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  • What's the hardest part about creating a landing page for you? 🤬

    Alexey Shashkov
    64 replies
    Hey guys! It's Alex again. 🙂👋 Eric Migicovsky (@ericmigi) says that the best startups are looking for problems that people face on a regular basis or that they're painful enough to warrant solving. I would want to talk about specifics around the problem area that I'm trying to solve. Can you tell me about the hardest part of creating a landing page for you?

    Replies

    Michael Yagudaev
    A Couple of years back, you could get a great template from ThemeForest and you would be on your way. These days the starting point is a bit more fragmented. For non-coders, there are tools like SquareSpace, WebFlow, Wix, etc. They have great templates. For coders like me, those tools are extremely annoying and frustrating to use. The learning curve to do what I already know with HTML + CSS just with the new tool is painful. I tried and gave up on them. There is no marketplace of templates for Next.js projects as far I saw. Frankly, I didn't even realize it was called a "Landing Page". As a developer, I simply called it the "Marketing Website". There is another assumed terminology like CTA which might not be obvious if you never built a landing page. As others said copy + images was really hard. It was also really hard to determine the structure to use. I tried to be too creative with it. Instead, I learned that copying the working formula actually leads to better UX and align with user expectations better.
    Michael Yagudaev
    Copy.AI, Undraw, Unsplash and other templates on WebFlow were a huge help in creating my landing page
    Alexey Shashkov
    @michael_yagudaev Hey Michael. What a detailed response! Thx. You said: « I learned that copying the working formula actually leads to better UX and aligns with user expectations better.» I understand that that's the best practice for you today, right?
    Alexey Shashkov
    @michael_yagudaev What don't you love about these solutions?
    Michael Yagudaev
    @shashcoffe Correct, I just look at what others are doing. There is a simple structure everyone follows and it works really well.
    Michael Yagudaev
    @shashcoffe that they are not all in one place. It would be good to have them all integrated. A generative design solution like: "tell me about what you are trying to do" and you write a little about your product idea. It then pulls all these tools together and generates a design options. Very similar to working with a designer + copywriter. You build the brief and then work with them to finish it. If that was automated to a degree that would be amazing!
    Nurlan Nurmanov
    The World's first MVP marketplace
    The World's first MVP marketplace
    The wording is the most difficult part. I wonder how genius copywriters deliver the message using simple words. For inspiration have a look at this thread https://twitter.com/jmoserr/stat...
    Alexey Shashkov
    @nurlan_nurmanov Hi, Nurlan. Why is that hard for you? Have you already tried solutions like «copy.ai» to try to solve that problem?
    Florian Buguet
    Connector Catalog by Whaly
    Connector Catalog by Whaly
    Try to make it very clear 1/ What you do (without overwhelming the visitor solely with features) -> particularly tough when you have a large product or service offering 2/ What kind of problem you solve 3/ Who is your typical user 4/ Highlight some examples of how your existing clients are using you I feel like everything above mentioned should be very simple, right? But when you actually try to put that with clear/short messages, understandable by anyone on a one-pager, it becomes a nightmare 🙃
    Alexey Shashkov
    @flobbgt Hey Florian. Totally! That's a really common problem. When I try to put that with clear and short messages it becomes a nightmare, yeah=) The landing page of whaly.io is looking pretty clear and understandable. What have you done to solve that problem?
    Florian Buguet
    Connector Catalog by Whaly
    Connector Catalog by Whaly
    @shashcoffe We iterated 5 times on it with new versions, also Emilien our CEO is pretty good with design. We also asked for a lot of feedbacks from our prospects and customers
    Alexey Shashkov
    @flobbgt It's really cool when there is a team member with design skills, and the team knows how to iterate based on the user's feedback. Thank you for sharing it, Florian. 🙌🙂
    Surender Singh
    Boiling down our value prop into an attractive copy was a challenge. Finding the right graphics that go along with the copy/message also took time.
    Johannes Grenzemann
    YC Application Optimizer
    YC Application Optimizer
    @surender_singh I would agree with Surender. Many of my problems are often around boiling down many aspects into one sentence our finding the „right words“ to describe sth… An area where you don’t get so much help in the moment…
    Alexey Shashkov
    @surender_singh @jgrenzemann Surender, Johannes, thank you for your replies, guys! I really appreciate it. But can you tell me about the last time you encountered that hardest part and why was that hard?
    Johannes Grenzemann
    YC Application Optimizer
    YC Application Optimizer
    @surender_singh @shashcoffe sure. Every 2 weeks, when I create a new landing page.. why is it hard? Because it is difficult to quantity various aspects (correctness, readability, compellingness) of a text and find a textual solution that satisfies all these… a tool that could rate one of these dimensions already would be cool…
    Alexey Shashkov
    @jgrenzemann Wow! Every 2 weeks you create a new landing page. It's so often, you know! Why do you create landing pages so often? And what, if anything, have you done to try to solve the problem (quantifying various aspects)?
    Johannes Grenzemann
    YC Application Optimizer
    YC Application Optimizer
