To me, a user-friendly design should focus on a single, well-designed feature rather than many. It should be easy and seamless for the user to interact with. In the early phases of a product, I know it can't always (and doesn't have to be) pixel-perfect, but it should be clear what the product does.
If you’re talking about the top right corner button, I think it makes sense. It’s quite common to have it placed there and users should be familiar with this.
Despite being overlooked for decades, Katalin Kariko persevered in her researches. She’s now Senior Vice President at BioNtech, which developed a COVID vaccine thanks to her work.
I was actually planning on getting an Ahrefs account to see where I'm making mistakes and have leads on how I can improve my SEO. They have a 14-days free trial from what I saw.
I feel you, it's not easy when you're not used to it. As you may have seen from other participants, you can stay pretty factual and just share what progress you recently made. You don't necessary have to elaborate: just facts and screenshots ;)
Wikipedia is in the game for a loooong time! But it doesn't mean you can't get there. You should find where you users are hanging out: Twitter hashtags, Facebook groups, subreddits about Rails, etc. Then talk to them!
On Mailchimp/Mailjet, I created a first campaign, then I duplicate it every time I need to send a new campaign. So if you already have the content and don't need to spend time on design again, it's fast!
I like Mailchimp which is easy to use, but after 2,000 subscribers it gets expensive. Another alternative is Mailjet.
I personally use Sendgrid. Once you get to know their API it’s nice and cheaper. I send Women Make’s weekly newsletter with it, with dynamic templates.
Depends on what stage you’re in. If you are starting I would build a landing page so that interested users can sign up with their email. In that case, your challenge could be to reach 10, 100, or 1000 subscribers. If you don’t have a website yet, that can also be a great goal to make it.
« I have made mistakes and I will surely make more. » Something to remind yourself often!
I also liked what you said about the rules. It’s good to « know » them, especially when you start, to have a series of examples and concret cases to guide you. But what worked for others will not necessarily work for you.
The success of your startup depends on many factors, but not on following the rules. Being an entrepreneur is exactly about that: doing things differently, trying things that haven’t been done.
Hey Taylor, welcome on Women Make! Lemon Lab looks interesting. I replaced the bit.ly links in your post. I’d rather avoid them here because this is a community and campaign tracking tools are not friendly for this space.
That being said, the list of products is huge! Have you and your team tested a lot of them already? Are they some that you particularly recommend to this community?
I found it very interesting! It's clear, detailed, and I felt like I was actually participating in the process along with you while reading your article.
Hi Agnes, I think you can reach out to angel investors on Angel List (angel.co) or apply to tech accelerators. For example Y Combinator (ycombinator.com/apply) makes small investments ($150k) in return for small stakes (%7) in the companies they fund.
In your case, if you plan to raise money in Europe you can give a shot to Techstars (techstars.com). They invest in exchange of a 6% common stock and you receive $20,000 plus a $100,000 convertible note.
Hey Anna! I think your survey looks good. I'd add a few more questions about what content creators expect from the sponsors, maybe like: what kind of company/sponsor? How much money do they think they can get paid? On which schedule basis?
« A lot of time I feel like I'm running on auto-pilot », I do have this feeling from time to time! If you’re looking for an app to keep a journal, I just started using Jour which I really like: jour.com.
Originally I was only developing on iOS, I started to learn Node.js less than a year ago, and now I'm trying to handle things out with the front-end aspect (so JS, HTML, CSS...). What about you?
I think the first reason why I started all this is because I wanted to create things. I would not have think of me as a creative person before, yet I wanted to create.
Another reason is I wanted to be my own boss. I wasn’t always happy to work for someone, especially when I felt like things could be done differently.
I also love the freedom that comes with it. It doesn’t mean it’s not harder for a lot of things, but I really care about this way of life.
