Another early start today at around 5am. It was a really cold night (4 degrees!) under canvas so I didn't sleep well at all. It probably doesn't help that when I looked at my sleeping bag, it's only rated for summer and temperatures over 10 degrees. A hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs on my camping stove; followed by another bacon sandwich, and a cup of tea soon made me forget though :)
The first couple of hours I had to catch up on some estimates and some work for Appware, my existing business. It was then on to researching different systems designed to put together landing pages. This is to be used for prelaunch signups ahead of the launch. I looked at a few and the prerequites were that it was quick to build a site (obviously!), it had to look well designed, be mobile friendly (Google "responsive web design"), and also connect to another email management system (Mailchimp). By then I had to make a move and set off for the 3 hour drive to my next stop.
On this drive I came up with some ideas of the content I'd need to have on the website. I wanted to keep it fairly light on text, but also get across the following points:
What's in it for the user.
What is morning writing.
The basics of how the product works.
As the product is web based people can use it anywhere.
And to get people to sign up for info about the launch.
I thought about the content in more detail for each of these on my drive. As I often do, I dictated a few ideas into Evernote. I was getting a bit peckish so stopped half way at a pub for some lunch. They had free wifi that was nice and fast; so I spent about 3 hours there with pots of tea on tap. In that time I designed the logo, built the website (using http://instapage.com/), setup the domain names, and connected the email signup forms to Mailchimp (http://mailchimp.com/). I hit publish and the prelaunch website was live!
Check it out for yourself, and sign up for updates before I blog about them on here :)
http://prelaunch.writingritual.com/
The next step of my journey was to drive to Dunnet head. The weather was awful. It was cold, rainy, and foggy. At one point I could see on my sav nav, that I had the sea at one side, and mountains at the other. I couldn't see either because of the fog. So much for the scenic route!
I finally arrived at Dunnet Head Lighthouse, which is the most Northerly point of mainland UK. Even with the rain and fog, I managed to take a couple of photo's with the landmark.
As the weather was so bad I made the decision to find a B&B instead of camping. Life is all about adapting to conditions after all ;) About half an hour South I passed a B&B with a vacancies sign. I pulled over and Googled it; lots of great reviews and a sensible cost. So I booked in and it was lovely. The owners were really friend, the room was stunning and immaculate, and it had wifi. I completed the Mailchimp integration and setup auto welcome messages. I also did a couple of tweaks to the website.
So that's day 4 done and I'm really pleased with how it all went. It just shows that you really can launch a website in less than a day. Tomorrow is all about marketing which is something that really excites me. That, and a 4.5 hour drive, and actually starting to code the end product!
Don't forget to visit the prelaunch website and sign up for updates, by browsing to http://prelaunch.writingritual.com/ now :)
If you want to follow my #7DayStartup journey "live", you can do so on social media, and on Periscope. You can find me on most platforms as "richardjeaton" so do come say hi on Instagram, Twitter, or Periscope.
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The first couple of hours I had to catch up on some estimates and some work for Appware, my existing business. It was then on to researching different systems designed to put together landing pages. This is to be used for prelaunch signups ahead of the launch. I looked at a few and the prerequites were that it was quick to build a site (obviously!), it had to look well designed, be mobile friendly (Google "responsive web design"), and also connect to another email management system (Mailchimp). By then I had to make a move and set off for the 3 hour drive to my next stop.
On this drive I came up with some ideas of the content I'd need to have on the website. I wanted to keep it fairly light on text, but also get across the following points:
What's in it for the user.
What is morning writing.
The basics of how the product works.
As the product is web based people can use it anywhere.
And to get people to sign up for info about the launch.
I thought about the content in more detail for each of these on my drive. As I often do, I dictated a few ideas into Evernote. I was getting a bit peckish so stopped half way at a pub for some lunch. They had free wifi that was nice and fast; so I spent about 3 hours there with pots of tea on tap. In that time I designed the logo, built the website (using http://instapage.com/), setup the domain names, and connected the email signup forms to Mailchimp (http://mailchimp.com/). I hit publish and the prelaunch website was live!
Check it out for yourself, and sign up for updates before I blog about them on here :)
http://prelaunch.writingritual.com/
The next step of my journey was to drive to Dunnet head. The weather was awful. It was cold, rainy, and foggy. At one point I could see on my sav nav, that I had the sea at one side, and mountains at the other. I couldn't see either because of the fog. So much for the scenic route!
I finally arrived at Dunnet Head Lighthouse, which is the most Northerly point of mainland UK. Even with the rain and fog, I managed to take a couple of photo's with the landmark.
As the weather was so bad I made the decision to find a B&B instead of camping. Life is all about adapting to conditions after all ;) About half an hour South I passed a B&B with a vacancies sign. I pulled over and Googled it; lots of great reviews and a sensible cost. So I booked in and it was lovely. The owners were really friend, the room was stunning and immaculate, and it had wifi. I completed the Mailchimp integration and setup auto welcome messages. I also did a couple of tweaks to the website.
So that's day 4 done and I'm really pleased with how it all went. It just shows that you really can launch a website in less than a day. Tomorrow is all about marketing which is something that really excites me. That, and a 4.5 hour drive, and actually starting to code the end product!
Don't forget to visit the prelaunch website and sign up for updates, by browsing to http://prelaunch.writingritual.com/ now :)
If you want to follow my #7DayStartup journey "live", you can do so on social media, and on Periscope. You can find me on most platforms as "richardjeaton" so do come say hi on Instagram, Twitter, or Periscope.
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