Troy Ruediger

Upscribe — Email marketing & embeddable opt-in forms

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Upscribe is a simple email marketing tool. Send email newsletters, drip campaigns, and collect subscribers using embeddable opt-in forms.

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Fred Rivett
This is cool, I spotted it in the wild last week and added my first newsletter signup (with my first ever Medium referred signup!) earlier this week. Question: Have you been in contact with anyone at Medium? Is this something they approve of, or is it a slight hack on how they do things and there's potential they may shut it down? It's quite a big change for Medium to allow writers to gain value outside of its platform.
Joshua Anderton
@fredrivett thanks so much for trying Upscribe! Im so glad you like it. Very good question. Medium had to approve Upscribe so they are totally in the know and have been super supportive. They even mentioned Upscribe on three of their staff blogs in multiple languages. Really great team over there!
Fred Rivett
@joshuaanderton Wow, super interesting that they are happy with having an external setup to collect emails from Medium posts and not integrate anything themselves. Not that either route is right or wrong, just different paths and interesting to see they're going with letting outside developer(s) create a key feature here. Can I ask what the approval process looked like? I didn't even know there was such a thing.
Joshua Anderton
@fredrivett I know what you mean. I'm very excited that they're happy about it. Totally! There is a submission process to go through with Embed.ly (recently acquired by Medium) where each app is manually reviewed and then accepted or denied. Once accepted Medium uses the OEmbed framework to fetch custom content for the link you paste in your story (same concept as embedding a YouTube video).
Fred Rivett
@joshuaanderton Nice, appreciate the insights here Joshua. All the best with Upscribe, you've got a user here :)
Joshua Anderton
@fredrivett really appreciate that Fred, so happy to have you on board! Thanks for chatting! Will talk again soon I'm sure :)
Troy Ruediger
What an incredible tool, i'm really glad I found this. All you have to do is create a form and then copy and paste it into a medium post. You can also integrate with a number of different newsletter platforms like revue and mail chimp so all of the sign ups are automatically sent there! You can see an example of what it looks like on my most recent post: https://blog.starters.co/the-fir... (*PS Please hit that little heart button 💚 if you like it and if you want to keep up with whats happening in the sports tech industry I highly recommend subscribing to our newsletter! 😝)
Joshua Anderton
@troy_ruediger I'm so glad you find it valuable! Really appreciate that you posted it on Product Hunt as well. Starters is such an awesome service and you all are pumping out great content. Upscribe is a tool that allows you to build totally embeddable newsletter signup forms for Medium. The mission behind Upscribe was solely to build a tool that provided true value to email marketers and writers. I have had a ton of ideas in the past but my mentality was always "if I build something awesome, people will user it!" which is - almost always - wrong. Upscribe was built AFTER getting feedback from real email marketers. Originally it was not going to be for Medium at all, but it evolved and it will continue to evolve to be whatever our fantastic users need it to be. Here are a couple of live examples of embedded Upscribe forms: https://medium.com/behavior-desi... https://blog.yalabot.com/why-we-... Please let me know what you think of Upscribe in the comments below! Your opinion is so important to Upscribe's success. Thanks, Joshua
Joshua Anderton
@decision_ so glad to know your liking Upscribe so far! Thanks for the comments Erik!
Manuel Frigerio
I bloody love these products. Simple tools that solve one very specific need for a very specific niche. Great job guys! PS: For business model I think the form should be free and users pay to export the list. The bigger it is, the more it costs ;)
Joshua Anderton
@mnlfrgr I'm so glad you feel that way! I totally agree. Eventually Upscribe may serve additional purposes but for now, being this specific means we can focus on building something actually useful. Thanks for the suggestion! My worry with charging to export is that people can already integrate a service like Mailchimp and bypass the need to export. I also feel like it makes signing on to a brand new service a little less daunting when you know you can always just export your lists if you don't like the tool. Would love to know your thoughts on that though!
Manuel Frigerio
@joshuaanderton Fair play. You should ask yourself: where is the value here? IMHO, people can "survive" without that tool but if it's free to use they'll use it, they'll accumulate subscribers and eventually they'll want to do something with this mailing list. You can make the integration with third parties a paid add-on because that adds value (it saves time).
