Kissmetrics Blog

You could have stopped after the first sentence, that was the useful part. Not sure many here need a lesson on the nature of startups, how Adwords works or how Google dominates the market.

You're right that if you can't get the £50 to show some promise it's not worth spending more - but you blame Google for not getting it to work, when they actually give you all the tools to sort out a cheap and efficient campaign yourself. It might not be 100% perfect, but if you consider why that is and the amount Google are doing behind the scenes, then go on to work around the constraints, you'd probably not need to blame them for your (generous) free credit running out with no profit.

So you're bootstrapping another startup; why use startup B to fund startup A? Especially when startup B is in a highly competitive market. The current best practice seems to be to do 'customer development' (look up Steve Blank) or to basically validate your market before launch, during launch and then get paying customers ASAP. So why not just ditch cutpricedhotels (which is a spelling mistake, btw, unless intentional - agree with other commenter on domain name for that reason - another sign of a lack of attention to detail) and focus on your main startup? Get it paying for you?

Perhaps to get that going you could try putting up some real cash (now you know how not to do it) and testing the market for a landing page on dashoot.com. I came across a decent roundup of things to do for a profitable Adwords…

I know you say you're not the idea guy, but that's basically how this comes off. Kudos for putting yourself out there to get advice and feedback though. Not knowing much about your background, here's everything I would tell a non-technical person who wants to do a startup (as a non-technical person doing a startup myself):

Ideas are worthless until they're validated. Get out, talk to customers in a market that you think you can make an impact in. If it's something that you care about, are knowledgeable in, or if there's a problem that pisses you off that you think you could solve with your startup, those are good places to start. Still test in the market though, because you're only one data point. In the words of Steve Blank (go read everything by him), get out of the building! ...or at least get on the phone to start.

If you're trying to build something that appeals to the general population, just go stand at a subway or bus stop where people are just waiting and have nowhere to go and ask them questions. People are usually bored there anyway. If you're building a B2B product, call business and set up appointments to meet them. Learn customer development.

Put up an Unbounce "coming soon" page and start engaging with folks that care about the problem you're trying to solve. Start a blog on Tumblr (better sharing features, but any blogging platform would do). Link the blog to your "coming soon" page and vice versa. Get your social media pages in order (Twitter, Facebook,…

Your site needs to have a strong benefit statement. I need to find out in two seconds whether it is worth me reading more. Your primary message needs to be well above the fold and needs to solve some pain point. Without that, any visits you get to your site are somewhat wasted.

Next, you need to think about how to get your target customers to visit the site. Who is your target market and where do they gather? Advertising on Facebook can be fairly well targeted so that you're not throwing away money advertising to people that aren't in your target market.

Finding people that are social 'kingpins' and getting them to become advocates is another method. Who are the bloggers that cover your space? Can they be contacted to tweet or blog about it? Can you develop a referral system or offer the app for free/reduced price in exchange for the referrals. Perhaps Klout.com can be used to identify some of your targets, or, technorati, etc.

J Conrad Levinson wrote some good books on Guerilla Marketing that talk about leveraging this, cross-promotions, etc.

Getting Press Releases accepted by the sites/magazines/periodicals that cover your market is another way. A well written Press Release directed to the right person can sometimes get you noticed.

Social buttons, Facebook Page, Twitter account - all generate buzz and make it very easy for someone to like/share the page. Include referral codes/bonuses so that your client become your best salespeople.

Your sales message needs to do…

Hey Keith, I'm glad you brought this point up!

Well, in all honesty, design is something of personal preference. But, the 'right design' is the one that strikes a chord with the majority of your users, making them 'feel at home'.

There are a lot of examples I'd like to cite, but, the best example you can use for reference is most of Apple's web design philosophy (P.S - I'm NOT an Apple 'fanboy' though I like their designs). Another one would be Stripe. They have some pretty consistent designs!

As a bonus - Every designer has his/her own version of 'good design rules'. These are just mine :)

-Don't use complexity where it's not needed. Borders and gradients add complexity. (good example: iOS 7)

-Generally, try to use contrasting colors for action buttons (Purchase/Sign up/Subscribe). There is some psychological study associated with the color choice too.

Link: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/color-purchases-lrg.png

-Once you use a color for a particular type of button (Action, or example) maintain it throughout the site - So your users will know which buttons are important and have side effects (like, costing them money) and which ones don't.

-Contrast is everything. If you use a dark headline, then use a light background. And vice versa. Also, a small black box of 100px x 100px provides more contrast than a mild grey box of 200px x 200px. Contrast is not something that is proportional with colors. Always experiment!

- Sometimes, you get…

update: don't let the data discourage you, though. it's actually not bad. 400/600 clicked signed up? that's fantastic!

only 40 people went through with the sign up? I would say thats just user churn because of bad onboarding.

the first thing I would do is let people sign up with just email and password, and actually let them use your product, for a free trial period.

the second thing I would focus on is getting your users to the "magical moment" of your app. Thats a term I first read in context of someone from the growth team at facebook talking about user churn and growth. for facebook, the magic moment for example, was "seeing your friends".[0]

For your app, I think, the magical moment could be the first time a user sucessfully onboards a new client through your app, and sees how easy it is to collect all the requirements etc. If they go through that, and its really much easier with your app, they can't help but start their next client project with your app as well, and upgrade to a paid plan. But to get to that moment, you probably need at least a couple of days. I would not charge users before that moment.

[0] https://blog.kissmetrics.com/alex-schultz-growth/

> Culture is not a good or bad thing. It’s a shared thing. I sometimes hear people say “they aren’t a culture fit” as if it’s a bad thing, or others feel bad pointing this out as if it’s an indictment on someone’s character. It’s not. I am not a culture fit at probably any other company, which is why I had to help start one!

This (which is one of Brian's notes in the article) is one of the best ways to think about culture that I've encountered. A company can't have "good" culture or "bad" culture. It just has a certain shared way of doing things that may or may not vibe with you.

On a related note, Tony Hsieh of Zappos believes what your culture is doesn't matter as much as having a strong identity. Just figure out who you, as a company, are and the rest will follow:

"...one of the really interesting things I found from the research is that it actually doesn’t matter what your values are, what matters is that you have them and that you align the organization around them. And the power actually comes from the alignment not from the actual values"[1]

[1] https://blog.kissmetrics.com/zappos-art-of-culture/