Comment by Rakathos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Rakathos | Hacker News Reader

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My entire site design and copy have been a source of downright embarrassment. In fact, this week's "challenge goal" is a brand new home page, landing page and sales page design.

The copy itself is going to need to change to reflect the pivot from inventory to ERP, so happily "Inventory management without the suck" is going away.

> The "not interested" inversion of "contact us" is also pretty weird and announces that you expect people to not be interested.

Curiously, I thought this myself when I put it up. To this day, I can't fathom why I thought that was a good choice of words (or why I never changed it).

> Then as you scroll it's just a wall of text all the way to the end.

I had been experimenting with the "hybrid copy"[1] sales page that Joanna Wiebe of Copyhackers has been a proponent of. It's worked incredibly well for my actual landing pages, where a user knows what the product is about when they click whatever link or ad brought them there. However, I took it way too far by doing "hybrid copy" on the home page.

The new design I'm working on is going to be the classic home page with a brief overview of the product and a CTA linking to the "hybrid copy" features/tour page.

Edit: I neglected to mention that the "hybrid page" experiment resulted in a noticeable increase in new trials.

[1] http://copyhackers.com/2013/04/long-copy/

I hate to come off as a "life coach" type here, but you really need to stop coming off as being so negative and ashamed of yourself and your efforts.

I'd prioritize that over any amount of A/B testing at this point, since self confidence in yourself and your product will show through stronger than anything else at this point.

I'm a very proud person, and I'm proud of what I've accomplished. That being said, you're right about coming off as negative or ashamed. I don't actually feel that way about myself or my efforts, but I realize that it may not look that way over the internet.

In fact, I had intended the "downright embarrassment" bit as a joke. Still, thanks for pointing it out!

(I'm from Nebraska and you are from Iowa.)

I've noticed a slight difference in how we in the midwest talk compared to how the west coast (Seattle and SFO) talk. In particular, I'm not perturbed by the writing style and I see clearly a confident young man who is building experience. In the midwest, often, modesty and humility are required for most public conversations. One way to express that modesty is to be quiet (think 'tough cowboy'). Another way to is be self-deprecating (sometimes it comes across as false-modesty), which is what you do. And yet another is to talk about the other person or make small talk. It's something we all do from here. On the west coast, in contrast, there is a common desire to talk oneself up either by referencing a pedigree, accomplishments, or trajectory. As a simplifying stereotype these descriptions don't apply to all people or all the time.

I would take away two lessons from this discussion.

1) The midwest modesty we both use is somewhat foreign to other cultures. Don't feel like you have to change yourself, but, don't be surprised that different people will understand you differently.

2) Focus on the product before fixing any analysis or blog or other meta-startup thing!

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