Last week, I wrote about my journey of developing an idea into a product in one day. I got a proof of concept working, but the product is not launched yet. I put in more work over the past few days to make it more user-friendly and of higher production quality because I have an ambitious goal: selling it for $1!
I made it with Notion because I plan to leverage Notion’s duplicate template feature to allow buyers to copy the brand personality kit into their own space.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/70a1648a-9425-43b6-9765-1e7f191a6ed8/1._Duplicate.mov
From here, the buyer can share it with their cofounder to collaborate.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/23a9b217-cf0e-4949-a251-79f303b3c468/2._Share.mov
Now, the workshop is ready to begin. Click on “Get Started” to proceed to the Preparation step, where it introduces what a brand personality is. Once the workshop participants are familiar with the concepts, they are ready to move onto Step 1.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/ccbbfe9b-d39c-47b5-a354-6c35c3c15715/3-4._Prepare.mov
In Step 1, we are only looking at the brand personality words. Based on the literal meaning of these adjectives, we choose ten cards by drag and drop. Both myself and my collaborator “hs” can contribute. Collaborator’s action is visible to me in real-time.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/ba2ed267-b01e-4ae5-8725-d532800fb1ac/4-1._Collaborate_on_step_1.mov
Move on to Step 2. Maybe you still remember how Hua’s workshop print card works? For step 2, we should look at side B, which is with logo examples. In Notion, I set the card preview for Step 2 to side B, so no manual switching is necessary! Re-assess the words that I have chosen, using the logo examples as visual references; I narrow down to 7 cards by drag and drop to the right-hand side.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/144ea471-1c11-499c-a227-1659ee7543ae/5._Step_2.mov
Step 3, narrow further down to 5 cards based on the typeface examples. Hua and I curate all the typefaces; their design expresses the corresponding brand personalities.
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/05dbd0da-089a-4e07-8151-1ea9b2dff2fe/6._Step_3.mov
Finally, we can view the results!
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/2bc09dbe-8f6e-4f36-bf7e-6f8f87a55487/7._Final_Step.mov
I was initially planning to launch the Notion workshop kit today. I want to put it out in the world to see the responses: is there an appetite from startup founders to workshop their brand this way? I am eager to see. However, a new problem comes up: marketing.
I took a look at Gumroad and search for Notion Templates. There is more work: I need to put together a good marketing page! Just check out these competitions; every product is presented with a well-written sales pitch and a detailed description of what buyers will get. Then it hits me: I never did this part before. I usually offer things for free, and I would just share the link with the world. Whoever needs it will take it. But selling things are different; even for $1, the game is fundamentally changed.
I could hush together a few paragraphs to put it on Gumroad, so I can check the checkbox of launching a product today. I decided against it. I thought of how many people will see the product page vs. how many people will see this Notion workshop kit I made; the ratio is probably 100:1! For every 100 people who visited the product page, only the few who paid $1 will see the Notion workshop kit. I have spent almost a week on the workshop kit. Do I really want to under-represent my effort? The disproportional effort I put on the 1% won’t be worth it if I don’t work hard for the 99%.