Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

Hello HN peeps.

I would like to invite you to a little experiment.

I have created probably the smallest niche app on the mac app store and I would like you to help me sell and optimize the marketing around it.

Now you might think, "who does this guy think he is? – doesn't he know I have my own business to run?" and you are right it would be unfair to just ask you to help me market my product.

So instead I would like to offer you something in return:

Each month I am going to post all the numbers and the learnings. But more importantly each month you can post suggestions to improvements and strategies and each month those with the highest number of votes will get implemented (within reason of course)

It is my hope that this will be a case study for people to learn from before they venture out into spending money and time on something similar themselves or for people who find this stuff interesting.

The product is done in the spirit of the small butique network weekendhacker.net I started in May So far have +6100 members and have had 150 projects through and is still going strong. And the things I learned from members of the HN community have been invaluable.

Now this is of course just an experiment. Maybe I will break even, maybe I won't. Maybe I will have to cancel it within a couple of months. But none the less I am certain it will both be informative and fun.

Oh and yes you can move the slider on the webpage :)

So what do you think the first round of improvements should be?

The landing page is stunning. Who is responsible for the design?

I did myself. And thanks :)

nice site. there is a small typo you can fix in the "Manual" section.

> "Precision Speed The lower the percentage the more accurate your mouse become."

should be:

"Precision Speed The lower the percentage the more accurate your mouse becomes."

the "become" was missing an s.

You also might consider making the toggle switch, for the key mode, more self documenting.

Nice presentation overall.

With Firefox 6 there is an extra space after the footer.

I wish I had a need for the app because it looks just so beautiful, and the website is stunning and does an amazing job of describing it as well.

Looks great. You should create a template out of it, many Mac app devs (myself included) would buy it.

Do you really have a registered trademark already? If not, you should remove the registered trademark symbol.

There is no live registered trademark in the US for "Final Touch" or "FinalTouch" in a relevant class. There was one in the computer software field from 1992 that has since been abandoned.

The proper way to indicate a claim to mark by usage is to use the "TM" (trademark) or "SM" (service mark) designation which indicates a common-law or state law mark. This is also the proper designation if you have filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) but the mark has not yet been granted registration.

You can only legally use the federal registration symbol "®" after the USPTO actually registers a mark, and not while an application is pending or based on common law rights.

Nathan, good eye. It seemed unlikely that such a new and niche app had taken the step of federal registration, much less done so long enough ago to be registered.

+1 for removing the trademark ® symbol.

I love the design! It's fantastic. And I can see this app being super-useful. Congrats, I think this one's gonna be a home run!

Just tweeted it out. I've got mostly designer followers so hopefully it boosts you a bit! It got >100 clicks in the first minute so now we'll see if you get some sales :)

Dude thnx and love your writing btw.

and now you have another designer follower ;)

re: idea about sharing the info that's great, so I want it to be successful.

From a (potential) customer point of view, to increase the precision of my mouse, I simply zoom in in p/shop or illustrator. Being able to go from pixel to pixel not zoomed in doesn't matter to me because I can't see that small anyway!

Maybe I will break even, maybe I won't. Maybe I will have to cancel it within a couple of months. But none the less I am certain it will both be informative and fun.

I'm curious, what support costs do you have that would require you to cancel?

I was more thinking about the "experiment" of posting the numbers. If there are no numbers to write about :)

Great idea for an experiment. I'm make sure to highlight it in this weeks Hacker Newsletter.

In Firefox 6 on Mac the slider knob jumps up and down to avoid the mouse when you move it.

thnx will have a look at that

I really love TragicMouse, aside from its glaring acceleration issues. I am going to try this app!

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