Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:18:22 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:18:22] S0: Alright. What do we think? [00:18:23] S1: So first off, I mean, it's cool. Here's here's the thing that I think people miss about landing pages in general. The real metric to track is does it convert. And I obviously don't know what what it... If this is converting or not. But my sense is, like, I don't know, it's not accessible. I don't know where the CTA is. Is the CTA Ronin? [00:18:44] S0: Yeah. What do what do you think they want us to do here? [00:18:47] S1: I mean, my initial reaction is, like, I should just keep scrolling. Yeah. Right? One interesting thing that we've learned about our own landing page is, you know, everyone that has a vibe coded tool has that input to to prompt to get started. Mhmm. And for a little while, we removed it to try and be more creative. Mhmm. And our conversion rate totally tanked. We learned why people do that. Right? And so I always encourage folks to think about, like, what are you ultimately trying to do here? [00:19:17] S0: Okay. So then there's, like, an app in there. Yeah. I guess I'm halfway down the page, and I'm still unclear what is this and who is it for. I guess there's a wait list, so maybe it's not live yet. [00:19:29] S1: Yeah. Let's
00:19:29 · Alex Danilowicz, Aaron Epstein
[00:19:29] S1: Yeah. Let's [00:19:29] S0: see. And now they're getting into more of the description. It's a voice agent with a personality, a memory, and a mind of its own. That feels like the kind of thing that should have been all the way at the top. Right. Like, the site should start here with this because this is the call to action, which is join the wait list. But we had to scroll down pretty far in order to even get to this point. [00:19:47] S1: Totally. And I'm kinda laughing here that, like, this main CTA to join, I had to do... There was an interaction there. That's another... Almost an example of something that maybe was potentially Vibe coded. AI agents, they love adding animations and things like that. Right? Overly animating. Mhmm. And so, you know, why not just start it with that? Right? [00:20:08] S0: Yeah. That... That's actually interesting. We ran some tests at my company, Creative Market. And, when you had the input form visible and expanded directly on the page, conversion rate was much higher than requiring somebody to click through to then put in an email address or pop up a window or get to the form or something like that. So I I would recommend whenever possible, yeah, just start with the text box open, and people can just type type right in it. It's pretty shocking how that actually significantly impacts, conversion rate of people entering information there.
00:20:08 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:20:08] S0: Yeah. That... That's actually interesting. We ran some tests at my company, Creative Market. And, when you had the input form visible and expanded directly on the page, conversion rate was much higher than requiring somebody to click through to then put in an email address or pop up a window or get to the form or something like that. So I I would recommend whenever possible, yeah, just start with the text box open, and people can just type type right in it. It's pretty shocking how that actually significantly impacts, conversion rate of people entering information there. [00:20:43] S1: Yeah. And that's what I encourage. Like, think about the human. I think AI agents, they... There, again, they're rewarded of doing fun things like motion and overly animating. Right? But the human is not gonna spend a lot of time on your site. They're in a rush. [00:20:56] S0: Yeah. We see a lot of... There's blinking dots everywhere. And, I don't know if music is playing, but it looks like there's some type of, you know, like, music faders or something going there. And so, yeah, it's it's kinda hard to tell it's going. I like the overall vibe. It's it's, like, it's got this kinda dark mode red. It feels very, like, eighties video game kind of, which I think is is interesting. But it's also hard to read some of the things. Like, it it actually looks like maybe there's an input box or something over on the right hand side, and and I almost missed it because it's not clear to me that it exists.
00:20:56 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:20:56] S0: Yeah. We see a lot of... There's blinking dots everywhere. And, I don't know if music is playing, but it looks like there's some type of, you know, like, music faders or something going there. And so, yeah, it's it's kinda hard to tell it's going. I like the overall vibe. It's it's, like, it's got this kinda dark mode red. It feels very, like, eighties video game kind of, which I think is is interesting. But it's also hard to read some of the things. Like, it it actually looks like maybe there's an input box or something over on the right hand side, and and I almost missed it because it's not clear to me that it exists. [00:21:33] S1: Yeah. This is another kind of vibe coated smell that I I commonly see. As you can see, my my mouse here is letting me interact with this, but I can't actually type anything. Right? And so, you know, and then I'm like, well, what's going on? [00:21:49] S0: Yeah. Yeah. There's a pattern that I've seen where sometimes you have actual UI elements embedded in the page, but they're actually real and and interactive. Right. And that's cool to be able to do that. That's something that I think agents make a lot simpler now that was much harder to do before. And so it can feel very interactive and, like, you can actually try out the product live on the page, and that's super cool. But, yeah, the flip side is when it looks like something like that and it becomes misleading and you think that you can interact with something, but but you're actually not able to.
00:21:49 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:21:49] S0: Yeah. Yeah. There's a pattern that I've seen where sometimes you have actual UI elements embedded in the page, but they're actually real and and interactive. Right. And that's cool to be able to do that. That's something that I think agents make a lot simpler now that was much harder to do before. And so it can feel very interactive and, like, you can actually try out the product live on the page, and that's super cool. But, yeah, the flip side is when it looks like something like that and it becomes misleading and you think that you can interact with something, but but you're actually not able to. [00:22:17] S1: Yeah. And I think it's important to talk about, like, why does this matter? Why does it matter if there's a vibe coded smell on the website? Right? And I think it matters because you can notice how distracted we are by this input trying to type, and we're distracted from the core thing, which is whatever the CTA is supposed to be, I guess, this case. Right? It's join the join the wait list.
00:22:17 · Alex Danilowicz, Aaron Epstein
[00:22:17] S1: Yeah. And I think it's important to talk about, like, why does this matter? Why does it matter if there's a vibe coded smell on the website? Right? And I think it matters because you can notice how distracted we are by this input trying to type, and we're distracted from the core thing, which is whatever the CTA is supposed to be, I guess, this case. Right? It's join the join the wait list. [00:22:38] S0: Yeah. It's cool if you scroll down, you see, the pictures of the people. They match that vibe, that kinda eighties video game throwback vibe, which I think is cool. You know, they had that eyeball up at the top, which is, like, very provocative. It creeps me out a little bit. There's, like, an eyeball looking directly at me. But but it's interesting, and it and it becomes memorable if that's the vibe that you're going for. But, yeah, it just wasn't obvious to me what this is until we got halfway down the page. And so I think just a little more about what it is and what's the action that you want people to take. Even that call to action in the top right, that button, it just says Ronin. Right. I don't know what Ronin is. The company's called Ego. I guess it says here Ronin launching September. Is Ronin a product? Is it a model? Is it... Like, it's not clear to me what this is. And so I think, ultimately, I'm just left very confused.