Here's a recent tweet I shared: "2019 Economic Sciences Laureate Esther Duflo, born in 1972, is the second woman and the youngest person to be awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences."
https://twitter.com/NobelPrize/status/1183682666446704640
For those who didn't participate/haven't seen the first edition, here is the result of the Just f*ing ship it challenge of last year: https://womenmake.com/challenge-october-2018 🚀
Congrats on your launch Benedicte! 🎉 I like that it is privacy focused, I saw some bad press about existing apps and I'm always afraid for my data. Actually I only enter the strict minimum to avoid sharing info I don't want to.
Loved your articled Dianna! And I'm not a fan of "digital nomad" either ;)
On that point in particular, and everything that goes with that term, it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only "digital nomad" who doesn't like to work in co-working spaces or cafés. I also like to have a kitchen to cook myself.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. Sounds like a pretty honest reflection and that's what I enjoyed in your article.
"not feeling pressured into working when the other one does": we made progress on this but not there yet!
Otherwise I don't think we are as structured as you 😂 We try to work less since a few months, so we are more in a "calm down" phase, where we work in priority on what we want. It doesn't mean we should work in a total mess though. Recently we tried to put our main goals on a sheet of paper at the beginning of the week so we both know what main tasks are keeping busy the other.
I've been working with my partner for about the same time so I can definitely relate.
I agree that accountability can be tough. I noticed that each of us having a "big" goal for the week helps too.
Otherwise I don't always like that we talk so often about our projects. I want us to have other hobbies and subjects of discussion, but at the same time it's a major part of our lives and we have this in common so it's hard not to talk about it so often. And there are always new things to do, and ideas coming at any time.
Sometimes I'm asking myself if we live in the real world because of this life/work relationship, I don't always feel that it is so normal, so I'm happy to see there are so other people like us! 😂 I'm curious to know if you have other "guidelines" or "boundaries" that you put in place to keep a healthy relationship.
I must say that even if my answer might sound negative, I wouldn't stop it either, I like what we do together!
I'm doing some tests on the format/content to see what works best but for now every issue is sent every 2 weeks and is made of 2 parts: 1) Updates about our work and/or an article we wrote and 2) Links to articles/products we find interesting.
I'd like to find more subscribers so I should find ways to promote it.
Thank you Clo! 💕 I remember talking to you on Twitter for the 1st time in April 2018 (27th to be exact, I just checked my DMs). So happy you joined Women Make, and in the early days!
I think it depends on what you're looking for. In my case, I'm looking for profitability. So if the product has growth, retention and a growing number of customers, I will keep working on this one. Once most of the work is automated or that it doesn't require a lot of time from me, I might think of working on another project.
If the project is not profitable, then that might ask myself that question: "Have I try everything I should or do I just stop it?".
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Both excited and anxious!
Woohoo! Must feel nice 😇
It likely depends on what you're offering. What's your core business & value proposition? What should you focus on the most?
How did it go? What kind of feedback did you get?
To me, a user-friendly design should focus on a single, well-designed feature rather than many. It should be easy and seamless for the user to interact with. In the early phases of a product, I know it can't always (and doesn't have to be) pixel-perfect, but it should be clear what the product does.
If you’re talking about the top right corner button, I think it makes sense. It’s quite common to have it placed there and users should be familiar with this.
I don't need this right now, but I feel I might in the future, so bookmarking. Congrats on the launch!
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Thank you @anthilemoon for taking the time!
Great job, Trisha! 🙌
Hi Kathryn, the event will be recorded. Make sure to register to the event so you can receive the link by email afterwards, as well as the slides. 😊
Thanks for your question, Monique! Looking forward to the event as well 😃
Thanks! =D
Congrats, Mariam! 🙌
Despite being overlooked for decades, Katalin Kariko persevered in her researches. She’s now Senior Vice President at BioNtech, which developed a COVID vaccine thanks to her work.
Congrats Elena! 🎉 What are the links to you app?
I was actually planning on getting an Ahrefs account to see where I'm making mistakes and have leads on how I can improve my SEO. They have a 14-days free trial from what I saw.
