Making the first £1

[Sam Kennedy]

I've sorted the fancy animated credit card form. Next is the re-branding, however I have some commitments today, so will resume this afternoon.

I guess I should be clear on what it is I'm building: A website which allows freelancers to invoice and receive payments, without the high fees, limitations and strict policies that other services offer. It frees up time so you can focus on growing your business, gives you a free pay increase by lowering the transaction fees, and you will never experience the panic of not being able to pay rent/bills because you violated some "policy" and now your account is frozen.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

Finally got back, I can probably squeeze in another hour or so before dinner and two or three after. I've decided to add a short survey after users sign up asking how often they plan to use the platform and what they intend on using it for. I might as well gather some information while I'm rewriting the front end.

 

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[Sam Kennedy]

I've managed to get another two hours put in, I managed to break the Laravel configuration which took a while to fix, but I've also added a couple of features for when users sign up. I've sent emails out to those on the list asking for some idea on how they plan on using the service. I just need to fix some domain settings and then I can start advertising again.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

I woke up naturally at 5:45am, didn't even need an alarm, so I followed the election until 7am then got ready and started working at about 7:40am. The last four hours have flown by! Despite the fact I absolutely hate doing front end design, and I'm feeling the effects of having a few hours less sleep than normal, it feels completely different doing this for myself, rather than for some coursework.

I've re-written 5 of the pages, which hasn't been a simple process since front end isn't my strength. I also have 5 pages left to do. While the campaign ran yesterday and today, three more people have registered, costing £1.75, which averages out to just over 50p per new user.

If I get the front end finished today, I will start working on refactoring the back end code for new registrations. I can get another 2.5 hours in before I have to go to my solicitor to pick up some paperwork. I'm going to take a short break now to get some food then I'm starting again.

 

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[Sam Kennedy]

I've had three new sign ups today. Averaging about £0.80 per user now. I have a meeting with a business adviser on June 29th.
There's been a load of errands to run today, but I did manage to squeeze in an hour of studying 'Cashvertising' and noting down my ideas while waiting for an appointment, and I've managed to set up my website to log identifiers, so I can do split testing and see which ads or sources are actually getting people to sign up.

I've also been implementing my own 2-factor authentication, it's taken about two hours, so all together about 3 hours put into the site today. Not great, but it's all the free time I've had today :\

 

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[Sam Kennedy]

Officially a LTD company now!
I woke up at 6:30am, got ready, checked email and news and started working at 7:30am.
I've finished converting my front end templates to use the blade engine. I also spent a lot of time rewriting a couple of pages I didn't like the look of. So far 2.5 hours in and I need to go to my solicitors again so that's going to take another hour away.

Today I need to:

1. Test the payment system and ensure it's robust
2. Update autoresponder to use the new 2-factor authentication
3. Test the payment system with real money
4. Create feedback form
5. Go live
6. Increase adwords budget

 

[Sam Kennedy]

I had a lot of obstacles in the way of getting the payment system working correctly during testing. But I've got it working now. Only test remaining is to ensure one user can't delete/edi another user's invoice. Then I'm going to run a test using real money, finish the feedback form, create a documentation page, and then go live.

 

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[Sam Kennedy]

The only word I can think of to describe today's changes to my adwords campaign is 'catastrophic'.
A few variables have changed, and I need to figure out what's caused the shift. I used to get a new user every 2-4 clicks, which cost anywhere from £0.40 to £0.80, with it averaging about £0.70 per sign up. I've spent £10 today for a single registration

Variables changed:
1. I've changed the layout of the landing page, putting the registration form at the top of the page
2. I've changed the delivery method to accelerated instead of standard
3. I've upped my bid to £0.40 per click

I don't think #3 is too relevant, since I've still had a fair amount of clicks. #1 possibly, I'm thinking it's #2. I received a rush of traffic in the middle of the day, but got a sign up shortly after 7pm. If the time of day is a significant factor in determining the conversion rate, then that would explain the terrible result today. So I'm going to go through the time stamps and see if there is a pattern, and if possible do a chi-square or other statistical test.

I'm changing my delivery method back to standard until I can determine what the cause was.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

My advice to you (if you're not doing it already) then I'd really consider jumping into the entrepreneur groups on Facebook. Definitely, don't go in pitching, but do a bit of searching to find the posts around the pain points you're solving and then start conversing and helping out with advice. You're not only likely to get people checking you out (it's worth looking at the people who get a lot of engagement on their posts and offering them free trials etc), but also get a real feeling for the language they're using which can really help with copy.

I haven't done that yet, I'll start having a look at what I can find out.

You might also want to consider adding a Facebook retargeting pixel on your website so you can then start to build up an audience to not only advertise to but also to analyse once it's grown big enough. Just putting out some pretty basic ads that do nothing more than develop brand awareness can help with conversions.

I have one set up from a previous campaign but haven't really used it much, I'll get that up and running again.

For example, we're done some campaigns in the past that weren't much more than just displaying the logo and basic text. There was nothing to encourage a click and that was never the point... when we did move to more aggressive ads / emailing people were saying they were already aware of us because they'd "seen us around".

Very interesting point, I'm not sure if my budget would allow for that, I'll see what I can find out from the groups first, and then see about targeted ads just to build awareness.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

I found a statistically significant cluster of registrations (<0.0001) between 4-6pm. However that was the time I was advertising today and I got nothing. Maybe I just need to run it more evenly spread out during the day to see if it brings results, if not then I'll tweak the landing page again.

