatsby or Hugo
templates, then that eases the fear of lockin

~~~
Kpourdeilami
Since it is just 1 page, I think you should be able to just save the source
with all the dependencies and then host it somewhere else afterwards

~~~
ams6110
wget will do that for you nicely, also. I've used it to make static archives
of fairly complex Drupal-based sites, so a one-pager should be a breeze.

------
callahad
What browsers are you supporting and testing against, both for the editor and
its output? For example, the text widget doesn't allow spaces to be typed on
Firefox, which makes me wonder about the compatibility of the generated code.

Edit: Also, kudos for having such easy, frictionless access to the demo. I
also really like the structural parity between the desktop and mobile
versions.

Edit2: How are you picking which version (desktop/mobile) to show? Are you
doing some kind of sniffing, rather than relying on media queries? I'm not
getting the version I expect when I change the viewport's size in my DevTools:
Chrome always gives me the mobile version in responsive mode, while Firefox
always gives me the desktop layout unless I spoof a device's user agent
string...

~~~
bigge
Ouch, that's a nasty bug in firefox.. Will try to solve it asap.

Right now I need to serve slightly different markup depending on mobile or
desktop, so I can't rely solely on media queries. I will however try to move
it that direction once I figured a few things out.

Thanks for your feedback!

------
GFischer
My mom has started several businesses (short attention span!) and so I've
tried Unbounce, Squarespace, GoDaddy pages, various WordPress hosts (HostGator
and BlueHost and others)...

This one looks like it's going for the Squarespace/Wix market.

I think what matters the most in that space is getting out of the box with a
very nice looking template - Squarespace excels there! (heck, their current
landing page says "Make it beautiful"). And they have a nice logo creator.

This one doesn't seem to have that much design in it. On the plus side, it
does say "No signup to try out" (that's a huge plus, hope spammers don't abuse
it) and "simplest", which is what I expect your target audience to like.

Edit: on the builder, I think you should emphasize starter templates more.

------
howitworks
You should let the user go through the entire process of creating the page
before you ask for money. Then they have the extra desire of wanting their
finished thing.

(I started building a site and put in a form, only to be told that was a paid
thing. Closed the whole thing and immediately came to write this.)

~~~
icahnvalyou
I would be so mad if I put in the effort to build everything only to be pay-
walled at the end. Just, livid.

~~~
billmalarky
I mean, you don't "spring it" on the user at the end. You say something like
"try full features now for free! If you build something you like keep it for
low low price of....."

It's an effective way of removing friction.

------
diaz
This is how the page looks on firefox on android
[http://imgbox.com/i6mbiHi5](http://imgbox.com/i6mbiHi5)

Doesn't seem expected.

Android 8 + firefox 58.0. 2 + https everywhere & ublock origin extensions.

~~~
bigge
Uh oh, thanks for reporting that.

------
joelrunyon
I've found carrd.co to be a great version of this. Super-simple templates. I
think they allow more than one page, but very clean layouts.

~~~
ohmichel
Yeah, maybe $39 a year is pretty much if you compare it with carrd.co

------
Santosh83
The world is increasingly composed of computing devices that stay on 24 hours
a day. Long gone are the days when only servers used to do this. Now most
desktops have ~90% uptime while mobile devices are almost at 100%. Combine
that with ever increasing, cheap bandwidth, I think the time is ripe more than
ever for hosting your own simple, low traffic services including websites. The
only obstacle here is that there still no simple setup wizard that can make
them painless to host and take down, with a few clicks. A package that
combines a simple, secured web server with a site builder.

~~~
yoshyosh
Totally agree, have you heard of [http://ipfs.io](http://ipfs.io)? What you
describe will be the new norm due to the advances blockchain is enabling for
the distributed web

------
beders
It's a good start. However, seemingly only tested on Chrome.

After playing around with it for a few minutes, I found some issues:

On Firefox, from a Clean State, add a Row, add Text, click H2, type some text,
hit space, try to type more text: the space disappears

On Chrome: I don't seem to have full control over text spans. While I can use
b/I/U/S on the current text selection, I was unable to set any other style
attributes just for the selected text (i.e. what should boil down to a span
tag), i.e. I wanted different colors for parts of my text.

Keep on hacking and I hope you'll have success!

------
elliotec
This is the kind of thing I wish I thought of right when I saw it.

