Beta Launch of FeedmailPro.com! (With Demo VIDEO)

In: Uncategorized By: Brian Armstrong

6 Aug 2009

Last week I told you about a new project I was working on, and I wanted to give you a sneak peak at how it’s going!

WARNING: this is a beta launch, and the site is still being developed. So I DON’T recommend you start using it for your main newsletter or move your list over yet. This is just for testing purposes. I also ask that you don’t post about it anywhere else yet. I want to keep the beta launch small and manageable (besides, it will be much more profitable for you to post about it once I have the affiliate program set up!) Lots of things will be changing going forward.

The URL to check it out is http://feedmailpro.com

A couple points worth mentioning:

1. Yes it has the same layout/design as BuyersVote.com. I did this just because it was the simplest and fastest way to get the site up quickly, and I like how it looks. The design comes from this open source wordpress theme by Design Disease.

Just as a side note: I personally don’t think it’s worth spending much time on the design when launching a Web 2.0 company. If you have an awful design, I suppose it could hurt, but as long as you have something that is good enough, and doesn’t get in the way of your main message, then it’s not that important. Your time is better spent elsewhere in the early stages (like on the product). When the thing takes off you can always go back and get a professional design done.

2. If you read the comments from my last post you may have noticed that my friend Erica brought up some very good points about the difficulties in running this type of business (namely, communicating with ISP’s to keep your deliverability rates up). She was absolutely right and I got in touch with her for some advice. After talking for a bit, we figured there might be a way to outsource the delivery part of it since it was something I definitely did not want to deal with (it was not passive at all). After some research I turned up this company (ISIPP or SuretyMail) who do exactly that: email accreditation and deliverability. It turns out this is actually how Aweber themselves do it (they are a customer) along with a bunch of other well known email service providers (Constant Contact, etc). So I have to give a big thank you to Erica for helping me out on that one.

Obviously hiring a company like that is not a panacea and I’m 100% sure there will still be some sort of unexpected problems to deal with down the road (as with every startup), but at least this was a step in the right direction.

3. Finally, check out the 2 minute video demo I put together. It shows a quick overview and how easy it will be to move your account over from Aweber. There is no doubt about it, I’m looking to steal a TON of business from Aweber on this one. They probably won’t be happy about that and I need to be careful and make sure to do everything by the books. But at the same time, they’ve been getting away with robbery for so long now with a mediocre product that it’s about time they got some competition. Consumers will ultimately be the winner here by getting a better product for less money, and that’s really the beauty of capitalism at work.

The video works best in fullscreen.

I still need to add some more features like:

generating the signup code for people to use on their blogs
the billing system and affiliate program (will be copying lots of code from UniversityTutor here so it won’t take long)
a way to automate adding subscribers with an API
some more spam prevention stuff
a way for people to send one-time email blasts which aren’t from their RSS feed

But most of the basic functionality is there. At least enough to start getting feedback on it.

Please take a moment to check it out at http://feedmailpro.com and let me know what you think!

Please send me your thoughts on what you like and don’t like about it in the comments below. If you encounter any strange bugs feel free to report them in the FeedmailPro Support Forum I set up.

Until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong

Be Sociable, Share!

22 Responses

Kevin

August 6th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

You might want to put a more obvious link at the start of the post. The only link currently appears to be the screenshot. Otherwise, looking good.

Kevin

Brian Armstrong

August 6th, 2009 at 2:45 pm

Good call! Thanks I updated it.

Dana

August 6th, 2009 at 5:14 pm

Hi,
I am very new at blogging (just started last month)so I am not knowledgeable with this stuff at all but it looks very simple and easy to use. I am not even close to needing anything like this since I am still in the learning process of blogging but I am glad to see it doesn’t seem hard to use.

Brian Armstrong

August 7th, 2009 at 8:29 pm

Thanks I definitely tried to make it really easy to use. Good user interface design is something I’m practicing.

College Town Menus (CTM)

August 6th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

Brian,
I love how all of your sites look exactly the same. Good branding and nice work on just getting it out there for testing/validation.

However, I agree getting it out there is important, but I respectfully disagree in that with online websites; image IS everything, especially for start-ups. That’s all we’ve got. We don’t have a solid list of loyal customers that can vouch for us, we just started so our length of experience is questioned, and we need to look trustworthy and professional. Although I do agree that you can easily start with something basic and clean in your sense, I would argue that image is most important in certain niche’s. That’s like going to an interview (or even a job fair) in just jeans…no way.

You have also earlier said that the price a company charges it’s customers is a reflection of the confidence and value perceived of the products that you’re offering. Well, you definitely cannot create a high value feeling, brand or price point with a basic design.

When you see a Ferarri, (if you’re a car buff), you instantly have respect and an image/stereotype associated with that car owner.

