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Cody Frederick

Cody Frederick

@spcoder

Nachobase.com Get Gabbin' SCORE-O-MATIC

Looks nice!!

I agree with @dannypostma above, but here's my two cents as well.

The fonts look good to me except maybe make them a point or two bigger.

The logo is Checkwise, but the title of the page is CheckWise. Personally, I like CheckWise better.

I think you should make the logo and navigation the same width as the content.

The white text on the yellow buttons are a bit hard to read.

I think you should show a few examples of how you'll communicate with others.

Thanks...Cody

Thanks Cody! Very helpful advice, much appreciated.

I had thought in the past about showing examples of how we'd communicate with the users, but it slipped out of my mind while designing this landing page. Thanks for reminding me of that, it makes a lot of sense to add it.

You might use the exact same font as your logo. Or, if your app is targeting casual users, then maybe choose rounded fonts. For trying to convey a sense of professionalism, then choose fonts that are more square. Does that help?

That helps, thank you! :)

Hey Cody, I've applied some of your tips here: checkwise.io/home-2
I've just submitted it to be roasted here in WIP. Thanks again for the advice!

Thanks!!

I haven't gotten that far yet, but the architecture I have designed allows users to expand storage instantly.

The plan is that the MVP would only cater to personal projects, etc.

The concept of Nachobase grew because I have several personal projects that don't need much storage, and I didn't want to purchase and stand up, both a database and API for simple stuff.

I have a couple IoT projects that save sensor data and a few scripts on my computer that I would love to store historical results. With Nachobase, I could buy a database and API for super cheap, and then start saving data right away. Shell scripts could use curl to create records, etc.

Another key to Nachobase is that there won't be vendor lock-in. The long-term vision is a data export and an open-source tool that exposes the same RESTful API.

Also, I'm not a fan of Google Firebase because well, Google.

Personally, I think I'd need the following features for a landing page.

  • Custom branding
  • No automatic page-turning; thus, no timer
  • I need to see how people interacted-with/answered my questions.
  • I want to build a tree of answers that lead to other questions, maybe even other Once stories.
  • I need to be able to capture their email.

How far along are you? You might already have these features, so I might be saying things you already know. 😁

I'd say we're right in the middle of addressing these features:

  • Custom branding, data visualisation & ability to capture an email: all these features are integrated in our beta
  • No timer: done for desktop view but we've kept it for an IG-like mobile view
  • Build a tree of answers...: in our roadmap!

Thks for this great feedback!

I'm okay with paying while influencers don't. That's how the world works. Police officers often don't pay for meals. It's a thank you for the value the customer brings that other customers don't.

I also think some customers bring value to the platform in ways other than being an influencer who deserve rewards. Early adopters, substantial contributors, etc.

You might be able to implement this such that customers who receive a certain number of claps per week/month/quarter/year receive a particular reward or achievement. This could allow the community itself to choose who the valuable members are.

Thanks for asking us!

One idea I've been thinking about is the idea of Reddit Gold. Perhaps every (paying) member could gift a month of free membership to someone else, every month. Then members who are specifically helpful, could earn enough free months to basically have a free membership forever.

And people who don't want or can afford $20/mo on a recurring basis could still pay $20 for the first month and aim to earn free months from there on out.

Of course I'd need to consider how this would change the dynamics of the community, revenue numbers, ways to prevent cheating, etc. But it's an interesting concept.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this myself.

Here's what I've done in the past (for better or worse).

Browse around Google Fonts for hours looking for the perfect font for my brand, and ultimately just deciding on Open Sans or Lato.
Steal a font stack from another site that looks good. There's no shame in this; everything's a remix.
Use a system font stack. This is becoming very common these days. I believe Github, Medium, Wordpress all use this technique. Here's an article about system font stacks. css-tricks.com/snippets/css/s…

Personally, I would recommend option #3 for the body text of your site. Then, pick a heading font that closely aligns with your brand. Don't use more than two different fonts, and remember that content is king.

Thanks Cody! Very useful answer. But, how would you "pick a heading font that closely aligns with your brand"? How have you approached this step in the past?

ps "everything is a remix" is probably my favorite sentence ever

You might use the exact same font as your logo. Or, if your app is targeting casual users, then maybe choose rounded fonts. For trying to convey a sense of professionalism, then choose fonts that are more square. Does that help?

That helps, thank you! :)

Hey Cody, I've applied some of your tips here: checkwise.io/home-2
I've just submitted it to be roasted here in WIP. Thanks again for the advice!

I like the idea, and it looks great, but I'm not sure how I would use it.