Joshua Anderton
@mnlfrgr I've definitely considered charging for the integration options (for all future users since our current users are used to having these features for free). I'm going to keep all this in mind (and in Trello) for when we role out the premium version in a week or so. Thanks again for your thoughts! Super helpful.
Antonis Tsagaris
This is very, very cool!!
Joshua Anderton
@antonis_tsagari thanks so much Antonis! I'm so glad you like it.
Antonis Tsagaris
@joshuaanderton You're welcome! It really is an amazing tool and a great idea. I have already created my first form. My question may be coming out of the left field but I really need to ask: how do I get to pay for this? I'd really like to show my appreciation in a monetary way. :) You deserve it!
Joshua Anderton
@antonis_tsagari I'm so glad you've already created a form! Thanks again! That means a lot! Actually I am launching a premium version very soon for a small monthly fee. I will absolutely be sure to let you know when it's available.
Austin Sandmeyer
This is really awesome! I think this will allow an immense amount of value! Way to go @Joshuaanderton!
Joshua Anderton
@as_austin that means a lot! Really appreciate that Austin!
Alan Cassinelli
Is it just me or does this make the page load really slow? Everything else on the page loads normally but the form takes another 4 or 5 seconds
Gorkem Cetin
@alancassinelli Not only you - I cannot see examples here (my network is okay) - and I cannot also embed this (I tried everything here). Help Joshua :)
Joshua Anderton
@alancassinelli thanks for mentioning this Alan! I will see if I can find out what slowing it down! Will get back to you on this asap.
Joshua Anderton
@gorkemcetin thanks for letting me know! I will take a look!
Joshua Anderton
@gorkemcetin @alancassinelli should be loading faster now! Let me know if your still having problems! :)
orliesaurus
I write a bit on Medium and some of my techy articles got many tens of thousands of views, which for me is a great objective considering everything (I ask my wife to do the spellchecking :*) , this is amazing! I always wanted to get a input form like Mailchimp gives me for websites, on Medium! I'm glad this got hunted :D
Joshua Anderton
@orliesaurus that's super exciting! What is your blog URL? I will be checking it out for sure! Hey man, gotta appreciate those supportive wives of ours! Thanks so much for the comment!
orliesaurus
@joshuaanderton I am co-editing restful.io - my personal one is my username @orliesaurus - yeah wives are 51% of our success!
Joshua Anderton
@orliesaurus awesome! Should see a follow from me shortly 😊. Lol yes at the very least!
Pablo De Miguel
@joshuaanderton congrats, love the idea and design! I'm trying to embed on form but I don't why is not working?
Joshua Anderton
@pmigueli thanks so much! You should see it pop up after you 1. paste in the link and 2. press enter/return (that triggers the embed). Let me know if you have any further issues! Here is a tutorial I wrote incase it helps at all! https://medium.com/@upscribe/hey...
Pablo De Miguel
@joshuaanderton @upscribe I'm sorry but it's not working (in my case). I did what you posted and nothing happened.
Joshua Anderton
@pmigueli it looks like there is a bit of trouble with our shortened URL right now. I've replaced it with the full URL (not much longer lol) and it should work for you now! Let me know!
Joshua Anderton
@dshan this should be working properly now. Let me know when you get a chance to test it out again!
bryan s arnold
Love the idea. Look forward to seeing how this evolves. It should definitely catch on for sure.
Joshua Anderton
@bryansarnold thanks so much! I'm also super excited to see where things go.
Ihor Stefurak
Nice micro-project, Joshua and the team. As i see you built it on Wordpress, but how?!
Joshua Anderton
@druh_opryshok thanks! Good observation! I used Wordpress for the initial prototype (a custom theme) as this allowed me to launch faster with less resources. I will continue to use WP for the sales front but the application will be standalone soon.
Ihor Stefurak
@joshuaanderton that's awesome. Did you write a lot of code or use some plugins? Also if you are going to write a post about the service would love to read a paragraph or two about the prototype. I'm a non-technical founder and also do a lot of work hacking services together.
