AMA: founding-building-launching a SAS business
10-12-2021
, 12:27 PM
Dear BFI,
This seemed like a good time to share some of the twists and turns I've been on going from poker to business. My partner and I recently founded our business and launched our website and mobile app. One of the things that was most important to me was the idea of a process from which I could extract myself (more or else
), and the process would continue to function (unlike poker). This is how I decided on software. Another cool thing about software, you have no cost of goods sold.
website
-serverless architechture
product
-iOS mobile app for poker players
database.
-original work
-took 12 core computer 5.5 months
-all Omaha starting hands ranked (billions of trials)
I think this community will find the business stuff most interesting, but I'd be happy to answer questions about poker, grad school (engineering), and bioinformatics as well.
-rand
This seemed like a good time to share some of the twists and turns I've been on going from poker to business. My partner and I recently founded our business and launched our website and mobile app. One of the things that was most important to me was the idea of a process from which I could extract myself (more or else
), and the process would continue to function (unlike poker). This is how I decided on software. Another cool thing about software, you have no cost of goods sold.website
-serverless architechture
product
-iOS mobile app for poker players
database.
-original work
-took 12 core computer 5.5 months
-all Omaha starting hands ranked (billions of trials)
I think this community will find the business stuff most interesting, but I'd be happy to answer questions about poker, grad school (engineering), and bioinformatics as well.
-rand
Last edited by rand; 10-12-2021 at 12:49 PM.
10-19-2021
, 03:16 PM
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
10-19-2021
, 04:57 PM
Quote:
Then those kinds of keywords need to be in your hero-H1 as opposed to:
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
I maybe touched our database page a bit. My main plan there is JSON-LD...I think that we should be able to rank in some niche searches because the PF Omaha stats are valuable and original.
We don't really have any sales funnels yet. We have a bit of a product page. And I have not given much thought to not using our home page as our landing page.
I have been slowed down because we do not currently have a UI or a backend to accept redemption codes. But the more that I learn about our potential channels, the more I think that it would be valuable to us.
These are for my notes as much as anything:
presentCodeRedemptionSheet()
How to set up offer codes on the backend
Promo Code overview
Do you consult? It sounds like you have valuable experience in this arena. Thanks again.
10-19-2021
, 05:30 PM
Quote:
Then those kinds of keywords need to be in your hero-H1 as opposed to:
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
1. social proof on landing / product page is somewhere between valuable and reasoanble
2. consider additional landing page with: content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them (more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki)
3. multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
10-19-2021
, 05:34 PM
Quote:
Then those kinds of keywords need to be in your hero-H1 as opposed to:
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
Don't reinvent the wheel with this; stick with what works:
So with your above-the-fold hero section, something along the lines of:
Just starting out it's okay to use your homepage as a landing, squeeze or jump page because initially you're after the low-handing fruit, i.e., those searching for your exact product essentially as a solution to a problem they're aware of. So the idea being that content should be kept to a minimum, with the emphasis on what your product will do for them, social proof, what it is and what you want them to do. I get it's your new baby (and serious congrats for that!) but people just don't care to hear or feel like they're expected to read every little detail before deciding they want it. They'll get to that and jump threw plenty of hoops to find info once the desire for your product arises. Plenty of info/videos on that but think more along the lines of amzn product pages than wiki. Later, you'll want to rank for other keywords such as "GTO calculator," or further up the funnel for "what's GTO?" or even way up to "how to improve at poker." And to do that you'll need multiple landing page iterations whose H1 is inline with those searches, with your homepage becoming more generic and operating in the background for additional info... if/when prospects are looking for it.
All that leads to your traffic sources or where and how to get people into your funnel. The thing to keep in mind here is that orders on magnitude of more people will buy your product than will search for it. So the objective is to figure out where those people are and how to get your product in front of them. One way is to advertise on poker related sites. Another is to create an affiliate program so that poker related and poker product review sites will do the heavy lifting for you. There are plenty of platforms out there and plenty of videos describing, reviewing, comparing and promoting them. One you might want to look at is systeme.io, mainly because it's basically free to get started and fool around with or was the last I looked. But the idea is rather than building up all the components from scratch, those platforms allow you to build the funnel, run an affiliate program, run email campaigns, etc. all in one place, which is great to give you a holistic sense of the entire process without getting bogged down in the weeds. Have fun.
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Also, while I am on the reverse AMA train, any good SEO consulting firms that you would recommend?