I have to admit today wasn't the most productive, I did do well in the morning, but after cleaning the bathroom in the afternoon my motivation dropped off, then the results of this ad campaign didn't help. I was also writing up documentation which is very dry, maybe I'll invent a way of making it less painful, everybody I know hates writing documentation. I'm not making excuses, I should have worked harder, tomorrow I can try again and do better.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

I've set the bid back to £0.20 on my adwords campaign, clicks are trickling in, 9 so far today, no registrations. I've been unfocused the last few days, I need to get back to putting in the real work. I've been researching more into what makes websites like Upwork and PPH bad, and what makes websites like Quora have a more professional "feel".

I've listed what people complained about and some potential solutions:
Problem: 20% commission on jobs under $500, plus a 2.75% transaction fees
Solution: Don't be greedy

Problem: Lack of support
Solution: Have customer service that 'SUCS'

Problem: Developing countries undercut jobs and push prices lower, bidding becomes a race to the bottom
Solution: Match budgets, people offering to work for pennies an hour are matched with people on a budget, where quality isn't as much of a concern. Also have "managers" which are experienced in their field review jobs and submissions. So people wanting "a website like facebook" with a budget of $25 are removed. Also people offering "professional logo design" while using PowerPoint are removed or downgraded to only be able to bid on jobs with a low budget, and not compete with those looking for quality work.

Problem: People getting charged $8 just to open a dispute
Solutions: Again, make sure the service SUCS

I'm thinking of creating a one-page website (possibly named something like "UPrising", but I'm not sure if going on a direct attack like that is wise), where people can choose from options or submit their own ideas of what would make a good freelancer community. Then feature the best ideas for other people to see, once I get a good enough idea of what people want, build it.

I'm also worried that I may be pivoting too early, and haven't given my invoicing website the chance to succeed yet.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

Yesterday was a busy day!
In the morning I started from scratch creating a website which does the same thing as my python app. I set a goal to have made something by lunch time. It seemed impossible, web design and JavaScript are not my strongest skills. I didn't know which library to use, I was getting a ton of errors. I learned an interesting thing about my brain (maybe others can relate to this?).

When thinking about everything that needed done, I started thinking of the effort that was required, and based on previous experience I thought it would take 6-8 hours. By 11:30am (two hours from when I started) I had made far more progress than I expected. It seems to me that my brain confuses effort and time. If something is difficult and requires only 3 minutes of intense thinking, when looking back you might think it was more like 15-20 minutes.

So another lesson: whenever you get that "urgh" feeling, when you realise there is so much to do and it will take a while, just focus on the one task that needs doing now. You will be surprised how quickly you get through tasks compared to what you thought it would take.

 

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[silentownage001]

I have to admit a bit of fear hit me last night when I made the site go live. What I've created is now out there for people to use and abuse. It handles real money, if anything goes wrong I'm responsible for it.

I felt the same way when I started marketing. I thought I was going to get ripped apart, but so far (still early days) I haven't. Much of the fear is just in our heads.

I've also gone through the last 30 days of posts on the freelance subreddit, and contacted people directly who have questions about payment options, I'll see if that brings about any results. From being there I've learned that Upwork, which is one of the biggest freelancing websites REALLY sucks. I knew it was bad, but reading some of the experiences people have had there, I'm surprised the website is still allowed to operate. This is a real story: Freelancer finishes work, client pays, client requests refund and bails. Upwork contacts freelancer and says their account is now in negative balance (due to the transaction fees) and wants them to pay. So lets get this straight, you need to pay for getting ripped off? I think I've found a much larger pain point, I just need to figure out a clever solution.

I've used Upwork as a client. Overall my experience was fine. My dev did a good job in the end, but took much longer than he said it would take and I was paying him hourly. I believe it was done on purpose.

 

[Sam Kennedy]

Today I finished off the front end of the service, and then got the back end working as well. I started at 8am and finished just after 4pm, got the time to create the system down to ten minutes!

 

[Tubs]

I thought I would bump this, a lot has happened since I posted almost two years ago, time flies!

So shortly after that last post, I was asked if I could solve a particular problem involving PLC diagnostics. I actually thought I wouldn't be able to get very far, but I did what I could. I ended up automating something that takes experienced people several hours to diagnose, and made it possible for somebody who has no technical expertise be able to diagnose in a fraction of the time, without any need for specialist hardware or software.

I created a proof of concept SaaS and from there was able to form a three way partnership between myself, the company I worked for at the time and another company. I then spent a year in industry as part of my university degree, from that experience I went back and completely re-wrote the service. What used to take 6 hours for the server to process could now be done in less than 30 seconds. We then went through the process of forming a company, getting the necessary insurances and further refining the service.

This week we are finally ready to begin selling to customers. Today we got our first feedback from an experienced engineer, his reaction was more or less: "I want to start using this NOW".

I'm really excited, almost two years of work and we could have our first customers within the next few weeks!

I'm sorry I can't explain in detail exactly what it is I've developed, all I can say is that there is nothing out there that does what it does, and it solves a very important problem.

Just read through the whole thread, great action taking! Glad to see you've stuck to your guns even after a few failures. I have no doubt you'll make it.