We, as creators, want to tell everyone about all the features we've built, but we should remember the perspective of our audience.

I'm a complete marketing newbie. So, my recommendation would be to include examples that I can browse through, which are accompanied by an explanation of the behavior these stories are trying to drive.

Seeing the tool being used to create an outcome would help me understand the value proposition.

Many thanks for your answer & glad you like the idea 😁

Actually, my goal here was to test the "Landing Page" use case - Do you think it gets the job done? Would you consider using a Once story for your own landing page?

About outcomes, I have beta users using Once for:
- User Research beta.once.app/play/ck3iwtk37r…
- Lead Generation beta.once.app/play/ck5fgtjy4k…
- Customer Success beta.once.app/play/ck0dzs17e0…

I'd say the common VP is "Engage your audience with style"

But you're right: it's still too generic - actually I'm looking for user feedback to better understand which use case brings more value!

Would be great to have your views on that!

Personally, I think I'd need the following features for a landing page.

  • Custom branding
  • No automatic page-turning; thus, no timer
  • I need to see how people interacted-with/answered my questions.
  • I want to build a tree of answers that lead to other questions, maybe even other Once stories.
  • I need to be able to capture their email.

How far along are you? You might already have these features, so I might be saying things you already know. 😁

I'd say we're right in the middle of addressing these features:

  • Custom branding, data visualisation & ability to capture an email: all these features are integrated in our beta
  • No timer: done for desktop view but we've kept it for an IG-like mobile view
  • Build a tree of answers...: in our roadmap!

Thks for this great feedback!

I think this is a great question!

There are probably a million suggestions to offer on this subject, and ultimately it's going to be a different answer for each person. But, here's my two cents.

The key to everything is staying motivated and positive. Without those two things, you'll struggle to maintain the necessary energy to finish a product.

I wake up every morning before the rest of my family and code for 2 hours. This time is absolutely precious, and you might be surprised how much work you can accomplish with quiet, focused time. Not everyone is a morning riser, but you must find a time in which your body and mind can get into a groove.

Relax and accept that things will take longer than if you worked at it for 8 hours straight like a full-time job. You're not a failure if your side-project is moving slower than the products you're building at work.

Instead of cutting corners, build fewer features. Cutting corners feels like that means you're sacrificing quality, and your customers deserve a quality product. I think customers appreciate more straightforward products over complex products anyway. Gather early feedback from trusted customers about what's working and what to build next. You'll also strengthen your relationship with your customers by listening to them and tailor-making your product to their needs.

I completely agree with your #4 topic. I think developers experiment too much because of the fear of missing out. Use the tools that make you the most productive and build a toolkit that helps you be productive. For instance, keep iterating on snippets, develop your own personal library of functions that help you work with strings, dates, UI controls, etc. These can help you in your full-time job too. A useful toolkit is one where you're not solving the same issues twice. If your career takes a turn towards different languages and tools, then rebuild your kit and continue chugging away.

I think there's more to unpack here, but those are my two cents, and hopefully, they help a little.

Great answer. Thanks for sharing Cody 🙌

I like the logo and site design. I also enjoy the simplicity of it all. I think your product differentiator is that it's just you, and I feel like I'm getting white-glove service instead of a pre-canned email that everyone else might receive.

My first recommendation would be to use grammerly.com to proof your copy. It's a fantastic tool that I use all the time.

I would also recommend that you somehow highlight that these emails are tailor-made for me and that I might get an advantage by hearing about these offers first. I know you call these out in your benefits section; however, I feel like they deserve their own heading because it's a relevant product differentiator.

The "How It Works" navigation link goes to a benefits section that doesn't clearly identify how it works. Maybe add a step 1,2,3 section that describes how I signup, what you'll do, and how I use the service?

Maybe call out how frequently I'll receive these emails. I know it's in the signup form; however, I found myself trying to find this information in the benefits section first.

The twitter link (twitter.com/abinaya_codes) in the "No Evil Corp" section is broken.

The headers on the FAQ section aren't aligned. Maybe use a table or CSS grid to make them aligned.

Maybe get rid of the hyphens in front of the words in your footer links?

Nice job! If you need anything else, please feel free to contact me.

what job board newsletter are you referring to? also, how much does a sponsorship cost, how will it appear in the newsletter, and what is the timing?

i'm working on a product (nachobase.com) that might appeal to hobbyist / bootcamp / no cs degree developers.

hey Cody, thanks. Can I send you a DM on telegram? My username is petecodes - I couldn't seem to find you in WIP .