

Ask HN: Please review my photos to coloring pages startup - dmarlovics

ReallyColor.com officially launched about a month ago (end of Sep 2013) and is being bootstrapped by one of my partners and I. Our tech let’s you convert your images into printable coloring book pages. Our primary target is parents (mostly moms) and people who are interested in turning themselves into sketches.<p>We are noticing a large amount of initial interest in the idea itself, and have seen some initial traction and traffic on our site, but our repeat visitors so far are barely over 10%. Our audience is also more international than expected. We have not built a mobile app yet, but that will be a project soon.<p>I would love feedback on:<p>1) Our membership pricing&#x2F;offerings and what you think about how we tell the user about it.<p>2) Whether a monthly premium membership would be better than an annual one. Keep in mind our international audience.<p>3) Other revenue generating ideas (other than advertising).<p>4) The general user experience (both creating the free coloring page and as a free member).<p>5) How a mobile app could play into this given that the coloring pages are printable (via PDF’s).<p>Any other thoughts and feedback are also welcome. Thank you!
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byoung2
Talk to your customers. Ask the 10% who are repeat visitors why they came
back. Ask the 90% who don't why they didn't come back. It could be that people
visit for the novelty but don't find value in a recurring subscription. Maybe
you have the wrong target market (maybe schools, daycare centers, or child-
oriented businesses like Gymboree or Chuck E Cheese would be better targets).
Also, printers suck...they waste paper and ink is expensive. I would try the
mobile app, but let me color directly on the app (I snap a picture on the
iPad, give it to my daughter, and let her fingerpaint on the screen, minus the
messy cleanup). Then offer a service to have the result professionally printed
on glossy paper, framed and shipped to me. There's a possible revenue stream.

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dmarlovics
Thanks for the feedback! It makes sense. I appreciate it.

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michaelstewart
When I first visited the homepage I felt overwhelmed with options. All those
links up the top could probably go to the footer. The main CTA should be that
"Get Started" button. Currently you've also got a sign up button which is a
bit confusing. (I know that you've got a little note explaining that they
don't have to sign up, but most people aren't going to read that.)

You really just want to show images of what it can do and get them to upload
an email and grab their email address, then you can ask them to sign up after
they've got their photo and you can also ask via email.

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dmarlovics
I agree with you and will try and see what we can do. Thanks for the feedback!

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techbubble
I regularly print coloring pages for my kids and the process is usually the
same: 1) they name a character, 2) I search Google images, 3) we scroll
through and pick 2-3 to print.

I asked them if they would want to use existing photos for coloring and they
didn't express any interest. I think I know why -- people and places (i.e.
most of the photos we have) are not as interesting to color as dragons,
fairies, favorite show characters etc.

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Toadsoup
A thought to that might be to overlay dragons, fairies, etc... over the image
from kids. (taken from a webcam?)

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dmarlovics
Something to consider for sure...thank you!