These naysayers are silly. The amount of investment you put into it will
undoubtedly be offset by the passive income you generate with it, not to
mention the fun/learning you did while building it.

~~~
bigge
Thanks a lot for your kind words! And you're right, it was a fun experience
just to build it, if I can make some money from it - even better!

------
dom96
Does anything stop me from building my page, copying the HTML and hosting it
myself?

~~~
thinkloop
I can't think of any way that could be possible. In the end people who are
comfortable enough to rip the source and setup/maintain hosting probably
wouldn't need the service.

------
fibbery
Found a typo / grammatical mistake: Icons is an essiental part of modern web
design. -> "Icons are an essential..."

~~~
bigge
Thanks

------
WillPostForFood
Can’t watch the video on an iPhone, “The requested video is not allowed to be
played in embedded players.”

Also, going directly to lonelypage.io doesn’t work.

------
jgautsch
Pretty nice. I'm still in the market for a good lander builder.

initial feedback:

\- I can't figure out how to change the image in a template, close to giving
up

\- more templates please

\- and maybe more content in the templates (easier fill in or delete content
than to figure out how to add new sections and content)

\- I didn't read site that closely (who does), do I get the generated html
etc? I'd like to host myself

\- the "pick a palette" is great

~~~
bigge
Hey, thanks for your feedback! \- Yes, changing an image defo needs be
clearer. \- More templates are coming. \- Self-hosting is not an option for
now, but I obviously need to state that out. However, I think people here on
HN are more eager to host themselves. A "normal" user probably wants that
taken care of.

~~~
thinkloop
> A "normal" user probably wants that taken care of.

For sure, no need to worry about that!

------
ohmichel
Pretty sick! I'll be using a pro plan for a new project. BTW, gradients not
working in mobile.

~~~
bigge
Cool, feel free to get in touch if you need any help. What mobile OS is that?

------
russ_ross
This is actually perfect. Needed a super quick landing page creator and you
nailed it. If you're going to make changes then recommend you develop an API
for page creation, perhaps a Zapier integration. Otherwise good on you!

~~~
bigge
Thanks a lot, glad you like it!

------
superasn
I can't load the website. All I see is this :/

[https://i.imgur.com/NONTuSs.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NONTuSs.jpg)

~~~
F_r_k
Maybe activate js ?

~~~
superasn
I haven't disabled JS neither do i have any extension besides uBlock origin
that would change the DOM.

Am I the only one having this problem? Because except this website I don't
have trouble browsing any other.

P.S: I'm using Chrome Version 64.0.3282.186 (Official Build) (64-bit)

~~~
qplex
I also get a rather empty page on Firefox. Running uBlock Origin, but I've
disabled JavaScript too.

Reading this far to comments I've gathered it's some sort of landing page
generator?

I wish people would at least include a short description that one could read.

Too many submission to HN just land you on an empty page if you don't feel
like executing their JS. I wish they would just put an accurate description to
the submission as well.

I usually just skip and move on but I guess the address was enough to poke
additional interest this time around.

------
kristerv
Cool site. If it'll go down anything like my own you'll get 30'000 views and
like 3 buys, but no recurring revenue. You may be interested to read my
experience: [http://code.krister.ee/mybest-project-so-far-shutting-it-
dow...](http://code.krister.ee/mybest-project-so-far-shutting-it-down/)

Don't think twice about contacting me :)

~~~
bigge
Interesting read, thanks for the link.

~~~
GFischer
Absolutely agree with "STOP building things and START TALKING TO CUSTOMERS."

------
wojo1206
Cool editor, Undo/Redo is missing. I made similar SPA for other project and
implement this feature in Redux pattern was a breeze

~~~
bigge
Thanks! Undo/redo is available as soon as you sign up, but not in test mode.

------
guico
Nice work!

Some usability feedback: Adding a new element to the page (+) is the first
action and it was hard for me to find it. It's likely also one of the most
frequent functions you'll use, so I think this button should have way more
relevance, at least on the same level as "Save".

~~~
bigge
Great feedback, thanks a lot!

