My next big idea

Published: Apr 03 2024

3 Pages - A Minimalist Approach to Websites

I’ve been in the web business for 25 years. Technically longer if you consider the time I spent in college trying to make a career of it. Most of those years have been on the design and development side. As I got older I transitioned to sales, which opened up my eyes as to what customers really want. Within that time, I’ve had the luxury of working with some major brands and many different industries.

• A major aerospace company
• A SUPER national sports league
• A very Deere farm equipment manufacturer/retailer
• Several financial institutions, one of which provides “express & banking services”
• A sportsware company that takes the “Air” out of most competition

As you can see, I’ve had my fair share of experiences in serveral very competitive industries. Even better was that I’ve always had a focus on the marketing aspect of a site and the management of the content and code.

During this time, it’s become clear to me that companies aren’t creating and managing huge content rich websites anymore. The majority of content that we manage is small in size and generally we don’t manage one site, we manage several micro-sites. While looking at this trend, I see that most sites are as simple as 3 pages. Those three pages are as follows:

1. Landing Page - This is the main attraction. Convey the message of what you are selling, make sure it’s clean and easy to read and gets right to the point. A call to action and some social proof is all you need.
2. Contact Us - Without this page, it becomes very frustrating to deal with you as a company. Everyone needs a way of getting a hold of you. It doesn’t need to be a telephone number, but at a miminum you’ll need social media contact or a form that sends you email. Next to the landing page to sell your product or service, being able to get in touch with you is uber important.
3. About Us - Here is your chance to tell your visitors all about you and your story. This doesn’t need to be graphical, but it does need to be personal. Spend some time on this.

A SAAS Idea

My idea is to bring 3 pages to the less technical. There should be various pricing plans.

1. Small - Super simple. You get the three pages, your choice of various styles and simple analytics.
2. Medium - Everything in super simple, but more styles and more components. Components are things like hero banners, customer footers, etc.
3. Large - This is the “All In” flavor. Customer domain name, unlimited components, unlimited styles and the ability to do more than just choose a design. I would think other designers would like this option.
4. (Private) - I’m not sure about this tier yet, but I think this is where a designer could sign up and get paid by clients for utilizing the service.

That’s my idea. I have a lot more to think about, but I think I’m going to try and build the initial idea and get it deployed by the end of next week (4/13/2024).

Tech Stack

I’ve also created a super simple tech stack that seems to work for me. I’m using vite, React, Tailwindcss and daisyui. Eventually I’ll need a DB, but I haven’t figured out yet which I’ll use. I like Supabase but I also like some of the features of firebase. Decisions, Decisions, having choices is good.

I’d love to know your comments. If you do, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line over in the Contact page.