Also, I need to take a look at this "trailing slash" thingy for the SEO of Women Make 🤔
"I learned I don’t want to do anything every day for a month if it isn’t eating, sleeping, or knitting." 😂
Great article otherwise. I'm so happy to read that the challenge helped you get it done, and I'm looking forward to your participation next year 🚀
Glad to hear it! Hopefully I'll see you participating in the next edition :D
That's very cool! So your next challenge is in marketing and sales ;)
How did the launch go? Are you happy with the number of sales so far?
Great article! My phone is also always in silent mode and notifications are deactivated for most apps. I feel much better since I did this.
Awesome that you managed to create a full app during the Women Make Challenge! 😱 I like your tag line as well.
Same! It gives me motivation to read these.
I feel you, it's not easy when you're not used to it. As you may have seen from other participants, you can stay pretty factual and just share what progress you recently made. You don't necessary have to elaborate: just facts and screenshots ;)
One more reader, @Anashch! 🤓
Great talk, Veni!
👍👍👍
Woohoo! 🙌 The whole project is really taking shape!
No idea! I'm on macOS. It works on Chrome and Safari, but not on Firefox.
Wikipedia is in the game for a loooong time! But it doesn't mean you can't get there. You should find where you users are hanging out: Twitter hashtags, Facebook groups, subreddits about Rails, etc. Then talk to them!
One thing is sure, people won't come by themselves, unless you have a killer SEO. About that, you could read [this post] https://womenmake.com/posts/CmtUJg0Si4/understanding-how-google-works-to-improve-your-seo to understand how it works. @stephsmith recently wrote [a book] https://gumroad.com/l/doing-content-right on this topic that you might be interested in.
Hey Gabi! Sounds interesting but I can't see anything on the website. I get "No data found" and "0 Posts found."
It's @gimmeacamera ;)
Depends on your use case.
On Mailchimp/Mailjet, I created a first campaign, then I duplicate it every time I need to send a new campaign. So if you already have the content and don't need to spend time on design again, it's fast!
I like Mailchimp which is easy to use, but after 2,000 subscribers it gets expensive. Another alternative is Mailjet.
I personally use Sendgrid. Once you get to know their API it’s nice and cheaper. I send Women Make’s weekly newsletter with it, with dynamic templates.
Interesting. That’s quite a lot for 30 days!
I can’t access your notion link though :(
Depends on what stage you’re in. If you are starting I would build a landing page so that interested users can sign up with their email. In that case, your challenge could be to reach 10, 100, or 1000 subscribers. If you don’t have a website yet, that can also be a great goal to make it.
Kiff looks great!
Did you try to get your app [featured] https://developer.apple.com/contact/app-store/promote/ on the App Store? I wrote a [complete guide] https://link.medium.com/RLeKbY6ZV9 on how do that if you want to learn more.
« I have made mistakes and I will surely make more. » Something to remind yourself often!
I also liked what you said about the rules. It’s good to « know » them, especially when you start, to have a series of examples and concret cases to guide you. But what worked for others will not necessarily work for you.
The success of your startup depends on many factors, but not on following the rules. Being an entrepreneur is exactly about that: doing things differently, trying things that haven’t been done.
By the way, any idea of when you will launch?
Looks great Masha, congrats!! 🥳
Loved it! Your intro is excellent, as well as your writing.
That was an interesting read, thanks Ghislaine!
Woohoo, congrats Mariam! 🥳 Upvoted! I hope you will stay #1 🤞
I think the last two sound better.
Wohoo, congrats Lucinda! 👏
Thanks for this great list of suggestions Ki! 😊
Hey Taylor, welcome on Women Make! Lemon Lab looks interesting. I replaced the bit.ly links in your post. I’d rather avoid them here because this is a community and campaign tracking tools are not friendly for this space.
That being said, the list of products is huge! Have you and your team tested a lot of them already? Are they some that you particularly recommend to this community?
I found it very interesting! It's clear, detailed, and I felt like I was actually participating in the process along with you while reading your article.
Thanks for reading, glad you found it useful!