------
greggarious
This doesn't seem to render well without enabling Javascript, which gets a
failing grade in my book.

~~~
neiled
I would suggest that, in 2018, you are in the minority.

------
lbj
Reminds me a bit of SabreCMS, despite the options being much more limited. And
Sabre allows a full export of your entire site/shop/landingpage in case you
want to self host after building - And it works with all browsers which seems
to be an issue here. But nicely done.

------
swlkr
You could try to compete with this guy:
[https://www.sitebuilderreport.com](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com)

He realized the world didn't want another site builder, so he just reviews all
of the existing site builders. Pretty genius.

------
r0fl
Great job! Very intuitive design. Much better than the majority of services I
have tried before for simple pages I've wanted to put out.

Once a page is built and live, can the user then save the HTML and host it on
their own server? (leaving the by: lonelypage logo at the bottom)

~~~
bigge
Thank you, glad to hear that! There's no way to export or download the page
right now. I didn't expect that to be a requested feature to be honest. Maybe
in the future, we'll see.

------
explodingcamera
It's really discouraging that not even your own started page doesn't support
SSL...

~~~
TomK32
Recently move a bigger webapp to AWS elasticbeanstalk, I had to add a few
lines to redirect from http to https. We still have a long way to go.

In case of [https://lonelypage.io](https://lonelypage.io) the cert isn't for
the correct domain....

------
ThomPete
Great start!

Now if I were to give you one piece of advice I would say, find a niche or a
couple of niche industries that have specific needs and sell to them.

This can be anything from setting up an event and taking payment for it to
creating a local sports group.

~~~
bigge
Thanks, that's some good advice, I definitely believe in finding niche groups
as well. Often, it's not the ones you think of initially.

------
cabalamat
When I type in text, it doesn't remember spaces, for example:
[http://spacesmissing.lonelypage.io/](http://spacesmissing.lonelypage.io/)

~~~
bigge
Problem fixed, it was a strange CSS issue in firefox only. Thanks for
reporting.

------
sajithdilshan
Why not use github pages?

------
pkapur86
i came back to HN to thank you for putting this service. As a product manager
often times i want to test ideas and i was able to put together something that
looks nice using your product within an hour. I customized a template but the
tools were pretty intuitive. It was so easy and pain-free that i immediately
wanted to prototype another idea but seems i can only do one per account.
Anyways, thanks and keep up the good work.

------
Teichopsia
Looks good. Still haven't had my coffee so this is all you are getting. Sorry.

The submit form zooms in on mobile (iOS). To avoid that the font size needs to
be set at 16px.

------
kristofferc
Small bug with the text field:
[https://imgur.com/N7SVdMp](https://imgur.com/N7SVdMp)

~~~
bigge
What browser is that?

~~~
kristofferc
Chrome on macOS. Write something in text field and deselect it.

------
doubleocherry
I've been looking at something like this to host a landing page for a book I
wrote years ago. Great work, I'll give it a try.

~~~
bigge
Cool! Feel free to get in touch if you need any help.

------
dylanpyle
The page builder tool is seriously impressive. I love that you've even covered
things like image filters (blur, contrast, etc)

~~~
bigge
Thanks, I tried to focus on the small bits as well as the big ones. I hope it
pays off.

------
blumomo
Did you forget the most important on your page?

Where's the button create my own page? How can I test your product? Is your
product scam?

~~~
bigge
Maybe click the big button that says "Try LonelyPage now!" ? Otherwise I'm
afraid it's scam, you got me.

------
paulcnichols
Couldn’t figure out how to sign up

~~~
bigge
There's a button in the upper right corner that says "Save page". Click it,
and you will sign up and save your page at the same time.

------
TomK32
Do a ICO or blockchain page generator for April 1st. I'm sure people will love
it :)

------
djstein
for all the posts on firefox bugs, on firefox 61 everything seems to be
functioning properly btw

------
monk_e_boy
How long will they be around? I'm kinda sick of putting up a page about some
random thing then a couple of years later its gone.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
I'm really looking forward to this kind of problem being solved by ipfs/dat

~~~
thinkingkong
How would it solve the problem?

~~~
aout
Well, since it's distributed / decentralized you wouldn't depend on a
particular company (or service). This way you wouldn't need to worry about it
being shut down.

~~~
magnetic
You would still depend on the constant availability of an origin for your
data.

IPFS is not magic in that regard: if whoever is your origin disappears, then
your data is likely to disappear at some point, especially if it's not super
popular.

There is no free lunch: you either become your origin yourself, or you pay
someone else to be.

~~~
aout
Though : would that lunch be as expensive as $10 per month or would it be
almost free like $0.1 per year ? I consider that to be pretty much free :)

~~~
magnetic
Here's a pricing example:
[https://www.keycdn.com/pricing](https://www.keycdn.com/pricing)