Joshua Anderton
@druh_opryshok it was a fair bit of code. Not nearly what it would have been if I had started from scratch though. I have background in full stack developer and I got my start with Wordpress so it made sense to start there for this project. I would definitely recommend trying out a few Wordpress courses on @treehouse (teamtreehouse.com). I got into web development years ago because I was trying to find a developer who would partner with me on my first project and I was having zero luck. Wordpress gets your feet wet with PHP, JavaScript, HTML & CSS - without diving full on into any of them.
Alex Circei
Very cool! 1. Try to fix the login with FB. 2. How can add the form on my Medium posts? Do you have a tutorial?
Alex Circei
I've managed to find your tutorial https://medium.com/@upscribe/hey...
Joshua Anderton
@alex_circei thank you! Just fixed the FB login. Glad you found the tutorial. Let me know if you have any problems at all!
Alex Circei
@joshuaanderton Yes, You can help me, I've added the link on this post (with http:// and also with https://) and do not work - https://hackernoon.com/jeff-bezo...
Joshua Anderton
@alex_circei what is happening after you hit enter? Is there an infinite medium loading bar across the top of the page? Or is nothin happening at all?
Joshua Anderton
@alex_circei ok I think I found the issue. I've replaced the shortened URL with our full URL. Try refreshing the editor page and pasting the new URL. Let me know if it works for you!
leonidas varnavas
@joshuaanderton Great idea, and a definite upgrade for medium as a blogging platform. Great job, guys!
Joshua Anderton
@leanshot thanks so much Leo!
Ian Greenleigh
@bgadoci check this out, should we try it?
Joshua Anderton
@be3d would love it if you did! Thanks for checking us out :)
Oisin Ryan
This is one of those times when @producthunt pays you back for all the time spent distracted by some amazing new creation that maybe doesn't add value to your business. This solves one of the primary weaknesses of @medium in my opinion and it makes so much sense that they are open and supportive of third party devs with good ideas. The only thing that puzzles me is why they didn't do it themselves if they are happy to facilitate it??? Anyway great work @joshuaanderton! Added it to a few posts (e.g. https://medium.com/p/a2c4d5f3d13d)
Joshua Anderton
@redoisin thanks so much for the comment! I'm so glad you like Upscribe. Medium is such a great team. I'm super excited that we are able to offer this service for their awesome users.
Jose Niño Pérez
This. Is. Amazing. Great job @joshuaanderton!
Joshua Anderton
@jose_nino_perez thanks so much! Really appreciate the comment.
Michelle
Any thoughts on Medium's "Letter" functionality?
Joshua Anderton
@tunaroses hey! I am a huge fan of Medium Letters. It's a great way to get other Medium users to return to your blog, however it isn't accommodating for lists I've grown on Mailchimp for example.
Mikhail Levkovsky
Wow awesome! Way to change the playing field guys :)
Joshua Anderton
@mlovekovsky thanks Mikhail! Really appreciate your comment :)
Derek Shanahan
Very confused. Made form, forced to signup, says it'll be sent to me via email, and all I get is an email to sign in and create my first form. ??
Derek Shanahan
Also, lots of work without ever seeing what this actually looks like. Is there a preview or demo anywhere?
Joshua Anderton
@dshan thanks for letting me know Derek! I've just fixed this. Sorry about that! // you'll see he form as soon as you create one, from there you copy the link to embed on Medium. Let me know if you have any problems at all!
Derek Shanahan
@joshuaanderton Cheers! Thanks for the quick fix.
Joshua Anderton
@dshan no problem! Thanks for commenting Derek!
Andrew Neal
I have been using Upscribe for about two months now. It's been a wonderful experience and Josh has been great at reaching out and keeping things up-to-date. @joshuaanderton Congrats, bud! Happy to see you have finally made it to ProductHunt!
Joshua Anderton
@alarick91 thanks so much Andrew! Always happy to chat!
Grant
Looks great! Almost passed this up since I didn't see anything about integrations on the homepage. I was really surprised how many you already have. We'll definitely use this once you have Pardot up and running.
Joshua Anderton
@astrism we will get parrot integrated asap then! Will also add the integration list to the homepage 😄 thanks Grant!