In this video, a Y Combinator Partner, Aaron Epstein, and an ex-Instacart designer, Zain Ali, review landing pages for companies that were part of the YC W22 batch. They're critiquing their visual design, layout, copy and user experience.
Startup Website Tips from Aaron and Zain
When a visitor lands on your website, they want to answer two questions: "What is this?" and "Is this for me?" Make sure your website answers these questions (3:52)
Create a dedicated landing page for each of your services: both for SEO purposes and for sharing links with niche communities (4:17)
Ask existing users, "How would you describe our product?" Re-use their exact words in your website's headline -- that's likely how your target users will think about your product's value (9:35)
Product screenshots can be hard to understand without more context. Be careful with how you're using them on your website. (12:11)
Make your website skimmable. Include key info in the section headers (18:55)
1. Hokali
HOKALI is the marketplace for buying sports lessons from more than 260,000 sports coaches in the US
Remove email capture pop-up or add additional context to better understand the offer (0:49)
Headline makes it clear what the startup does (1:54)
Video background in the hero section can be distracting, unclear how some of the videos (i.e. beach one) relate back to the company without further reading. (2:08)
The hero section takes up the whole screen, not clear that you can scroll (2:45)
Services section has great hover states that make it clear that you can click on them (3:01)
The landing page that's specific to each service (in this case, surf lessons) feels too similar to the homepage. Not immediately clear that it's a new page (4:41)
In the "8 reasons to surf with us" section, the carousel of benefits animates on its own and is distracting. The content might not be important enough to keep it. (5:12)
The "Backed by YCombinator" badge might not resonate with the target audience (5:37)
A lot of jargon in the headline and subhead, might help self-select for target users (9:12)
A lot going on above the fold, need to hone in on what's most important and driving visitors towards main call-to-action (10:29)
Colors in the hero section are distracting: the yellow draws your eye toward the screenshot, but it's too small to get value out of it (11:30)
Consider getting rid of the screenshot in the hero section, or making it larger. The screenshot should convince your target audience that the product solves a problem that they have (11:45)
The website focuses more on feature than benefits or problems that the product solves. Focusing on the problem can make the content resonate more with your target audience (12:32)
Usage stats make me feel like real people are using this! (14:11)
Feature section shows five product features, shows a lot of redundant info. Consider paring that down (14:30)
The diagram for the "Collaborate with team mates" feature isn't necessary (14:41)
The six additional features in the "Additional features" section would work better on a dedicated feature page instead of the homepage (15:10)
Add main call-to-action (download for Chrome, Download for Mac OS) in the footer instead of email capture form (15:36)
3. Verdn
An API to bundle trackable, sustainable pledges with any transaction.
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