Critiquing Startup Websites With Instacart's First Designer

If you would like to have your startup's website critiqued in a future episode of Design Review, please submit your startup's info here: forms.gle/Yv7sCGpsi4PpAfRP9
In this first episode of Design Review, Y Combinator Group Partner, Aaron Epstein, is joined by Zain Ali, Instacart's first product designer and former Design Lead at Y Combinator. They review the websites of three Y Combinator funded companies from the most recent W22 batch.
Thank you to these companies for volunteering:
Hokali (www.hokali.co/)
Requestly (requestly.io/)
Verdn (verdn.com/)
Apply to Y Combinator: yc.link/DesignReview-apply
Work at a startup: yc.link/DesignReview-jobs
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Introduction
00:19 - Guest: Zain Ali
00:47 - Hokali
08:38 - Requestly
16:10 - Verdn
22:44 - Wrap up

[@ycombinator]

Your turn to review! Do you want to see fewer or more reviews per video? Should each individual website review be shorter or longer in length?

[@ladgonemad]

Probably 3-5 websites, so you guys can dedicate enough time to each website in 20-30 min video format.

[@babaramdass462]

Definitely more websites, also I'd love the reviews to be shorter... maybe Tik Tok has fried my attention span by this point, but I found the video a bit slow-paced.

[@alexanderfardella8709]

Definitely more websites! I think the reviews are fine in length. Would be great if each had a score for aesthetic, simplicty of message, potential conversion, etc.

[@solomonbush331]

The more websites the better! Honestly, it would be cool if founders could submit their websites and then you guys roast/critique them. I'll volunteer :)

[@victorsuarez3]

Awesome, I would love to see more websites. And it would be nice to see landing pages you think have the best designs right now so we can learn how our landing pages should look like.

[@jamshedkarimnazarov7610]

This is amazing. Would love to see more. Y Combinator has slowly slowly started finding the Product Market Fit for the KZbin channel

[@ladgonemad]

This is the kind of content we need! Thank you YC!

[@SuperKillaki]

More websites please and also examples of ones you think are the gold standard of landing pages.

[@glance_fyi]

So many great insights, I couldn’t help but take some notes! Here are my top 5 takeaways💎: 1. When a visitor lands on your website, they want to answer two questions: "What is this?" and "Is this for me?" Make sure your website answers these questions for your target users. (3:52) 2. Create a dedicated landing page for each of your services: both for SEO purposes and for sharing links with niche communities. (4:17) 3. Ask existing users, "How would you describe our product?" Re-use their exact words in your website's headline -- that's likely how your target users will think about your product's value. (9:35) 4. Product screenshots can be hard to understand without more context. Be careful with how you're using them on your website. (12:11) 5. Make your website skimmable. Include key info in the section headers (18:55)

[@theniii]

I do hope that even after this, the founders prioritize what their users want to see and not what the YC partners said. For example the second website, maybe they knew that their developer users actually only care about features and that's why there are so many features shown. It's just very rare that someone from the outside understands your users more as long as you're talking to them.

[@vijaykrishna1246]

This is absolutely amazing. Please do more of these. If possible please include the list of some tools that help us getting to a better design.

[@slycer10]

Thanks YC. Fantastic tips!! One non obvious thing here I wanted to call out (based on all the comments so far) is how you guys covered a consumer product, a dev tool & a B2B product. Nice mix.👍👍😊

[@egbeyemiridwan7389]

The strategy of asking your current users how they will describe your product and using their suggestions as your website headline actually make a lot of sense. I'd be trying it. Thanks a lot.

[@MrInsider33]

I feel like there are only a few people on youtube truly knowing what they are talking about. You guys point out everything that I would point out as well. Great video, great experts!

[@mathieu-superpose]

The format is great. You could group your full reviews by theme (travel websites, food deliveries...), and do shorts on specific elements

[@PatrickNoonan]

Great vid format, another note on the pop-up, Google will penalize sites that show pop-ups on page load as it views it as a spammy.

[@sarmaddange5428]

Awesome! Exactly the type of content founders need! Please make more!

[@samansinaei1426]

I loved it. Hope to see the next episode soon. It was really useful for me as a full stack dev. I learned and enjoyed.

