Hi all, sorry for the silly secrecy in my introduction, I wanted wait until today to announce my product. So, the holding page for Blocks is now live — http://www.blocksapp.io
As I mentioned previously this is a SAAS app we’re building to help designers and developers with invoicing, project management, team scheduling and client communications.
I’d love any feedback you have on the idea and the holding page. We’re also blogging our progress here - http://www.blocksapp.io/blog
Quick update: we announced Blocks about 4 hours ago, so I thought I’d put a quick update on here.
So far, no coverage from any of the big blogs like Techcrunch, Venture beat or Mashable.
We got on the front page of http://thenews.im
I put a post on Medium (https://medium.com/p/943d0efb3032) which has had 157 views up till now
The twitter account is at 76 from 0 follows and has had a lot of activity
Real time analytics has been around 40-70 active visitors at any one time since we announced it
And we’ve have 212 sign ups to the mailing list
We did have a big issue for the first 45 mins that stopped the sign up form from working.
I’ll give it another 24 hours and I’ll come back with a bit more info.
That’s awesome Tom! Looks like you may reach 1,000 sign ups in 24 hours.
Congrats!
Quick feedback on the holding page.
On my laptop, above the fold I see all the way to your optin box and there is no indication that there is anything below. Some indication that I should continue to scroll would be helpful, even if it’s just an arrow of some sort, or a “not convinced? keep reading”.
It’s fairly unconventional to ask for a last name for an email list. First name / email should be enough, and just email is better. That should give you a healthy boost in your conversion rate (split test it to find out!)
I love the watercolor look with the swinging images. It does make me scroll more on my small (12") screen, but that didn’t bother me.
After reading through it all, I’d still like more info. I’m sure that will come as you progress, but “productivity tools that speak to each other” is still too vague. What benefit do I get from them all being connected? What will I be able to do that I can’t do now? What tools will you be replacing? How will you save me time and money?
@iammorton Thanks Michael, we’re pretty happy! Just hit 315, but it’s slowing down so I’m not sure we’ll hit 1000 today. Fingers crossed though. We’ll give it another push at around 6pm GMT to get some more in the US.
@matthias Thanks for the feedback Matthias, all really good points. We may well change to just email as a couple of people have mentioned it. Definitely need to elaborate on what it will be. It’s purposely vague at the moment because we’re still building it. Will be adding detail to the landing page and the blog as we go. Thanks again 
Hi Tom!
Where did your beta list top out yesterday? Eager to hear!
@iammorton Sorry, it’s been a mad 24 hours. We’re currently on 783 signups to the mailing list and have started to get some coverage on design blogs which should help. I’ll be writing a review on the site later tonight. I’ll post a link when it’s up.
This looks really cool I would enjoy using this. If you want to add bitcoin support I can help you with that! over 50% of developers are willing to take bitcoin as payment could be a big market.
Hi, all I put a post together detailing the first 36 hours of the Blocks announcement if you’re interested — http://blocksapp.io/blog/the-first-36-hours
Thanks @gweedo, that’s really interesting. I certainly think there’s a space for digital currency and if anyone is going to test the water it’ll be apps aimed at techies (like us ). We designed the branding and website for CoinDesk a while back which is a news portal for Bitcoin stuff. You should check it out.
That’s awesome Tom!
I too am inspired when founders share their journey so openly. I really appreciate you sharing yours.
@tomlloyd FYI - your site was featured on One Page Love today. http://onepagelove.com/ Congrats!
Would you mind sharing how much traffic you received from this site? Been thinking about submitting my site to them as a source of traffic. Would love to know the possible return we could get from it.
@iammorton hey, thanks Michael! Yeah, we’ve got featured on a few galleries now (some I submitted to and 2 I paid for).
Here’s what we got:
Total uniques: 10,727
Total signups: 1,146
Top refers:
thebestdesigns.com - 2,712 visits (45 signups)
awwwards.com - 1,623 (30)
Twitter - 1,491 (153)
patterntap.com - 304 (14)
cssmania.com - 302 (3)
onepagelove.com - 255 (8)
producthunt.co - 180 (13)
usepanda.com - 123 (16)
That’s the last 7 days. I think one page love and cssmania only featured us a couple of days ago.
Awwwards was 30 to be featured, so 1 per sign up, so that’s ok.
Hope that helps. What’s the url for your site? Happy to give any feedback I can
Thanks Tom! That’s very helpful info.
My web app is Resamazing.com
We are an easy way for anyone without design or dev skills to create a gorgeous online resume. We’re currently in limited beta. Although anyone can sign up, we haven’t yet branched out to anyone outside of our friends. This is the first time I’ve posted about the site in a public forum nervous!
We’re in the middle of fixing bugs, getting basic feedback, and seeing if there’s a market for this type of thing. But we’re fully operational.
I appreciate any advice you can give!
Thanks again!
Hey Tom, just wanted to thank you for the excellent run down of your first 36 hours. Very informative. I know it can be tough to be so open when your blood, sweat, and tears went into the product.
Looks like you’re off to a great start!