Charlie Park

A side project of mine (Wallet Garden) is getting some media attention tomorrow. That means I’ve got the opportunity to run some A/B tests on it and get results pretty quickly. If you have any A/B theses (an idea about a way an interface could be improved, a line of copy to use / not use, etc.) that you’d like me to test, let me know.

You can either e-mail me or just answer the question here (if this “answer this” Tumblr feature works). So: If you have an interface / funnel thesis, what is it?

“My favorite animal at the Zoo is the lesser kudu. You have to admire an animal with a name like that, laboring as he must in the shadow of the greater kudu. It must be like having an older brother who excelled at sports and academics in school, to whom you have always been compared and found lacking. A few months ago, I was visiting the Zoo at lunch with a friend and discovered the area where the lesser kudu is ordinarily found was empty.”

“I hope he made a break for it. I hope he made his way out into the world, free of expectations, shedding labels, determined only to be the best damn kudu he could be.”

— Brad, who passed away earlier today

When I was younger, I used to get really upset when I discovered that someone was already working on an idea that I had. Over time, I got over this, for a few reasons — I realized that ideas are easy, that I’m not always as uniquely creative as I think I am, and (here’s the main thing I realized) it meant that I was freed up to work on the ideas that only I was having. So, nowadays, when I see someone doing something I thought of independently, I actually breathe easier: One less Good Thing that the world benefits from (perhaps benefits? hopefully?) without my having to make it happen.

So I just found one, and I wanted to share it.

Back in December, I posted this:

Had a quick idea this weekend. In Chris Anderson’s Free, he talks about a health club that is free to join, but if you don’t show up to work out, you have to pay the monthly membership fee. (Update: looks like it’s Denmark’s “Equinox” … here’s an article.) The idea is a simple one: As long as you show up and work out, at least once a week, the health club pays your membership fee. If you don’t show up, it costs you a normal membership fee.

I was thinking that a similar service could exist (thrive?) online. A forum, around a specific topic (or range of topics). Unlike a health club or other physical center with physical goods, scaling isn’t a problem. (Although you could create an artificial scarcity for signups … some limit on how many people can be a part of the forum.) And your incentive to be an active member is reinforced in two ways — you don’t want to pay the membership, for one, and (hopefully more compelling) you actually begin to forge relationships with the other people on the forum and find the forum to be of inherent value.

I was initially thinking about this in the context of a weight-loss accountability forum / web app, where you’d have a third incentive — losing weight. You’d check in with your weight and fill in some sort of calorie chart. There’d be some sort of social element (a forum / message board / etc.). As long as you checked in at least once every two or three days, the monthly subscription would be waived. If you don’t check in, you’d have a monthly cost ($35 was what I was thinking). It wouldn’t be goal-driven … but engagement-driven.

Also, I imagine the monthly subscription fees from the people who didn’t-check-in-but-don’t-want-to-cancel would end up being healthy enough to cover the costs of the rest of the operation. I don’t know what percentage of the members would end up paying the monthly subscription. Let’s say it’s 10% (although I imagine it would end up being higher?). You’d have an average of $3.50 coming in per member per month.

I haven’t seen this business model before in an online context. If you have, I’d be curious to hear about it, or to hear if it has a name.

So, just now, I saw Lose It or Lose it:

So … what does it do? Well … it helps you lose weight, and it provides a financial incentive: If you don’t miss your check-ins, and if your check-ins are on track with your goal, you DON’T lose any money. Otherwise, you lose a pre-determined amount. If your engagement matches your goals, it’s a completely free app.

I don’t know that matching the weight goals is as sound as simply measuring engagement, but maybe simply recording your check-ins doesn’t provide enough incentive to actually lose the weight. And I don’t like that the MINIMUM investment is $100. Yikes. But I’m glad someone’s trying this business model out.

Anyway, yay for ideas! Yay for execution! Yay for me having fewer distractions, so I can focus on the distractions I already have that pull me away from the things I should be working on!

The Blog Frog does a really good job articulating their product’s benefits to its various constituencies (“For Blog Readers” / “For Blog Authors”). When you have a product that meets different users’ needs in different ways, it can be tough to connect with each user set in a meaningful way, without overwhelming the audience(s). I’ve done it, really poorly, with a side project I developed (Twinkylinks … if you sign up, I’ll love you forevers), and that question: “How do we connect with blog commenters and with blog authors, without confusing everybody?” is a difficult one. I’m not happy with how I’ve answered it (so far) within Twinkylinks.

Part of the problem with Twinkylinks is that it’s a complex idea. “I connect my e-mail address with my Twitter account? Why? What do I get out of it?” But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do a better job of explaining it on the front page of the site. One of these days, I need to re-do Twinkylinks, incorporating the clarity of The Blog Frog’s site.