This is why when I launched CTM, I spent good money and time on a very solid design, layout and logo because I knew it would set the baseline for future contacts rather than going back to try and repair it. First impressions last a lifetime. I’d rather do design first, and then work on the products/features in the background (or concurrently) and do staged releases as the company and products mature.

Otherwise, great site, concept and drive! I’m very excited to see what comes out of this new service! I support Aweber, but I’m all game for fair competition, pricing and value. Go get ‘em!

Brian Armstrong

August 6th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

Good point and thanks for the feedback!

Simona Rich

August 6th, 2009 at 5:44 pm

Wow, you are so good in creating different kinds of products! It looks great! I wonder how you can keep up with so many new projects?

I notice that when I work on more than three projects at the same time, my stress levels go up and my productivity falls. It is amazing how you can work on so many projects so easily.

By the way, referring to your other post you made some time ago. You said that you are suffering from some sleeping disorder. Now I am learning NLP and I find it extremely powerful. I have already helped some people get rid of phobias and limitations. So if you have not looked into it, you really should because it might just be the answer you are looking for. I know that you said that you tried everything and you don’t like when people give you suggestions, but I could not help it:)

Brian Armstrong

August 6th, 2009 at 7:16 pm

I agree and I’m a little worried I’m taking on too much too, but so far so good since UniversityTutor and BuyersVote were designed to be 100% passive once started (in other words I should rarely need to work in the business, just on it, which isn’t time sensitive).

Have read a little about NLP and will look into it regarding DSPS, thanks!

B Smith @ Wealth and Wisdom

August 6th, 2009 at 8:32 pm

Brian,

Great idea and service. There is one thing that I see missing. I would like to see the ability to program in follow up messages. I personally use Aweber as both a RSS to email converter and as an autoresponder.

You have the backbone so it should be relatively easy to add this. It would add a lot to the service and make you an even more attractive replacement to Aweber.

Brian Armstrong

August 7th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

Hi and thanks for the feedback. I don’t plan on offering follow up services at all actually since this is just for bloggers. I think I’ll add a feature where you can send a one time email blast to your list which isn’t related to a blog entry, but no followups. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere I think, and what could really make this product great is to have it be the best tool for bloggers, you can’t be all things to all people.

Mar

August 7th, 2009 at 5:33 am

You’ve an amazing character Brian and this project should take you another step towards the moon. ; )

I was amazed by how UniversityTutor.com evolved and your UI design is extremely well done, as shown by the rest of your project, which I’m a great admirer of.

Ok, so I’ve never tried any newsletter service before and after reading a lot about on this topic recently I’m tempted to give it a try. Aweber and Constant Contact got my attention but then reading your thoughts on them planted seeds of doubt in me — so I’ve decided to try yours!

Signing up was a breeze. Setting up was even easier, though I faced a slight hiccup of finding the ‘code’ snippets to implement into my site (or maybe I didn’t look hard enough?)

Now I don’t know how such a newsletter/broadcast service work, but if yours is a template to go by, then it’s extremely easy, friendly and definitely a service that I wouldn’t mind paying for (at an affordable price range!)

Keep up the good work Brian! Nice job!

Brian Armstrong

August 7th, 2009 at 2:16 pm

Thanks Mar!

You didn’t miss the “code” I just haven’t made it yet :) Check over the next few days.

Also just want to point out that the tons of positive reviews about Aweber all over the internet are bullshit. 99% of them are affiliate links. There’s nothing wrong with that (I plan on stealing the idea to do my own affiliate program) but just don’t be fooled into thinking they are unbiased reviews. Thanks for the comment!

Tylor

August 7th, 2009 at 8:42 pm

Congratulations on getting this off the ground so quickly! I have a feeling that this thing is going to explode! You may have really hit a homerun with this! I am really excited to start testing around with it. It looks amazing!!!

Brian Armstrong

August 7th, 2009 at 9:55 pm

Awesome! Thanks Tylor :)

Greg Moreno

August 10th, 2009 at 7:56 pm

Wow, where do you get the energy to build several products. I can’t even launch one :)

I like the one time email blast. I know people can use it for spam but there are a lot of people, especially those that are just starting their business, who can benefit from mass-emailing relevant content to their target audience.

Brian Armstrong

August 14th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

Hey Greg, I think it’s pretty safe because they can only do a one-time blast to their list, which is either all double opt-in or went through the import verification process. Won’t be much use to spammers, thanks for the encouragement!

Gordie Rogers

August 11th, 2009 at 7:02 am

Great stuff, Brian.

So far, I can manually put people into the email list. Please email us when the code is ready to put into our sites so people can subscribe to our blogs through FeedmailPro themselves. Looking good so far.

Brian Armstrong

August 14th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

Code is ready now, thanks Gordie.