[@atlas_research]

most undervalued channel on youtube for sure, thanks guys

[@mauzeris0]

I like this series a LOT! There's hopefully more to come. The duration for each site was good.

[@mamotivated]

This was the perfect amount of reviews. As a data scientist it would be great to see some ai based startups showcase their value

[@JevanGoldsmith]

THIS. Y combinator, seriously you have hit the nail on the head with the content I want to see. I would even pay money to view these. Great video. While the content is great, I think the information could have definitely been condensed by about 20% (5 minutes) I think speed rounding this would be great into segments like: 1 minute on the website using it with just off the cuff thoughts being said. Then a 4 - 5 Minutes of feedback in total. (cut and give each party time to write there thoughts) and then (2mins per party) have them throw down a lot of information quickly. Keep it at 3 websites and hit the 16 - 20 mins mark.

[@mariorudelli9470]

Great content! Would love to see more! (Shorter and more reviews per video I think would be better)

[@strawberryblender]

😁😁😁 Very awesome insight learn a lot from this video hope you will upload more content like this

[@MuhammadUsamaSiddiqui]

Amazing video. I hope you guys keep making these!

[@eladleshem3790]

More of this! More! Excellent content! can you make a video series with product reviews?

[@stephenstanton6860]

This is great. Could you guys do this with apps?? That would be amazing.

[@bricelee1524]

Awesome feedback for all the people who are building their websites!!

[@spol]

Love this kind of content. Excited for more.

[@bill40116]

This episode is super informative! Would like to learn tips for creating a great “mobile website” as it has become a majority if sending links via social media.

[@jameswestbrook5709]

we need more of these, it helps us devs

[@rafa.blaka.3CPlus]

The guys at Requestly did a great job of redesign at their page, it would be great to see an update of your critique after the changes.

[@yurpol]

Thank you. Great review!

[@RoadmapMBA]

Really excellent content! Loved this!

[@rinogo1]

Awesome! These sites should ALSO be reviewed on MOBILE; that’s where most designs fall apart!

[@aaronmotacek9343]

Thanks for putting this out there for us!

[@henrykwan1932]

Good video - I'm wondering how important is it to focus on your website as a startup - seems like the website focus would be post product market fit - would love to hear more advice on this - i.e. there's always some 'technical debt' some place and the website, to me, seems lower priority

[@chefhak]

Yes please keep it coming liked the about us details

[@moozy4236]

thanks for the tips they are going to come in handy

[@CupcakeSmasher]

I was looking for a product similar to requestly this week and was unable to find it via search. Idk if I'll use it though as I don't want to pay for the one feature I need seeing as it'd be like a 4-8 hour thing to build for myself.

[@gatlincrawford6018]

Love it! Big thanks

[@sergeyivanov1091]

Interesting! Keep it up, absolutely.

[@productnerd]

Love it. Less lectures, more of this please

[@tiimmyvegas4974]

Positive critiques are also useful, versus entirely negative ones

[@JasonEvans01]

Great video, very helpful!

[@thisguy9279]

Very good. Please more

[@tawanda33]

Hey, so I reviewed your review and I think you could use some pointers... Na I'm just kidding 😂 This was very useful as we're literally trying to get our website to function more like a funnel and not just a website...

[@adamwday]

Keep them coming!

[@germanmoreno271]

Thanks for the valuable information! Would it be possible if you can review Mobile Websites?

[@JG-no4qr]

Good idea. The mobile format of each website. I didn’t like your comment but I will tomorrow.

[@egbukwuprince]

Great insight.

[@binod8720]

Thanks YC. This is kinda real feedback from the mafia themselves 😆😅

[@kingfavourjudah]

This is an awesome one

[@iternation1749]

Awesome!

[@AW-pm7tr]

Great video.

[@kutiks78]

great very useful !!!

[@jeffreyfermin5891]

Really good stuff!

