Votesy Updates: 3 Weeks Post Launch
February 11, 2016 Posted by Tyler CruzIt’s been a week since my last update on Votesy, and since Votesy is my #1 focus these days, I thought I’d give you guys an update on what’s been going on during the past 7 days.
Overall, I’m happy with how things have gone throughout the week. I’ve been working on adding new questions to the site to keep things fresh as well as continue to do some light promotion efforts such as some advertising on Reddit (which didn’t perform well), Facebook advertising, and Twitter posting.
I am currently spending an average of $0.51 per Facebook page like. I don’t know if that’s expensive or not as I have never done any Facebook page promoting before, but I’m going to assume it’s fairly expensive since I’m just broad targeting and haven’t done any split-testing at all yet. I’m going to guess you can probably get likes in volume for $0.15 – $0.20 with the right testing.
Anyhow, I currently like (for lack of a better word) obtaining Facebook page likes as to me it’s very similar to list-building as I can repeatedly reach out to those users with page post updates. There are only 2 downsides that I can see: 1. It is up to Facebook’s algorithm on whether or not your post will show to them (unlike e-mail where it will always be sent out), and 2. Facebook could shut down your page at any time (highly unlikely, but still a point to consider).
Feel free to like the Votesy Facebook page if you haven’t already, or follow us on Twitter @VotesyOfficial.
Progressive Growth
Below are the stats that Votesy had as of January 30th, 2016 (as mentioned in my previous post update), after having been up for close to 2 weeks:
…and here are the stats as of 12:15pm February 10th, 11 days later:
That’s an increase of 73 users, which works out to around 6 new users per day. Right now, I’d like to see an average of 20 new users a day, as that would mean 600 new users a month which I think is not too bad for a new startup.
There is not a whole of of retention currently; that is, registered users aren’t frequently returning to vote or comment. I hope to address this in part by sending our regular newsletters which I haven’t yet.
I did a lot of considering on whether or not to send out a press release and ultimately decided against it, as I didn’t think it would be worth the money, at least not at this stage. I may do so once we have something newsworthy to mention outside of simply launching and existing. Maybe once/if we reach 5,000 users or something like that.
Now Mobile Friendly!
One of the major things holding us back before was that Votesy could not be used on a mobile device. It simply didn’t render at all and was near impossible to use.
While not perfect, it’s at least viewable and useable on mobile devices now, with the main issue being that you cannot create a question on mobile.
I’m hoping to get a few more improvements made on the mobile version so that it can last until Android and iOS versions are made.
What’s Next:
As mentioned before, I would like to send out our first newsletter and perhaps set some automated weekly newsletters to be sent out.
I will also continue to promote Votesy as best I can and increase traffic and site activity.
I’m also thinking of running a simple contest, such as giving away a $20 Amazon gift certificate to the person who creates a question with the greatest number of votes after a week. If that does well then I can run more and bigger ones in the future.
I probably won’t be doing another Votesy post update for a while as I suspect there won’t be much to write about for at least 2 weeks. Hopefully it will be good news!
It baffles me that you did not include proper mobile support for this project from the get go. You’re alienating a large part of your potential target audience because of this. The fact that you did not even realize this – or found it vital enough – during the development stage makes me wonder if you have what it takes to make this project a success. Quite frankly, I think you don’t. This is Robotwarz all over again, you being trapped in your own tunnel vision unable to think outside of the box. I’ve been following your blog from the start – hell even when it started on Sitepoint – and so far your proclaimed brilliant ideas all ended up being failures.
You should sort out an SSL certificate – you linked to the https version which threw up a warning.
Whoops, thanks, fixed.
“There is not a whole of of retention currently; that is, registered users aren’t frequently returning to vote or comment. ”
So you think the reason they are not returning is because there is no newsletter? Tyler I commend your effort, I do. But I wonder how much money you are going to spend before you wake up and realize the site will never work because its trying to appeal to everyone.
You arrive at the site, and you see one question about ninja turtles, a question about 80’s tv shows, and maybe a question about underwater basket weaving. Its totally all over the place. Why one earth would anyone go back? Please tell me.
The bigger problem though is that there is no problem people have that the site is fixing. Please tell me what problem people have that the site is fixing.
yeah, i agree with joe. i posted about this when you did your kickstarter post-mortem but the comment got stuck in moderation (or was too negative…). none of this stuff matters until you can answer this question: what problem are you solving?
you need to understand your product’s value proposition before anything else (certainly before building the thing). i’m not sure what was in your 2hr investor deck, but i’m not sure i want to know…
i understand you’re not experienced with building products, but there are tons of good resources out there to learn more about doing it. check out eric ries’s book, or steve blank’s. tons of useful stuff about building things that people will actually want to us.
Thanks for great tips. i keep following you
Now that all is said and done, it’s time to publish that investor deck 🙂 I’d love to see it 🙂
I see merely questions… where are the voting things were you can vote about something… am I missing a point here?
Adding some gamification options to the site may help retain users. Ranks, points awarded for answering questions etc. I would also look into lowering your development costs. Hiring a senior programmer for the initial coding and setting up the design was a good decision, but it may limit you now as the site doesn’t generate any revenue. Maybe hire someone on oDesk and have your senior programmer only review the code?
When advertising on FB you have an option of promoting your fb page or your own website. Are you doing the former?
While gamification can help increase usage among those already retained, it’s really hard to go from 0 to 1 with gamification. Unless there’s some underlying value being provided to me, why would I care about getting points/badges/etc… why not just load up Steam and play an actual game?
Tyler, you should try submitting this to ProductHunt. You might get some users, but will more likely get some really good feedback about the products and how you might pivot it to a place where retention happens naturally (i.e. product/market fit).
Have you seen polarb.com?
Have you done any form of advertising for Votesy? I haven’t seen any big names talking about it…
yeah, i agree with joe also.
I see merely questions… where are the voting things were you can vote about something… am I missing a point here?
Awesome post sir
Have you done any form of advertising for Votesy? I haven’t seen any big names talking about it…
Other people here have detailed the problems with this project pretty well, but here’s something I haven’t seen mentioned: you can’t see the site’s content without registering. Why? I realize you want to drive signups, but you’ll do that much better by requiring it for participation, not for merely *viewing* things.
I think it’s pretty safe to say giving the lack of updates on this for the past few months: Votesy has failed. It failed for exactly the reasons me and many others have mentioned. I applaude you for trying Tyler, but it’s time to make up the balance.
A few months on from your launch, the site unfortunately looks like it’s dead in the water.
There’s no shame in cutting losses and dumping a project…in the long run, doing it now might be a saving grace, as you will regret any more time spent trying to get this project profitable.
Can confirm – site is dead
Hi Tyler!
I think spending $0.51 per Facebook page like is somewhat expensive! Obviously, you may spend more per like if it is from your targeted country or say if the like coming from US,UK specific country!
However, paid marketing is all depends on your experience, if done rightly then the results BOOM!
I am happy to like your “Votesy Facebook page”!
Keep up the great work bro!!!
Thank you. I really Happy.
Thank you for Use
Keep reading more article for today..One of the best thing about it is now its mobile friendly.
Looks sick, Tyler. How’s your other project going?
When they start to double-barrel they possibly have it or have
captured on to you.