Show HN: My first website, for my startup. To do pre-sales of VPS Instances.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758034

by cdvonstinkpot • 13 years ago

4 9 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi,

I don't know how to code, so my whole website is all text, and looks spartan.

But it includes the relevant content- shopping cart items & email waiting list.

Have a look & let me know what you think: http://superspeedyservers.com/

cdvonstinkpot3• 13 years ago

Clickable: http://superspeedyservers.com

WesleyThurner• 13 years ago

$100 can go a long way on odesk.com for you.

I could even help you out with just thowing a bootstrap or template together.

cdvonstinkpot3• 13 years ago

I'm _really_ hurting for money this month, and couldn't even afford $100 for anything at the moment. I just committed to spending $350 on an attorney to review my TOS to be sure it's going to be effective in my use case. But I'll keep odesk in mind for July when I have a new budget to work with.

Another thing I just committed to is $1.61/day each ad spend on both Facebook & Google AdWords, which equates to $100/month, and is about all I can afford- leaving me with little or no money for things like coffee shops or breakfast diners for myself. Hopefully it'll be enough to bring in _something_.

I'm currently on disability, but I just applied for a part-time job at a grocery store today in hopes of raising enough to cover Google AdWords & drawing some traffic to the site. If I get the job, I'll be able to spend a couple hundred on odesk like you say.

Of course, if someone would like to help for free, I'd certainly be happy to accept their assistance. My hosting doesn't support _any_ server-side scripting however, so everything has to be strictly static html. Which is unfortunate because I have a lifetime Mixpanel membership I'd love to use with it.

Thanks for your reply.

cdvonstinkpot3• 13 years ago

I just learned from Mixpanel support that the javascript they use all runs client-side, so I can use it after all.

Now I've implemented metrics on my site & can watch people visiting it in real time. It's fun!

ainsej• 13 years ago

I wouldn't recommend sinking any money on AdWords just yet, not atleast until you have a site that's going to retain visitors. Focus on the product first

hsuster2• 13 years ago

100% agree with ainsej. Do not waste money on any paid advertising without a proper landing page/website set up. The way your site is now, there is no way you'd get anyone to convert, so you'd just be throwing money away on those clicks. The only people who may sign up are those looking to spam, attack, dos, or abuse your services in one way or another.

The $350 for attorney to review your ToS is not the right way to use your funds. You can find some decent templates for ToS or borrow from other hosts and edit/rewrite portions yourself. You need to solidify your product and overall brand/appearance before you spend any money on marketing and legal.

hsuster2• 13 years ago

Another thing, I just saw the prices for your services, going upwards to $1,800/mo. If you're intention is to attract companies with that kind of budget, you'd definitely have your work cut out for you. There is 0% chance a company with that kind of budget would sign up with a service that isn't 100% polished and offers more than just, here's a server. They can get a dedicated server with those specs elsewhere for probably cheaper at a more reputable vendor. Sorry, but I think you really need to rethink the market, and definitely stop your paid advertising. It's just going to waste.

ekpyrotic• 13 years ago

Thanks Chris, it's great to see people (pre-)launch. I think you deserve some honest feedback.

You absolutely must learn to code. If you're running a start-up out the back of your bedroom, you need to push down costs -- and push them down hard. That means cracking open a jar of coffee and doing everything yourself -- including the coding.

Thankfully, at this point you only need a professional(-ish) looking front-end. As it's a hardware product there's no obvious/pressing/necessary need for interactivity. So you need to learn the basics of HTML, CSS and JS. This isn't as difficult as it may first seem/appear -- a good week/fortnight should get you up to speed on the basics. Or, even a productive night.

Then you should deploy and customize a pre-existing framework, i.e., Bootstrap. There's a tonne of interesting content hanging around about how to adapt Bootstrap to your needs.[1] These days there are many tools for novices to get to grips with contemporary trends quickly and easily.

Why do you need to do this? One, because at the moment no-one will take you seriously -- at all. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. There's no use getting on the phone/networking/reaching out if your product is effectively pre-Internet. A non-website sets off serious, serious alarm bells. You're wasting your time. Second, as no-one will take you seriously, you're funneling your ad revenue down the drain.

It's time get your head down, learn and crack on. Don't hesitate to reach out.

[1] http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/03/12/customizing-bo...

devb0x• 13 years ago

Congrats on the startup.

I'd lose the enter site thing. Im already there, and its not porn right so I don't need to consent.

Design and copy. You need both. Best of luck

Show HN: My first website, for my startup. To do pre-sales of VPS Instances.

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