[@aligajani]

Love it

[@dosesandmimoses]

Thank you

[@Real_MisterSir]

A common point I think may become increasingly relevant - is the lack of trustworthiness of highlighted user reviews on websites. Personally, I entirely disregard anything and everything a company puts on their own website that is supposed to be 3rd party verified, as common knowledge tells you everything on a website is there to sell you a product, and how increasingly common it is to simply fabricate fake user reviews, especially when it's about startup companies. If I see user reviews plastered front and center, I immediately get red flag vibes and will demand even further proof of the legitimacy of their claims than I did prior. Instead, having a plugin or link to a legitimate 3rd party review site can be beneficial especially for startups, as this shows they themselves don't control which reviews are and aren't posted, and if they're a startup then they most likely don't have the funds/influence to achieve fake reviews on said 3rd party controlled sites. I think the more awareness is spread to the avg user regarding how common it is to fabricate fake user reviews on websites, the less potent and potentially detrimental can these posts be to include, at least their priority on a webpage should be re-evaluated, and the method of display rethought.

[@MatthieuLepineFr]

Good stuff! 😊

[@deletrious]

Please do more

[@occhiolism2861]

"It's, hmm, meeh, it's I guess it's OK....I mean, not perfect, but probably, maybe, it's OK...", goes on to show one of the most beautiful websites ever

[@girishverma6582]

For the requestly website they suggested we ask our users to describe our services… but if we ask our users… wouldn’t they to use technical terms and jargon to describe it?

[@mtrisi]

oh wow this is great

[@dmitriymelihov8526]

Thanks for sharing this review! However, we're in 2022, doing a mobile page review would make more sense.

[@onthestrip8669]

Does Y Combinator fund any construction type businesses?

[@SlinexUA]

nice!

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Introduction 00:19 - Guest: Zain Ali 00:47 - 1. Hokali 01:47 - Provide context with offers 04:05 - What is this? Make dedicated landing pages 07:10 - Include engaging testimonials 08:38 - 2. Requestly 09:54 - Use your user's description of your product as your headline 11:09 - Use only the most important 12:56 - Why should someone care? 13:47 - Turn features into solutions 15:22 - Move from homepage to dedicated feature page 16:10 - 3. Verdn 19:25 - Include key info in headlines 20:53 - Social proof to increase trust 22:38 - Headlines should optimize for clarity and emotion 22:44 - Wrap up

[@JG-no4qr]

Maybe somehow incorporate use of google analytics?

[@ShopperPlug]

1:42 - That is so true... I would exit the site ASAP lol. Having no clue what this site is all about yet.

[@thaboletsoalo]

Remember that you would also have landed here from somewhere (including word of mouth). If they are using a long form (lots of explanation) ad, then you would get what the popup is about when you get here. It all depends on previous context.

[@strongarguments]

Summary. Main questions to answer in the first 5 seconds: + What is this all about!? + Is this for me? + Why should someone care? + What problem are you solving, and what benefits can I get? Further tips: + Use your user’s description of your product as your headline + Turn features of your product into solutions to a problem + Show only the minimum content required to transport your message and motivate the desired action + Put your main call-to-action in the footer again + A visitor should understand your message just by scrolling through the page and only looking at the headlines + Headlines should optimize for clarity and emotion + make dedicated landing pages for each of the covered topics + make each subpage differ significantly visually + Animation can often be disturbing… + Use gargon only if you target a specific user group surely understanding each of the words Thanks for these awesome tipps!

[@patrick_kabwe]

Should every startup have a website?

[@Gnnesh]

2

[@crazybox595]

Are they deep fakes?

[@Mike-xw4gm]

1 get tru stuff faster no need to re explain stuff for more then 10 seconds. Pretend ur viewers r semi smart 2 don't use that horrible video and text outline with those little boxes Everything else is great. lots of info from experience.

[@JG-no4qr]

I agree with number 2. I’m still on the fence about number 1.

[@JeroenCoelen]

Why does the dude on the left look like AI generated?

[@babaramdass462]

lol

[@markasgrazhulis9081]

1

[@rickc.3552]

Speaking with an upward inflection does not instill confidence.

[@Petyr25]

What about the poor visual design around your facecams? Those square dots are ugly lol.

[@samansinaei1426]

I loved it. Hope to see the next episode soon. It was really useful for me as a full stack dev. I learned and enjoyed.

[@72goldielocks]

Awesome!!!