[wnm]

I also clicked on signup, but then didn't. Here is why: I wanted to sign up to test the product, but after clicking on signup I get a Typeform modal. Typeform as a signup form makes me suspicious that the product doesn't really exists, and the startup is doing some sort of landing page -> signup validation.

You also ask that I enter my credit card and you want to charge me 10$ upfront, without having established any sort of trust, or having shown the product to me. I would never do that. I don't even do that for established trust worthy companies. I wan't to see and test the product before I buy.

[wnm]

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/

[ci5er]

> user churn because of bad onboarding

I have a stupid question regarding vocabulary, because I've seen this 'inherent' definition of 'churn' used around here more recently.

To me, when I do co-hort analyses, failure to onboard is a conversion failure. In any case - 'Customer Success' territory. 'Churn' is when the custom fails to re-up (for whatever reason).

Am I using the 'wrong words'?

[chkuendig]

You are right, failure to onboard is not churn. Churn is when the customer doesn't renew or come back after a certain initial period has passed.

[bkanber]

You're using the right words. (Except for "co-hort" which should just be "cohort" ;)

[ci5er]

Yeah. Sorry. I'm not going to correct it, so that your comment standing here continues making sense.

(I don't know what is wrong with me... I found myself typing 're-novate' the other day... At least that makes more sense than 'co-hort')

[cod3boy]

I love HN and all the comments here, but this one particularly is very helpful for me. Thank you!

[bluewater]

This is great advice when I envision when to ask and how much I should charge for a saas business I’ve been struggling to get going. I hadn’t seen this before despite being a near daily reader in HN.

[uberswe]

I completely agree with this.

Personally I have never seen credit card information being asked in a typeform but that could just be me.

To start with maybe you could show a video of the product? A demo of some kind. If your product really is good maybe you could offer 7 days or 30 days free?

The site feels a bit unfinished too, if I click on the elite 100 at the top it seems to bring me to the index page again.

It looks nice though, good luck and I hope the feedback here helps.

[cod3boy]

Thank you. The feedback definitely helps. We are working on a demo video as we speak. Since the elite 100 was not successful we removed the whole thing from the page. I've explained in the previous comment what the program was like.

[cod3boy]

Thanks, Makes sense. Before we were asking $348 ;-) but then our program was that we'd giveaway shares for the first 100 people. The whole thought process behind that was,

We are a small team of hustlers wanting to build the best experience for freelancers to work with their clients. Soon in our journey, we realized building a startup is a lot of work, and it’s hard to focus on multiple areas. This is why we’ve launched the Elite 100 program and opening our platform to only 100 users for the first 6 months. We’ll not focus on growth, but only to serve the 100 users in the best way.

It was also deep-rooted in my conviction that the disparity between the rich and everyone else is larger than ever in the United States and the rest of the world. I believe a company working with masses should also give everyone a share of the benefits gained, this aligns with my personal mission as well, I’ve been working with communities for many years (and even in my personal capacity https://www.facebook.com/COD3BOY/posts/10155519455529473) and I believe the real success happens when we have a lot of people coming together on a mission and everyone is benefitted. By giving away 100,000 shares of our company we stand by that, and says when we are successful everyone who were with us will be benefited too.

[macspoofing]

Honestly, just don't bother with the share grants. There are massive legal landmines as securities are highly regulated. There's no benefit to you nor to the random people you want to give shares to. Plus the incentive is all wrong. You want your customers to choose your product on its own basis, not because you're giving out chachkis.

> By giving away 100,000 shares of our company we stand by that, and says when we are successful everyone who were with us will be benefited too.

That's not what it says to me. What it says is that you are naive and your shares are worthless. If your company ever makes it you'll just dilute those shares to nothing.

[nathan_f77]

I'm not a lawyer, but the share thing sounds illegal. I don't think you should be doing that, otherwise you will probably get in trouble with the SEC. Companies usually only sell (or give away) shares to the public when they have an IPO.

[nivertech]

I don't know where this company is located, but in US giving away securities is illegal.

[aidanlister]

I would talk to a startup lawyer about this before you destroy your captable forever.

[ndarilek]

If that's how you feel, making your company a cooperative or a platform cooperative is probably a safer bet, albeit possibly more work. Giving away shares, while it appears easy, is illegal and has other disadvantages.

https://platform.coop

[rhizome]

It was also deep-rooted in my conviction that the disparity between the rich and everyone else is larger than ever in the United States and the rest of the world.

It's a nice sentiment, but the most proven way of dealing with this is to get actual cash into their pockets without adding to the income disparity, which in this case would be giving e.g. LinkedIn or Robert Half or whoever (exploitative rent-seekers) a big slice of any money they make through a particular gateway (you).