    @shashcoffe well experimenting with different customer segments/usecases/features/stories is just part of the natural way startup work, isn't it? And currently I'm mostly working with qualifying (how do you like/feel/think about xyz)...
    Surender Singh
    We are currently in the process of completely overhauling our website. So facing this these days. Will you review our new design? Might give you some idea about where we are struggling. Also i'll get your feedback.
    Alexey Shashkov
    @surender_singh Of course, Surrender, I can review your new design! It's pleasure of mine. If you want we can have a zoom call and brainstorm on it a little. What do you think?
    Baotri Nguyen
    Cultivate SmartSend
    Cultivate SmartSend
    Keeping things simple and staying true to our product's value prop and mission. I find myself over complicating the message or sounding too salesy.
    Alexey Shashkov
    @baotri Hey Baotri! Why is that hard for you?
    Jack Thomas
    Design a plan for Creating landing page
    Alexey Shashkov
    @jack_thomas5 Hey Jack! Can you tell me about the last time you faced that problem and why is that hard for you?
    Mayank Mishra
    choosing the right platform!
    Alexey Shashkov
    @mishra_mayank Hey Mayank. I'm glad to see you again in the comments=) I think we're meeting here every day=) You said "choosing the right platform!". I’m very interested in how you do that. Tell me about the last time you faced that problem? Why was that hard? What platform did you choose and why? What have you done to choose the right platform?
    Mayank Mishra
    @shashcoffe I'm constantly trying new nocode platforms and it becomes confusing which one to stick to, they all have something good but missout something else.
    Alexey Shashkov
    @mishra_mayank Which one of the latter no-code platforms did you like most?
    Nik Hazell
    Zappi Ad Predictor
    Zappi Ad Predictor
    Good question @shashcoffe! I built a landing page for an offering that's related to, but separate from, the main company. We found it incredibly difficult to work out how "stand-alone" it should be, and how much we should rely on or avoid the context of the "parent" landing page. On one hand, the landing page should work 100% on its own - but equally, the parent brand is pretty strong, so maybe we should rely on it a bit!
    Alexey Shashkov
    @nik_hazell Hi Nik. This is a pretty specific problem. Interesting! Can you tell me about the last time you encountered that problem and what have you done to try to solve that?
    Mitchell Orme
    I think it's putting yourself into the headspace of a user who is seeing your product for the first time. You're aware of your product's capabilities, it'll likely bleed into your copy and display. The goal is trying to get yourself to make the value prop to someone who doesn't maybe understand the context, the problem and how you solve it. Doing that quickly, clearly and appealing is a challenge
    Alexey Shashkov
    @mitchell_orme Hey Mitchell. Thanks for your good answer. I appreciate it! Can you tell me about the last time you encountered that problem and what have you done to try to solve that?
    Mitchell Orme
    @shashcoffe At this stage we're currently re-working all our landing page copy for a switch to a new website platform. Having all the features, the solutions and a simple value prop to perfectly present to the customer is an evolving process. We're often trying to simplify the messaging. Feel free to see how it looks now, our company is called Upflowy
    Alexey Shashkov
    @mitchell_orme Mitchell, your website looks pretty good! The copy is clear, and the design is beautiful. Why did you decide to re-working all your landing page copy and switch to a new website platform?
    Mitchell Orme
    @shashcoffe At this stage, we were looking for a platform where we could make small changes really quickly, working in alignment with our product as a no-code platform, rather than rely on a dev/IT team. Additionally, we weren't seeing the ideal conversion on our site from the traffic that we were receiving, so we wanted to better communicate our value prop and the benefits that Upflowy provides.
    Alexey Shashkov
    @mitchell_orme Ok, I see. And what new website platform you chose for switching?
    Julia Doronina
    For us the hardest thing is to describe our solution in a short form because we do have not a simple product for understanding, so we need to find out and test how to simplify our solution with graphics for instance, or short videos. And additionally, we have technology as the main part of our company but besides that, we have a product, and it's hard to understand which of them we should present first on our landing page to attract users' attention
    Alexey Shashkov
    @julia_demyanchuk Hi Julia. 👋🙂 Leaksid looks very cool, you know! That's a fairly common problem, and it needs an intelligent solution. Tell me about the last time you faced that problem and what have you done to try to solve it?
    Karina Skrinnik
    I created several landing pages from scratch and the hardest thing I faced was the embodiment of all my visual ideas in such way that users feel comfortable using the site and they can understand the main value of proposed product.
    Alexey Shashkov
    @karina_skrinnik Hi Karina. Thx for the answer. Why is that hard for you?
    Amanda Tunner
    Hi, personally I think it's responsive web design and I'm having problem with it 😔
    Alexey Shashkov
    @amanda_tunner Hi, Amanda. Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it. Can you tell me about the last time you encountered that problem with responsive web design and why was that hard?
    Amanda Tunner
    @shashcoffe I struggled with navigation while building a landing page for my app 2 weeks ago. Some buttons were not displayed at the right position and I finally found out that was because of the grid between devices
    Alexey Shashkov
    @amanda_tunner OMG, Amanda, which solution do you use?