Hey Bhumi! Here's mine: https://twitter.com/marie_dm_. You can also find most of the Women Make members in this Twitter list I update regularly: https://twitter.com/i/lists/992336279089176577/members.
It’s @TashaRo sorry 😁
Then you should hire Natalie! 😉
She did here: https://womenmake.com/posts/49r0RKy00U/creating-promotional-content-for-social-media ;)
Maybe try to be more specific about your product, "b2c" is very vast.
Love the new website! Tamara has helped me with Women Make multiple times on the marketing side of things and she does a great job 👌
Including a mention of Women Make's newsletter, as well as Idée Fixe by @tonicowanbrown 🙌
New related article on Women Make: "How to find a remote job?" ➡️ https://womenmake.com/posts/wfGXRFysip/how-to-find-a-remote-job
You could also subscribe to Remote Leaf (https://remoteleaf.com) made by @abinaya_rl
I’m doing a recap of what has been said on the chat so far, in case it might help others.
@gimmeacamera recommended to signup to the Memo’s newsletter (thememo.substack.com). @Papayayaya recommended to check job boards for nomads like remoteok.io. @stephsmith wrote an article on finding non-tech remote jobs: https://blog.stephsmith.io/non-technical-remote-jobs. It was written before this pandemic, but much of the advice still stands. @Clo_O shared this thread: https://twitter.com/syswarren/status/1247498020662501377 with useful advice for when you apply (not specifically for remote jobs). @leandro8209 shared another job board: weworkremotely.com.Hi Agnes, I think you can reach out to angel investors on Angel List (angel.co) or apply to tech accelerators. For example Y Combinator (ycombinator.com/apply) makes small investments ($150k) in return for small stakes (%7) in the companies they fund.
In your case, if you plan to raise money in Europe you can give a shot to Techstars (techstars.com). They invest in exchange of a 6% common stock and you receive $20,000 plus a $100,000 convertible note.
Some Women Make members might be able to give you tips, like @anthilemoon and @AmandineFlachs who are scouts at Backed VC (backed.vc), or maybe @JelenaJansson.
Nice list! I gathered a few ideas too:
Also @Clo_O created a Women Make subgroup to think about ways to help with the pandemic. If you're interested, join here 👉 https://t.me/joinchat/G3yfVhi5zYYQtTtZsMeAgQ
Hey Anna! I think your survey looks good. I'd add a few more questions about what content creators expect from the sponsors, maybe like: what kind of company/sponsor? How much money do they think they can get paid? On which schedule basis?
Definitely, I agree with you. And it’s sad that this is a question women ask themselves but not necessarily men.
Btw, this comment was from me, I posted from the wrong account 🙈
« A lot of time I feel like I'm running on auto-pilot », I do have this feeling from time to time! If you’re looking for an app to keep a journal, I just started using Jour which I really like: jour.com.
Wow, 200 messages is huge, congrats! 🙌
The first programming language I learnt was C and loved it! I probably don't know much about it now though 😝
Originally I was only developing on iOS, I started to learn Node.js less than a year ago, and now I'm trying to handle things out with the front-end aspect (so JS, HTML, CSS...). What about you?
Accounting, etc. is really the not-fun part and I definitely didn't become an entrepreneur for this 😂
It looks much better than before! More visual and easier to read.
I think the first reason why I started all this is because I wanted to create things. I would not have think of me as a creative person before, yet I wanted to create.
Another reason is I wanted to be my own boss. I wasn’t always happy to work for someone, especially when I felt like things could be done differently.
I also love the freedom that comes with it. It doesn’t mean it’s not harder for a lot of things, but I really care about this way of life.
Congrats Danielle (leavemealone.xyz), Melanie (placid.app), Veni (diversifytech.co), Kathrin (femtechinsider.com)! 🔥🙌
I realize I didn't quite respected your format!
Here's a recent tweet I shared: "2019 Economic Sciences Laureate Esther Duflo, born in 1972, is the second woman and the youngest person to be awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences." https://twitter.com/NobelPrize/status/1183682666446704640
What about "Just F*ing Ship It: Edition 2"?
