We got into an accelerator program!
Howuku started as an indie hacker project back in 2019 and now we’ve been selected to be a part of ScaleUp Malaysia Cohort 3 by Indelible Ventures.
With this opportunity, we are really excited to learn more about how to grow and scale our business to the next level!
Onwards and upwards!
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Congratulations!
Thank you, Zwenza! :)
Congratulations! Your product looks like something that'd be great for other Indie Hackers (like myself) to use to improve our products.
Could you describe the accelerator program's application process? Was it long and difficult or relatively painless?
Thanks Jon. Howuku was designed to be easy to use and affordable for business of all sizes, so let me know if you need any help setting up for your product! :)
I would say the entire process of joining the accelerator is pretty standard and relatively painless I guess?
We submitted our application and waited a month to get shortlisted and a slot for pitching, it was a 5 min pitch with 10 min Q&A section. There were the accelerator team of ScaleUp Malaysia and the other two partner VCs Indelible Ventures and Quest Ventures as the panelist.
After the pitch, we waited for another month to get a follow-up meeting with Indelible Ventures to talk about Howuku’s vision, numbers, tractions, and etc, and finally got admitted into the program a few days later.
So, the entire process took about 3 months.
Awesome context, thanks for sharing. That process doesn't sound too bad.
I'm sharing your product with my teammate right now! I'll be in touch if it's something we decide we want to deploy on our site — app.outdone.io (if you're curious!) As you'll see the value prop and revenue model are super contingent on getting users through the UX seamlessly, so A/B testing is something we know we'll need down the line.
That is awesome, thanks Jon!
I've played around with outdone app and I think the value proposition is super clear and I get what the app is trying to do just by looking at the highlighted "How old is the person you're shopping for?" and age numbers textbox alone!
But, there are a couple of low-hanging fruits you may want to address ASAP. This is the first thing I see when went into your website, https://ibb.co/Tv84JJL
1/ Your site doesn't have SSL encryption. It gives me a sense of the product is not ready, still in demo, or worst it was hijacked.
2/ Empty favicon make me feels the product not ready
3/ I personally feel that the age number placeholders color is a bit too bold as generally speaking a placeholder color should be lighter. The first time I sees it I wasn't sure if it is an actual textbox until I tried clicking on it and start typing.
4/ Maybe adjust the age numbers changing speed to a little bit slower, as it can be a bit distracting to see it kept on changing every 2 seconds which can be frustrating, too.
Just my 2cent. :)
Hey Donald, I think my co-founder and I would love to test Howuku on our site. In fact, we already integrated it with the Wordpress blog portion of our site. What's the best way to contact you?
You can reach me via Twitter DM or just drop me an email with my handle at donald.
It looks like your DMs are closed to people you don't follow. I just submitted by info on Howuku's contact form instead!
All great feedback. Thanks so much for taking a look!!
It's weird, we do have SSL, but for some reason when I don't if I don't include the https in the hyperlink, it defaults to driving to the http version. Not sure why that is. Going to dig into that.
Sharing this feedback with my co-founder now. Hoping we can quickly fix some of it.
You probably need to set up force HTTPS redirection for your site. Otherwise, visitors will reach your HTTP site if they did not explicitly specify the HTTPS protocol.
Congratulations!
Thanks nktskr!