Solo Web Startup

A solo entrepreneur's 1st startup

  • @Refynr
  • My startup: Refynr.com
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    • 1
      1 Jun 2011

      How to use StartupLift to improve the UX and UI of your web startup

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      About 3 months back, I really wanted more feedback about my home page and web app. I knew the home pages and app needed significant improvement in the UI and User Experience.

      But I felt that I had asked too much of my 500+ Beta testers already, and needed some fresh perspectives. So, when I came across http://StartupLift.com, I gave it a try. It doesn't cost much :)

      So, here's the page where new users gave public feedback via StartupLift on Refynr back in March.

      It's hard to be publicly "roasted", but if you stay open minded, don't defend too much, you can learn a lot! I ended up making many of the changes suggested, and the Bounce Rate (as measured by Google Analytics) has gone from 65+% to about 45% now. That's a huge improvement, and I may do it again at some point to try to improve the Bounce Rate another 10-15 points.

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      14 Mar 2011

      Cloud Chronicle: Podcast on my web startup

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      Interview Series Ep1 – Aaron Longnion of refynr.com

      Mar 14, 2011
      By Patrick Pushor
      Interview Series Podcast
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      Episode 1


      Interview with Aaron Longnion about his social network feed filter startup refynr.com. We speak about his technology, how refynr.com came about, some of the tools used in the creation of the site, and how the cloud enabled Aaron to support his solo startup.


      Links mentioned in the podcast:

      http://hashtags.org/
      http://www.crowdspring.com/
      http://www.gosquared.com/livestats/
      http://getsatisfaction.com/
      http://www.mailchimp.com/
      http://www.rackspace.com/

      Podcast: Download


      Tags: startup podcast

      About the Author

      Patrick Pushor

      Patrick is a critical thinker based out of Western Canada with deep experience in virtualization and cloud computing.

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      via cloudchronicle.com

      Thank you very much, Patrick, for the interview! Excellent questions, and I had a lot of fun!

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    • 7
      17 Dec 2010

      Opinions are like a-holes, everyone has them...

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      and they all stink!

      A friend emailed me and asked my about my experience with crowd-sourcing the new logo design for http://refynr.com, and here's my reply:

      "CrowdSpring.com was a mixed bag:

      Pros:

      • pretty easy to set up
      • cheap
      • you get lots of entries (151 in my case)
      • If you're very specific and descriptive, you can end up with something you like

      Cons:

      • decision paralysis: With so many choices, I couldn't really decide myself. That's why I put it up for a vote online, which only helped in a bass-akwards sort of way. The best logos bubbled up to the top, but the top 3 were not actually a good choice for a versatile web logo (which needs to look good large, small, and very small as a favicon; not to mention maybe I want to use in print or on t-shirts some day). How did I know that? Because a nice twitter follower named Dina emailed me and described from a *real* designer's point of view what I should be looking for. So, I went with the 4th choice, and had the designer on CrowdSpring simplify and tweak it to exactly what I wanted.
      • It helps if you know what you want. I didn't, so spent a lot of time asking online, and asking my relatives (not the greatest idea!). What's the saying? "Opinions are like a-holes, everyone has them and they all stink!"
      • I probably would have saved a lot of time, but not money, by using a real designer in the first place.
      • there were a ton of really bad entries. Only about 15% were above average, imo

      I don't have anything to compare with because I've never used a real designer previously or another crowd sourced site either, but those are my thoughts."

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  • Solo Web Startup

    Web developer/architect turned solo web entrepreneur

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