Intro
I launched a physical gift product for couples called Chronicle. It was an aesthetic, personalized book for your partner.
I spent 4 months on it… and then shut it down.
It was bittersweet, with many wins and losses lessons đź‘Ś.
Here’s 5 of them.
1. My design skills went 0 → 1.
I had 0 design experience coming in.
But I’ve always wanted to design something ✨delightful✨.
So this year I opened up Figma for the first time and just vibed out.
This was the first thing I made: 🥶
By the end of Chronicle, this was the design I was most proud of: 🥹
It’s a quiz that guides you through your book.
I spent a lot of time trying to make this delightful.
I would ask users to rate their dopamine levels on a scale of 1-10 for every screen. It worked surprisingly well :)
People particularly liked the cute messages on top with emojis.
Here’s the landing page:
People liked the 3D render; the Heart Map page was a crowd favorite.
From an e-commerce lens, the landing page lacks crucial elements — I learned this the hard way & discuss it more in notes #2 and #3.
But from an aesthetic lens and from a “my first product” lens, I’m proud of it.
I also included a brief onboarding quiz:
2. Social proof is everything. I had none 🥲
Go to any e-commerce site and you’ll see social proof everywhere.
It comes in many forms:
- pictures of people smiling while holding the product
- videos of people’s reactions
- verified reviews & ratings
- features in popular media (e.g. Forbes, TechCrunch)
Social proof is the only way to earn trust.
If I see a 5-star review with a dimly lit picture of the product in someone’s house, it’s definitely real.
And now I’m way more likely to buy it.
I… did not include any social proof. I thought a few pics & a cool 3D render were enough.
In fact, I was excited to see how far people got with the onboarding flow.
Sigh. Nope. Barely anyone even started the onboarding flow. Because they didn’t trust that this was even a real product. Because there was no social proof.
It’s one of those things that’s obvious in retrospect 🥲
3. My add-to-cart (ATC) time was 30 minutes.
Every other gift product’s ATC is 3 minutes or less.
Users generally churn with every additional step in your onboarding flow. Consumer apps know this well.
Which is why 95% of gift products are effectively just a landing page, social proof and then a dressed-up form to customize your product.
There are gift products with a high ATC time, like many photo book builders (i.e. Shutterfly). But these companies seem to spend a lot of money on brand awareness & re-targeting ads.
You hit their landing page once and now you’re getting bombarded with their ads constantly.
All because they need to remind you to go back & finish that onboarding flow!
It just seems inefficient to gamble with an extended ATC time. I think it’s why 95% of gift products can be bought in 3 minutes or less.
4. Manufacturing a physical product was easier than I thought.
I’d never sourced a physical product before.
So I was worried about unknown unknowns đź«Ł Especially since I had to customize the manufacturing. Which meant potentially a long & tedious process.
Luckily, I chatted with a friend who had sourced from China before. He said the process is as easy as talking to vendors & ordering samples.
So I downloaded WhatsApp, sent in some RFPs and got to work.
After a few weeks of talking to 6 vendors and iterating on the samples, we were done!
It was cool to feel the physical products in my hands. Going from Figma to real life is such a mood đź•ş
The timezone difference & the language barrier did cause delays. But overall, the process was smoother than I expected.
5. Chinese vendors call you “dear” and “honey” 🥹
I think either their translation software does this or they do it on purpose to be affectionate. Probably the latter, since I also received warm holiday messages and funnily enough, messages to “get some sleep please, dear” when I was up at 3 am talking to them. Either way, I liked it. If any Chinese vendors are reading this post, please don’t stop 💌
What’s next?
I’m still building :) I’ve got a few ideas.
But now I’m much more growth & marketing-focused. And more focused on building a product with a great effort-to-reward ratio.
👋 I’m solo & would love to meet potential co-founders or make new friends. If my vibe resonates with you, please say hi!