If you want to participate, add your project/idea in this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GiGbLZXXX82j-Y4ANNuNXdeAqrWpjxZUlyIgWmKtr1Y/edit#gid=156965416.
For those who didn't participate/haven't seen the first edition, here is the result of the Just f*ing ship it challenge of last year: https://womenmake.com/challenge-october-2018 🚀
Awesome, just followed you! 😊
You could use https://typeform.com and link the survey in your newsletter.
Congrats on your launch Benedicte! 🎉 I like that it is privacy focused, I saw some bad press about existing apps and I'm always afraid for my data. Actually I only enter the strict minimum to avoid sharing info I don't want to.
Congrats on the launch Michaela! 🙌 Will listen to this 1st episode soon!
I love that animation on the background, it's fun!
Otherwise, on the work page maybe you could give a few examples of what you've been working on.
If you need inspiration, recently I liked Clo's and Tamara's websites: https://thistooshallgrow.com and https://tamarasredojevic.com.
Loved your articled Dianna! And I'm not a fan of "digital nomad" either ;)
On that point in particular, and everything that goes with that term, it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only "digital nomad" who doesn't like to work in co-working spaces or cafés. I also like to have a kitchen to cook myself.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. Sounds like a pretty honest reflection and that's what I enjoyed in your article.
"not feeling pressured into working when the other one does": we made progress on this but not there yet!
Otherwise I don't think we are as structured as you 😂 We try to work less since a few months, so we are more in a "calm down" phase, where we work in priority on what we want. It doesn't mean we should work in a total mess though. Recently we tried to put our main goals on a sheet of paper at the beginning of the week so we both know what main tasks are keeping busy the other.
I've been working with my partner for about the same time so I can definitely relate.
I agree that accountability can be tough. I noticed that each of us having a "big" goal for the week helps too.
Otherwise I don't always like that we talk so often about our projects. I want us to have other hobbies and subjects of discussion, but at the same time it's a major part of our lives and we have this in common so it's hard not to talk about it so often. And there are always new things to do, and ideas coming at any time.
Sometimes I'm asking myself if we live in the real world because of this life/work relationship, I don't always feel that it is so normal, so I'm happy to see there are so other people like us! 😂 I'm curious to know if you have other "guidelines" or "boundaries" that you put in place to keep a healthy relationship.
I must say that even if my answer might sound negative, I wouldn't stop it either, I like what we do together!
It's a bug when you reply, but it displays well if you refresh the page. Should be fixed now!
I relaunched mine for Two Makers (https://mailchi.mp/80a197d266d6/twomakers) a few weeks ago.
I'm doing some tests on the format/content to see what works best but for now every issue is sent every 2 weeks and is made of 2 parts: 1) Updates about our work and/or an article we wrote and 2) Links to articles/products we find interesting.
I'd like to find more subscribers so I should find ways to promote it.
Obviously I also run the Women Make newsletter 😁
😂
No but that's a good idea, that's something I might implement later.
🤗
Thank you Anne-Laure! 💙
Thank you Julie! So glad to hear how this community can be helpful to you 🥰
Thank you Clo! 💕 I remember talking to you on Twitter for the 1st time in April 2018 (27th to be exact, I just checked my DMs). So happy you joined Women Make, and in the early days!
I think it depends on what you're looking for. In my case, I'm looking for profitability. So if the product has growth, retention and a growing number of customers, I will keep working on this one. Once most of the work is automated or that it doesn't require a lot of time from me, I might think of working on another project.
If the project is not profitable, then that might ask myself that question: "Have I try everything I should or do I just stop it?".
I wrote an article that started from a discussion on Women Make. It talks about work/life balance and what new habits I put in place 6 months ago.
Any good habits to share on your side?
Did you ever try to post it on Reddit? You could look for communities that are into branding, marketing or entrepreneurship.
Thank you Kalina!
Yayyy! 🎉