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2 Years and Losing Steam
by
Daniel Clark
https://cooler.chat/c/Lobby
I'm not sure what problem you're exactly trying to solve?
Also, hate to complain, but 2 years and the design is still soo.. 70s. Not sure if that's intentional.
I think what motivated me to build something like this is to see what my friends are browsing/watching and being fed up with reddit. But yea, no clear problem statement other then theres room for one more. Why IndieHackers when Courtland could have made a subreddit?
The design or lack their of is somewhat intentional. I want to make sure that the content and the content alone is drawing people in. They say Jay Leno would test out new jokes by saying them completely deadpan to check if the joke itself was funny and not just his delivery. Craigslists and Google search to this day still rock blue links on a white background. Apologies for going full defense on my design, I am not a designer and typing the thought process behind it helps me evaluate if I crazy or not for going with that design, so thank you for the commentary.
Gotcha!
(i) how does it compare with discord?
(ii) you said people are fed up with reddit, maybe that's where a problem worth solving may be, why are they fed up?
(iii) "Why IndieHackers when Courtland could have made a subreddit" - IH was initially to track Indie development journeys, i.e. you have a product, and every now and then you show progress on it and keep going (also an attempt to take the loneliness out of it to some extent, building in public etc.). It's very different from a subreddit.
(iv) "Craigslists and Google search to this day still rock blue links on a white background" => True, but I think you may be undermining their design elements.
(v) "I want to make sure that the content and the content alone is drawing people in." => The problem with chat based content is, please really have to read through to gather context, to participate in a chat. I don't think you can attract and sustain especially newer users with content alone. This is no pinterest.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply! This gives me quite a bit to think about. I definitely need to figure out if I am focusing on chat or just sharing your favorite finds on the internet. I find discord overwhelming, I haven't been able to get into yet. I was really enjoying slack at the time of creating my app, but also very annoyed with reddit and figured sharing stuff on the internet, talking to people, and communities are not going anywhere. I definitely agree my design although inspired by simpler designs is still not without plenty of flaws. I really enjoyed what you said about (v) and (iii). Although Courtland could have easily started a subreddit and accomplished much of what IH has accomplished with reddit features using posts, dm's, comments etc, he had real purpose and intention behind what he was building.
Apologies for the sad title without any context. I wrote a long text post and thought I was adding a link, but the link became the post instead of the text.
TLDR I am in a chicken or the egg problem with promoting cooler.chat or working on features for it. I want to stay lean and focus on driving engagement but it still feels so raw. I get the daily visitor but not sure what to drill down on. I also feel like an amateur when it comes to the marketing side of things.
PPS. Are negative posts allowed on Indie Hackers? I feel bad posting it but needed a place to vent and here felt appropriate as I am sure most of the hackers on here are struggling in some form or another. But I also could see how that could end up problematic for IH if it was all sob stories on here lol. Cheers, happy hacking, I am not quitting!
I feel your pain, happens to the best of us.
On the bright side, sounds like you're getting visitors - in order to help, do you know where this daily visitor is coming from? Any channel in particular? Consider investing more resources (your time, not necessarily money) in it and see if you can drive more traffic towards it.
If you don't know what to drill down on, is the issue the website that is marketing your app, or the app itself? Maybe you're not sure, but I'd imagine the first hurdle people need to cross is whether they can navigate your site and find it intriguing enough to use the product.
I personally don't mind you sharing this experience for that specific reason. We're all trying to get better, and improve. The only way to do that is by recognizing where we're struggling.
@sethking, thank you for the thoughtful response. Google analytics has a majority of my traffic source/medium coming from (direct)/(none). So I am guessing savy internet users browsing incognito. Not sure though. Those users typically don't engage much with the "Lobby" space. I have had some engagement in my more specific channels such as "Surfing" and "Twin Fins" but still nothing to write home about . I strongly agree with your comment
the first hurdle people need to cross is whether they can navigate your site and find it intriguing enough to use the product. I need to pause and reflect on this, but sometimes I feel like that puts me into paralysis by analysis mode. Thank you for your reply, this has definitely given me a lot to chew on.