I wrote this using AI
Some part of this email is written purely with AI
Howdy and we’re back!
Let’s kick off today!
🔥Product/Growth Knowledge concept for you (Cognitive overload)
🔥Product/Growth Tip of the week (Rewarded Onboarding)
🔥A profitable startup you can start today
What is cognitive overload?
In short, users can keep a maximum of 7 things in their working memory. So whenever you offer someone more than 7 things their brain goes into lazy mode and just opts out
One of the core reasons behind Apple’s success was laser focus on products they offered to their users. 1 iPhone vs 100 different phones (that Nokie and Samsung had). The lack of choice meant decision.
This is also partly the reason why high-end restaurants have a smaller menu, not only can the chef’s deliver better food but also helps end-users to reach a decision faster
Look into your app and your habits to notice when you feel overloaded. We were conscious of this building smartwriter.ai (AI Copywriting software)
Rewarded Onboarding
Onboarding is crucial to get your user to stay and love your product. We’re built on first impressions, its why fancy hotels have incredible foyers, to set the tone, to make you feel welcomed.
If a hotel had the best damn room in the world and amenities to go along with it, it wouldn’t matter if their foyer experience was crap because most people would bail
People severely underestimate the power of a well handheld onboarding. A simple thing you can implement is creating a progress bar/education approach
Take for example what Canny did
The feeling of progress, as well as tutorial videos with the founders, face in it, brings both a sense of reward for completing a task (we’re suckers for rewards) and the video with the founders face brings a sense of trust and familiarity. It’s not just a random robotic voice over but the ACTUAL founder of the company walking you through their product
Speaking of ... This weeks newsletter is sponsored by Oppizi, a startup powering offline marketing campaigns through technology. They turn data into performance offline marketing campaigns that actually convert.
Looking to diversify your marketing mix to avoid your cost per acquisition going through the roof?
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They work with Uber Eats, Doordash, The Iconic and many others. Oppizi sponsors entrepreneurs like me so I can take time to tell these stories.
Check out Oppizi here.
A profitable startup you can start today
Thesis:
2020 saw over 14 Million people register as a freelancer across sites like Upwork and freelancer.com. This is a massive audience of customers who will be looking to stand out and apart from each other and make a massive first impression. Building a proposal software not geared towards agencies but for freelancers and help manage invoices for them can be massive
Competition:
Qwilr (DR 73)
Sydney based business, clean proposal software, very design focused. Offers payments, frozen documents, track record of changes, collaborative editing and team permissions Cost: 75 p/m
PandaDoc(DR 77)
UX can be better, more text focused less design focused, e sign capabilities, approval work flows, legally binding
Cost: 59 p/m
BetterProposals (DR 72)
Design templates, CRM to track proposal direction, smart follow ups, pages feel very elegant
Cost: 29 p/m
What people are saying
Problem: Massive influx of freelancers, it is difficult to stand out. Current software is geared mainly towards agencies and software is separated between proposal and client payment
This means more overhead for freelancers, in interviewing 4/10 freelancers said they currently are unaware of their payment flow and 80% of clients pay late
SLC (Simple Lovable Complete) Solution:
20 templates for different types of proposals focused on freelancer/upwork. Set up payments and recurring payment model.
UBP (unique bragging proposition):
Offer users payment links to get paid by clients. CRM for lead generation to track to you know what the status is. Smart email follow up and add upsells to any info products you've created in the past. Offer video onboarding, where after approval you can share a video of you thanking for trusting you - building a formative relationship
Early Growth
Reach out to freelancers on upwork. Post $5- $10 paid jobs, pay the person and tell then you will be giving the product to the user for free if they can recommend 10 more of their freelancer friends. FB Grounds for finding freelancers as they tend to be hanging out in local communties like Sydney Startups, Austin Startups etc. When you join don't spam, instead look for job postings and see people who offer their services Hire a freelancer to scrape profiles of freelancers and reach out to them on LinkedIn manually and on automation talking to them about how to improve conversion rate (everyone wants to make more money)
Why I chose this:
✅ In-built distribution
✅ SLC Launch in 3 weeks
✅ VC-backed product (tackle them on price)
✅ Not invisible (every new customer brings other customers)
✅ Revenue generating (customers will see an active increase in revenue after using your product, offsetting your subscription)
✅ Existing channel utilization - shopify
And that’s all for this week!
PS Don’t worry, the only thing written with AI was the subject line and nothing else.
However if you’d like to write emails like a pro, save a f*** tonne of time and write copy for websites and ads like a genius, checkout smartwriter.ai (On a heavy discount right now)
Thanks again for reading till here
Shoot me a message @veebuv - i’d love to hear from you!