$690 for an hour of design time | Hacker News Reader

$690 for an hour of design time

michaelinbeta.com

27 points_mtroy18 comments

That "hour" is obviously not a literal hour -- once you factor in the A/B testing, analysis and recommendations I'd expect you'd be taking up at least a day (if not two) of Michael's time.

It clearly says: "...you get an hour of my time to discuss..." This is just the human-to-human interaction portion of the plan. The test cases and reports are likely running all month. I have a similar retainer program where each client gets a day of my time per month for a pre-paid fee, in which I address specific concerns they have. That doesn't mean I only work one day per month on their systems as there are scheduled cron scripts and monitoring that run continuously. His explanation could be worded better.

Excellent take on the offering. You are correct, the tests are running automatically in the background all month.

"His explanation could be worded better." This is excellent feedback thank you.

He links to Visual Website Optimizer[1] as the A/B testing tool he will use. I haven't used VWO personally but based on their features page it's a point-and-click to change some visual details on the website. Install a javascript link and good to go. Again, haven't used the tool but doesn't seem like much work to me.

[1] http://vwo.com

Correct. VWO is a very simple tool to implement. The value in my offering is the design consultation.

That's correct. Once you factor in implementing the tests and analysis it will be around half a day to a full day's worth of effort.

And anyway, it's not out of line with what big companies charge when they rent out developers.

Yeah, if anything it's a bit under a half daily rate.

"each month you get an hour of my time" "Currently I’m limiting the service to four customers."

Is this for a new book, the 4 hour work month ?

"I also setup and run three A/B tests that align with your goal."

This title needs fixed. It is not in fact $690 for an hour of design time. It is $690 for an hour of discussion about a business and it's goals for their website, followed by setting up and running multiple A/B tests to advance those goals, followed by reporting on the results.

This is far more than an hour of work, and likely to be hugely valuable to his target market. EDIT: Assuming he's actually good at it, I have no idea who this is, so maybe maybe not. Nevertheless, title is wildly misleading.

EDIT 2: Apparently this was posted by OP. I'm confused now. "Show HN: Jar of Fireworks - A/B Testing as a Service" would have been more appropriate I think, and would have invited less trolls.

Hey clarky07,

I've reflected on your comments and have taken them onboard.

Initially I considered posting the actual product site to Show HN. The Show HN guidelines state that "Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread."

The product I've posted about is not something you can play with. Or maybe I've misunderstood the guidelines. Instead I thought the appropriate thing to do was to submit a post I had written about my thoughts on the product.

I admit that the title is somewhat borderline, I did consult the guidelines before posting. I've re-read the guidelines and believe that I should have considered the following more carefully: "If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

"Show HN: Jar of Fireworks - A/B Testing as a Service" would have been more appropriate I think, and would have invited less trolls."

I agree with this comment and believe that I've probably done myself some disservice by taking this path instead.

Thank you and I appreciate your comments.

Editorialized title should probably be renamed.

Good luck to you. I guess there's a lot of people out there with VC millions to waste.

It's not a waste if it measurably increases sales. And there's a money back guarantee.

Can you list 3 customers (hopefully in diverse industries) and the results (statistical and monetary). Discuss with your clients and speak in general terms about their business/industry if necessary.

Also, do you implement the HTML/CSS?

Why would someone actually worth this rate need to essentially cold call the internet?

Shouldn't a webpage trying to sell web design/user experience be attractive and engaging?

Can you describe your ideal client, along with why they should be drawn to your service other countless others?

-- Why would someone actually worth this rate need to essentially cold call the internet?

This product is essentially an MVP. I'm trying to gauge the demand of such a service. So far people love it and other people think its stupid. I've polarized the room. I think that's a good sign.

-- Shouldn't a webpage trying to sell web design/user experience be attractive and engaging?

Sure. I think that's relative. Once again this an MVP, but you didn't know that so fair comment - I'll take that hit. I'll probably invest more effort into the page design if the interest is there.

-- Can you describe your ideal client, along with why they should be drawn to your service other countless others?

I'd say my ideal client is a small to medium sized Saas or ecommerce site out of beta and are looking to grow. They have a clear idea of their objectives and need help implementing and measuring goals around these objective. They don;t have an in-house designer or design team. I know that is not the tightest description. I hope to tighten that up over the coming months.

Thank you for commenting.

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