Comments on: Fred Wilson’s 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps

By: Allan Ebdrup

Allan Ebdrup — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:30:00 +0000

I’ve actually gone a step beyond this in my webapp, what I do i let users use the application fully without registering at all.

I have a webapplication for creating surveys. When you click “Create survey” on the front page, i create a user account for you and store an autologon cookie on your browser. That means you can use the application as a fully registered user. Whenever you come back and log on I show a message that you should upgrade to a “real” account, and register with email/password.

You can try it at http://obsurvey.com

By: Allan Ebdrup

Allan Ebdrup — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:25:00 +0000

This list gives me a lot of food for thought. Thanks for that.
I’ve focused extremely on speed, but also instant utility, less is more and clean on my own project http://obsurvey.com, a website for survey (yes anoter one) but this one is different in a lot of ways.

I’ve also focused a lot on usability, and had great use for the site http://usertesting.com, where you can have users test your app. I highly recommend doing that.

In my last release what I did was: Order 1 test, improve things that popped up in the test, ran another test, improved, and so on for 7 iterations, by then things seemed to have stabilized and users were much happier with the application.

But I will be focusing on some of the other points here on this list in the future. Thanks for the inspiration.

By: Rick Baker

Rick Baker — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:57:00 +0000

I work for a web development firm and we are creating a web solution with specific functionality and the customer is asking for ownership of the code. Only about 20% of his solution is unique and we have our own CMS so their solution accounts for a small portion of the overall solution. Our terms state that they own the site but they want to own the code. Any advice?

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:01:27 +0000

Thank for the transcript.
I would say that’s one of the most terrific things I’ve ever read (and watched).

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:57:55 +0000

Great tips for an indie developer with no budget like me. It gives hope that even the little guy can make it in this tough market!

By: Stefan | StartupJourney

Stefan | StartupJourney — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:54:16 +0000

Great post and great video! I really like the first two points because these are things that are really annoying with some services. Regarding point 2: a great way of doing it is to allow new users to instantly use a webapp without signing up and requesting them to register at a later stage only if they want to save the data they entered.

By: Anders

Anders — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:59:53 +0000

This is a great talk, and a great summary of what really matters for the success of web apps.

I think the most difficult feat for new businesses and new web apps is getting noticed. The social media aspect is not to be underestimated.

By: Jouko Ahvenainen

Jouko Ahvenainen — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 18:29:58 +0000

Nice one! My experience says that personality and playful are really key things, and also something you can easily forget if you only have old-fashion business oriented approach.

By: Jouko Ahvenainen

Jouko Ahvenainen — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 18:28:22 +0000

Nice one! My experience says that personality and really key things, and also something you can easily forget if you only have old-fashion business oriented approach.

By: Mostafa Anoosheh

Mostafa Anoosheh — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:53:33 +0000

Thanks Fred,
I think we must bold user friendly & search engines friendly

By: Mostafa Anoosheh

Mostafa Anoosheh — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:53:00 +0000

Thanks Fred,
I think we must bold user friendly & search engines friendly

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:17:55 +0000

Hey Jason – thanks for the kinds words about FOWA :) I agree about Fred – he’s just got so much experience and wisdom it’s awesome.

By: Jason Lynes

Jason Lynes — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:17:26 +0000

FOWA continues to be a hotbed of great advice and timely reminders. Loved this talk, and you can’t beat Fred’s experience with great, innovative companies. I wondered how an investor would address a bunch of hackers, and he hit the nail right on the head. Saved.

By: kimsia

kimsia — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:05:10 +0000

Hi Fred,

you mentioned that for discoverability,

“At its base level, for me, this means search engine optimization. You have to understand search engine optimization and you have to understand the rules; you’ve got to know how to do it. You have to build your application from the ground up to be discovered by Google, and optimized for Google.”

Able to shed some light as to what are these rules? or at least point to good references?

By: Justin Goring

Justin Goring — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:03:24 +0000

Excellent. Thanks so much for sharing the transcript.
Not only inspiring, but confirming and realistic.

By: Balakumar Muthu

Balakumar Muthu — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:32:20 +0000

Great tips… Thanks for sharing!

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:08:15 +0000

No problem! Glad you enjoyed it :)

By: Lena Tailor

Lena Tailor — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:51:48 +0000

Interesting Read.
Appreciate your efforts in putting this together.

By: Guy At HockeyBias dot com

Guy At HockeyBias dot com — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:16:18 +0000

Enjoyed reading your advice!

By: Taskbender

Taskbender — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:09:29 +0000

Thanks for the video and transcript. Excellent takeaway.

By: Ryan Carson

Ryan Carson — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:46:50 +0000

I really loved this talk – full of great tips and thoughts.

By: graphiste shane

graphiste shane — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:28:23 +0000

10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps good article

By: Miha S.

Miha S. — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:06:02 +0000

Thanks so much for recording Fred Wilson’s talk. Of all 10 golden rules, I like the playful one the most. I think today everyone wants to play games (Farmville and MafiaWars are a great example), so it’s really important to have that playfulness factor in your web app. But now every app has badges (Foursquare, Gowalla, … Gravity?)! Can’t we come up with new model for gaming? Badges are so II. world war.